Cody Boteler

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Cody Boteler

Jalen Manley walked into The Game Haven in Pikesville last weekend hoping to buy Pokémon cards. It’s been hard to find a wide variety at bigger stores like Target and even GameStop, where shelves have been empty and online inventory has been sold out for months. So many collectors are turning to local card and game shops to purchase booster packs of the uber-popular collectibles — or single, specific cards, one at a time. For local card stores, the surge in demand has been a mixed bag.

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Cody Boteler

The Top of the World Observation Level , at the Baltimore World Trade Center, won’t close this month after all. The 27th floor of the World Trade Center has been leased to the city from the Maryland Port Authority since 1978. The current lease is a 20-year agreement that expires May 31. The interim director of BOPA told a Baltimore City Council committee the agency signed a “temporary MOU” that will allow the observation deck to operate all summer, as reported by Baltimore Fishbowl.

1 week ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Cody Boteler |Ellie Wolfe |Sahana Jayaraman

If Secretary of State Marco Rubio follows through on his threat to revoke Chinese student visas, some Maryland colleges could take a hit. More than a third of the state’s roughly 24,000 international students were from China, during the 2023-2024 school year. That’s according to the latest data from Open Doors, a project sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and run by the Institute of International Education.

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Cody Boteler

It’s been a long-running joke in Baltimore that Artscape weekend, no matter what, includes the hottest days of the year in Maryland. Well, that certainly won’t be the case for 2025. The festival starts tomorrow, with a forecast high in the mid-60s. But don’t expect the mild weather to last. Maryland is likely to see summer temperatures that are higher than average, according to the June-July-August outlook published by the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center.

2 weeks ago | thebaltimorebanner.com | Cody Boteler

The estimated population number for the iconic Chesapeake Bay blue crab has fallen compared to last year, causing concern among state officials and alarm among advocates. The latest winter dredge survey estimates 238 million crabs in the Bay — the second-lowest count since the survey began in 1990. It’s a sharp drop from last year’s 317 million and far below what scientists want to see. The lowest record was in 2022, when the estimated population fell to 226 million.