A digest of Baltimore news from local sources.
From the AFRO American: Black Churches Ignite ‘Get out the Vote’
"Major churches in the Baltimore area are advocating the importance of voting and trying to get their congregants to register and vote.
"New Psalmist Baptist Church, New Shiloh Baptist Church, and the Empowerment Temple are taking steps to make sure their congregants get to the polls for the April 26 primary as well as the general election in November.
"New Psalmist Baptist Church, located in the Grove Park community, hosted a candidacy forum called 'Conversation with the Candidates' on March 12. Congregants of the church were able to meet and speak with 23 of the 29 mayoral candidates, according to media relations and promotions director Joi Thomas.
Thomas added that New Psalmist will also have the Board of Elections give demonstrations on how to operate the voting machines ahead of the primary.
"New Shiloh’s NAACP Youth Council has been doing does voter throughout the year.
"The Empowerment Temple, located in the Arlington neighborhood, is also participating in city-wide voter registration drives, according to Nicole Kirby, who handles public relations for the church.
"It’s not just the larger churches in Baltimore who are trying to make sure their congregants vote. Smaller churches are doing their part as well."
From the Baltimore Sun: Census Data: Maryland Suburbs Show Growth, Baltimore Stalls
"Suburban areas of Baltimore and Washington continued to see steady population growth in 2015, led by Howard County, according to new estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, even as Baltimore City saw next to no growth in the past half-decade.
"The growth means Maryland is now estimated to be home to more than 6 million people, up from 5.77 million residents counted during the 2010 Census. The population has been increasing because more people have been born in Maryland than have died each year, and immigration from overseas has been growing for each of the past five years.
"Mark Goldstein, an economist at the Maryland Department of Planning, said international immigration has become increasingly important as more Marylanders move out of the state. Despite that trend, the state's population figures look healthy, he said.
"A good part of the growth has occurred in Howard County, which has benefited from its position between Washington and Baltimore, said Richard Clinch, an economist and the director of the Jacob France Institute of the University of Baltimore."
From the Washington Post: The Color of Heroin Addiction — Why War then, Treatment Now?
"The nation’s heroin epidemic found its way from the shadows of America to Capitol Hill on Tuesday as lawmakers and experts struggled with a raging disease that is leaving an increasing number of bodies behind.
"Heroin deaths have almost tripled since 2010, Louis J. Milione, a Drug Enforcement Administration deputy assistant administrator, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. 'Today’s heroin at the retail level costs less and is more potent than the heroin that DEA encountered two decades ago,' he said.
"The surge in overdose deaths is one reason Congress now is examining heroin addiction. Another reason is the complexion of the addicted.
"Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), who has seen the effects of drug abuse in his Madison Park neighborhood in West Baltimore, pointed to the difference in the way heroin addiction is dealt with now compared with years ago.
"The difference between a war on drugs and drug treatment is like the difference between black and white.
"'In Baltimore, where many of the victims were poor and black … our nation treated this issue like a war rather than a public health emergency,' said Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the panel. 'We incarcerated a generation rather than giving them the treatment they needed.'
“'Now, things are changing,' he noted. 'Between 2006 and 2013, the number of first-time heroin users nearly doubled, and about 90 percent of these first-time users were white.'
"While the hearing heard from knowledgeable medical, law enforcement and policy experts, it lacked the testimony of those who reek of the poison in their arms, those who have tried to kick only to relapse, those who have stolen from their families to feed a deadly habit."