Alissa Zhu

Baltimore

Reporter @BaltimoreBanner. tips: alissa.zhu(at)https://t.co/K88xbjNdQ9. past: @nytimes local investigations fellowship, @clarionledger, @springfieldnl

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Articles

Bob Embry, who shaped Baltimore philanthropy, retiring from Abell Foundation

3 days ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Alissa Zhu

After 37 years of leading Baltimore’s Abell Foundation, president Bob Embry will retire, confirmed the foundation’s spokesman Andy Green. The foundation contributes about $16 million each year to health, economic and educational projects and initiatives across the city and Embry has been one of Baltimore’s most influential figures spanning back decades.
Baltimore City community groups want a bigger slice of city’s opioid fund

6 days ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Alissa Zhu |Emily Opilo

In the past year, the initial winnings from Baltimore’s legal fight against opioid manufacturers and distributors — more than $180 million so far — have started to flow into city coffers, while leaders have drafted plans and assembled boards in the name of community engagement and transparency.
Johns Hopkins alum Alissa Zhu earns Pulitzer Prize for reporting on opioid crisis

6 days ago | hub.jhu.edu | Alissa Zhu

Alissa Zhu, a Baltimore Banner investigative journalist who earned a master's degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2023, won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this week for her in-depth reporting on Baltimore's fatal overdose crisis.
Nearly 3,000 jobs cut in Maryland after federal health agencies scale back

1 month ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Meredith Cohn |Alissa Zhu

On Tuesday morning, Shawn Linman learned he was being terminated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of mass layoffs that are disproportionately impacting people who live and work in Maryland. The scene for Linman was both chaotic and tragic. Some coworkers’ badges stopped working and had to be escorted by security to clear their desks. Other laid-off employees included veterans and a new mother on her first day of maternity leave.
They died in PHA Healthcare drug treatment. Their families still want answers.

1 month ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Alissa Zhu

Maryland health officials suspended the license for troubled addiction treatment provider PHA Healthcare months ago. Several families of those who died in the program say they want more. Their mourning is haunted by lingering questions, including: What will happen to the people who ran the program?
New round of federal health cuts threaten kids’ vaccines and research

1 month ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Meredith Cohn |Alissa Zhu

Maryland’s health department and universities are slated to lose more than $300 million in federal funding, a sum that will likely continue rising as the Trump administration looks for more existing grantsto cut. The money had been pledged to the state for things like vaccinating children against infectious diseases, increasing HIV preventive measures and supporting people with addiction and mental health disorders.
New efforts are trying to stem shocking rates of overdose deaths among seniors

1 month ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Alissa Zhu

For years, Shanda Brown saw dozens of seniors die from drug use at the affordable housing complex wheresheworked in Baltimore’s Upton neighborhood. “We definitely felt like we were out there on our own,” Brown said. But now there’s new focus on theoverdose crisis devastating the city’solder adults.
State crackdown on Medicaid fraud kicks off with first guilty plea

2 months ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Meredith Cohn |Alissa Zhu

Using stolen identities, fake patient records and forged signatures, a Maryland woman already on probation scammed the state out of nearly $3.7 million for mental health services she never actually provided. Tasha Saunders, 44, of Parkville, pleaded guilty Feb. 25 to defrauding Medicaid, the federal-state health program that covers about 1 in 4 low-income Marylanders. She’s due to be sentenced in July. Her lawyer declined to comment on the case.
PHA healthcare: Investigation prompts new addiction treatment oversight bill

2 months ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Alissa Zhu

A Baltimore Democrat is pushing a new bill to improve state oversight of drug addiction treatment centers following a series of stories by The Banner exposing unscrupulous practices by program operators. The investigation, published in collaboration with The New York Times, revealed in December that for years, Maryland health officials barelyvetted a flood of new addiction treatment programs despite paying hundreds of millions of dollars annually to serve the state’s poorest residents.
Baltimore quietly makes progress to address opioid crisis despite pending lawsuit

2 months ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Alissa Zhu |Emily Opilo

After a hearing on drug overdoses was again canceled amid a public row between a Baltimore councilman and the mayor, council members assembled last week in City Hall with little fanfare to vote on an opioids-related bill. The Baltimore City Council’s Budget and Appropriations Committee approved more than $14 million to community organizations and city agencies to helptackle Baltimore’s overdose crisis, which in recent years had become theworst ever in a major American city.