Bethany Raja
City Hall ReporterBethany Raja is WYPR's City Hall Reporter.
Raja was born in Westerly, Rhode Island, and grew up between Homer and Anchorage, Alaska, where she spent summers camping, fishing and playing under the midnight sun, and winters waiting for the school bus under the dancing green and blue Aurora Borealis.
Raja published her first story during journalism school at the University of Alaska, Anchorage in 2013, and since 2015, has been working as a full-time journalist in print and digital mediums.
Her first full-time journalism job was as the crime, courts, breaking news and education reporter at the Roswell Daily Record, in New Mexico. She then worked for a short time in La Grande, Oregon, where she covered education. From Oregon, Raja moved to Kauai, where she covered crime, courts, breaking news and county/state government, and then moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she was the sole crime, courts and breaking news reporter for the Las Cruces Sun-News, a USA Today Network paper. She then transferred to the Newport Daily News, where she covered housing, real estate and education.
While in Las Cruces, Raja was awarded a spot at the John Jay/Henry Guggenheim Crime Reporting Fellowship, and was recognized as one of the, “Best of Gannett 2020,” for her reporting that year.
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The Baltimore City Council approved the new police district maps in a split vote on Monday night. -
Some community members support the new private police department at the university. -
Public safety vice president Branville Bard said that some workers at its East Baltimore campus are afraid to trek from the parking garage into the building without more security. -
The question is among several proposed city charter amendments that will be on the ballot. -
There are nearly two dozen locations across the city where homeless individuals set up tents and city leaders want to tackle sanitation issues in those neighborhoods. -
Syed was serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of his ex-girlfriend before a judge ordered his release but he may go on trial once again. -
City leaders questioned why the department withheld information from the public soon after E. coli bacteria was detected in drinking water. -
The city is expected to release its latest plan to curb squeegee activity in October. -
The concept encourages students to use nonviolent conflict resolution methods and was already piloted in Baltimore, officials said. -
Thousands of people won’t have to treat tap water anymore before consumption, officials said.