By AGNES PASCO CONATY  “Just go outside and look up!” Those are encouraging words from one of my favorite stargazers, Guy Consolmagno, an astronomer and physicist who took vows with the Jesuit Order in 1991 and was appointed to the Vatican Observatory. He served as director of the observatory for 10 years, until this September. Longer nights and cooler weather in October encourage us to look up and enjoy the night sky.

On Saturday, Hyattsville residents converged on David C. Driskell Community Park for the 11th Annual Green Festival hosted by the Prince George's County Department of the Environment in partnership with the City of Hyattsville. The event celebrates sustainability with exhibits, demonstrations, workshops and fun activities for the whole family. Participants included PEPCO, Hyattsville Police Department, Joe’s Movement Emporium…

“Just go outside and look up!” Those are encouraging words from one of my favorite stargazers, Guy Consolmagno, an astronomer and physicist who took vows with the Jesuit Order in 1991 and was appointed to the Vatican Observatory. He served as director of the observatory for 10 years, until this September. Longer nights and cooler weather in October encourage us to look up and enjoy the night sky.

For new homeowners and experienced gardeners alike, growing a habitat garden for the first time can feel overwhelming. Fortunately there are a wide array of educational opportunities to learn the fundamentals of native gardening right here in Maryland. To start, I recommend joining a chapter of Wild Ones, which is a garden club for those focused on growing native plants. Wild Ones members have a wealth of knowledge, and I’ve personally learned a lot from them.

Drivers think that the speed camera on Rivertech Court in Riverdale Park is inaccurate. Riverdale Park police say that they have the camera calibrated daily and test it quarterly. The camera, in between College Park Academy and the Raytheon building, identifies cars going 12 mph over the 20 mph speed limit, according to the Riverdale Park website. Camera tickets for speeding increased statewide Oct.

It was a taste-filled evening on October 1 at Franklin’s new ice cream parlor. Staff learned the ropes and served scoops in preparation for the ice cream parlor’s formal opening October 7. With more than 30 homemade flavors, 11 of which are vegan, Franklins has increased its already diverse repertoire of dinner and drinks by adding dessert into the mix. The new parlor will sell scoops, milkshakes, brownies, waffles, and full pints will be sold.

Demonstrators lined the corners of Hamilton and Queens Chapel Sept. 26 to protest ICE activity in the area in September. Hyattsville City Councilmember Edouard Haba (Ward 4) and County Councilmember Wanika Fisher (District 2) participated. Submit pictures to be added to this gallery to [email protected].

On Oct. 20, county school board member Pamela Boozer-Strother (District 3), will receive a statewide award acknowledging her service towards public education. In a September press release, the nonprofit Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE) announced that Boozer-Strother, whose district includes Hyattsville, earned its 2025 Distinguished School Board Service Award. MABE represents and supports all 24 Maryland boards of education.

Heather Myers had just read August’s “Miss Floribunda” column about the pesky garden infection aster yellows before noticing something peculiar in her garden. Soil tests confirmed her suspicions — the disease had made its way to her own plants.  Myers, the owner of Bloomsday Farm and a newsletter editor for Life & Times publisher Streetcar Suburbs News, said she didn’t initially believe the infection to be widespread.

Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy says she has the utmost confidence in her nominee to run the county’s Department of the Environment, even though he was terminated from the department in 2014 for “gross negligence.” A group of environmental and community activists in the county is not so sure. And they’re likely to be on hand Thursday when Samuel Belsham Moki’s nomination comes up before a County Council committee.

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to produce evidence within 48 hours on its efforts to again deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, this time to the southern African country of Eswatini. That evidence from the Trump administration is due by Wednesday to U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis, at the federal court in Greenbelt. She will consider an order to release Abrego Garcia as part of his habeas corpus petition, which challenges his detention at a U.S.

College Park voters will elect a mayor and eight City Councilmembers—two from each of four city districts—on Nov. 4. In just one of those districts—District 2—three candidates are running for two seats. In Districts 1 and 4, the two incumbent councilmembers are running unopposed for reelection. In District 3, one incumbent and one newcomer are running, also unopposed. Mayor Fazlul Kabir also is running unopposed.

For the first time, 16- and 17-year-olds who live in College Park will be able to vote for mayor and city councilmembers in the upcoming city election. The College Park City Council voted 5-3 in April to lower the voting age for city elections from 18 to 16, making College Park the ninth Maryland city to allow teens to vote.

This is Part 2 of a two-part series on affordable housing in College Park. Part 1, which focused on the lack of affordable housing, appeared in the September issue of College Park Here & Now. Although some officials and residents decry the lack of affordable housing in College Park, the city is home to some lower-rent apartment complexes and homeownership programs.

Sept. 11, The Prince George’s County Planning Board endorsed a version of a plan for development in the West Hyattsville area that would no longer recommend re-zoning neighborhoods to allow townhomes.  One of the communities most affected by this change was the Avondale community, a historic neighborhood off of Chillum Road that opposed its abrupt inclusion in the plan’s third draft…

We had so much fun with you all at the Hyattsville Arts Festival on September 20! Thank you to all the kid reporters who pitched in to help us cover this great event put on by the Hyattsville Community Development Corporation! Check out their great work profiling artists below. La La Liz La By FANA & ALEX “When I was a kid I made arts and crafts and did art in school,” said painter Liz Aukamp LaGarde.

In just 66 days on the job, interim Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) Superintendent Shawn Joseph has identified top priorities, including special education and multilingual learners; mathematics and literacy; and chronic absenteeism. He is also interested in expanding internships and providing more resources for dual enrollment students. “What I'm working to do is making sure parents have the tools that you need to be able to help hold us accountable across the system,” Joseph told about 200 students, parents and educators at a listening session held on Sept.

A sprawling new 5,000 square ft. mural lies at the crossroads right next to Colmar Manor’s historic dueling grounds. It features two children praying on each side, facing a sign in the middle that reads “STOP THE VIOLENCE.” Representatives from town, county and state government, artists and community members all gathered Sept. 29 for the unveiling and ribbon cutting of Colmar Manor’s Streets of Solidarity Road Mural at the corner of 38th and Newark Streets.

Rockville High School senior Blakely Pfaff is the 33rd Miss College Park. Seventeen-year-old Pfaff, a Montgomery County resident, won the crown at the College Park American Legion on Sept. 28 over seven competitors. She replaced Madelyn Bronk, Miss College Park 2025. The competition’s $2,000 scholarship prize motivated her to participate, Pfaff said, adding she is looking forward to the community involvement that will accompany her new title.

When Hyattsville native Blake Sloane left to attend Binghamton University in upstate New York, he fully intended to study music and one day work in Hollywood, scoring, arranging and assembling pieces to produce something greater than the sum of its parts. Along the way, though, he found something he loved just as much as music: woodworking. Today, Sloane is the owner of…

To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, the College Park Aviation Museum hosted its fifth annual Latinas in Aviation Global Festival on Sept. 28, featuring Latin American women who work in aviation. Twenty-one of the 28 women who contributed to this year’s volume of Latinas in Aviation, a five-year-old book series, attended the event. Jacqueline Ruiz, who publishes the series, said she adds to it each year to “inspire the next generation of aviators.”

Sept. 26, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) identified a man that their agency arrested in Hyattsville Sept. 24 as Job Arias-Mendoza of El Salvador. Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at Homeland Security, said today in an emailed statement that Arias-Mendoza had "previously been arrested for first-degree assault, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, concealing a dangerous weapon, and resisting arrest," and that he "illegally entered the U.S.

The We Are America March stopped in Laurel Sept. 17, spending the night at the Laurel Presbyterian Church before embarking on their penultimate march to Silver Spring on Thursday morning. The marchers began in Philadelphia on Sept. 6 and ended in Washington on Sept. 19, marching around 160 miles in total. According to the march website, the march protested authoritarian overreach by the Trump administration.

Franklins ice cream parlor is scheduled to open on October 7. Over 30 homemade regular and vegan flavors will be sold as scoops and pints, with milkshakes, floats, and sundaes on the menu as well. Located at the back of Franklins general store, the parlor will have a dedicated entry way at 5115 Baltimore Avenue and an entrance at the back of the store alongside the Trolley Trail.

Residents reported seeing three Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Hyattsville early during the Wednesday morning commute. Between 8am and 9am, local photographer Raphi Talisman took a video of an arrest ICE arrest in the middle of Hamilton St at its intersection with Queens Chapel, posted to facebook. In the video, a man repeatedly yells "Help, it's ICE," "I live in America, I love you America," "police!" and "let me go" in English and Spanish as he is pinned to the ground.