Webb telescope launch delayed five months
It is taking engineers longer than expected to put the finishing touches on the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, prompting NASA to delay the launch of its next-generation observatory by five months. The telescope, much of which was built and tested at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, is now scheduled to rocket from a launchpad in South America in March 2019. NASA officials said they delayed the launch, long scheduled for October 2018, after realizing that it will take more time than scheduled to integrate various elements of the telescope and test them to ensure they will survive the trauma of launching into space. “Webb’s spacecraft and sunshield are larger and more complex than most spacecraft,” said Eric Smith, the telescope’s program director at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Considering the investment NASA has made, and the good performance to date, we want to proceed very systematically through these tests to be ready for a Spring 2019 launch.” NASA officials said the change will not add to the project’s $8.7 billion budget.
Port breaks records for containers, general cargo
The port of Baltimore handled a record-breaking 10.3 million tons of general cargo and nearly 908,000 20-foot-equivalent units of containers in the 2017 fiscal year ending June 30, the Maryland Port Administration announced Thursday. The records represent a 6 percent increase in general cargo and a 9 percent increase in container volume from the previous fiscal year, according to the port administration. Container traffic has spiked since super-sized ships from Asia began arriving through the expanded Panama Canal last year. A 13 percent increase in paper materials was responsible in part for the port’s general cargo increase. That increase was driven by demand for packaging materials, port spokesman Richard Scher said. Low demand for mining and construction equipment caused a 7 percent drop in the volume of roll-on/roll-off cargo, Scher said. Cars, which remain the Baltimore port’s top commodity, slipped 2 percent from the previous fiscal year, which had been a record for the port, he said.
Task force to tackle gang crimes in Anne Arundel
Anne Arundel County and Annapolis officials announced Thursday a joint task force dedicated to tackling gang-related crime. County police Chief Timothy Altomare stressed the task force does not divert law enforcement’s attention away from the region’s growing opioid addiction problem. But he said a combination of state laws set to go into effect on Oct. 1 and a group of recently graduated police officers have given the department the necessary tools to tackle violent gangs in the county. The Maryland General Assembly passed a law that increased potential sentences for those found to be gang leaders. County Executive Steve Schuh said the task force will be a combination of city and county law enforcement alongside agents from the FBI. Officials gave few details as to the makeup or size of the task force and demurred when asked if it will target any groups specifically. Altomare named a list of gangs with known presences in Maryland, but did not specify any attacks linked to them.
DOJ gives Baltimore police grant to fight recidivism
The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded the Baltimore Police Department a $750,000 grant to “improve supervision strategies that will reduce recidivism rates,” it announced Thursday. The grant will go to the Police Department’s Community Collaboration Division, which has an existing Reentry Program — allowing it to “improve the capacity and effectiveness of community supervision agencies to increase parole and probation success rates and reduce the number of crimes committed by those under supervision, which would in turn reduce admissions to prisons and jails and save taxpayer dollars,” the Justice Department said. The new “Smart Supervision Program” will increase collaboration between various stakeholders, including “probation, parole, pretrial, law enforcement, treatment, reentry, and related community corrections fields,” the Justice Department said. It will also seek to “develop and implement strategies for the identification, supervision, and treatment of ‘high-risk/high-needs’ supervisees.’?” The Baltimore Police Department was one of seven agencies awarded such grants, the Justice Department said. The Police Department is under a court-enforced consent decree with the Justice Department that mandates sweeping reforms.
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