County leaders say they will be packing their budget concerns rather than their beach blankets as they head to Ocean City this week for a convention that often sets the table for the coming legislative session. The Maryland Association of Counties annual four-day summer convention that kicks off Wednesday is expected to draw roughly 3,000 elected officials and government workers from the state’s 24 political subdivisions.

A flurry of new political advertising in Maryland’s Senate race represents the first wave of an onslaught coming to voters accustomed to sleepy Senate contests. Combined, Republican Larry Hogan and Democrat Angela D. Alsobrooks have booked a record $13 million in post-primary political advertising through the end of the election, according to data by political research firm AdImpact, with the vast majority of that paid for by Hogan and GOP allies seeking to flip control of the chamber.

Nancy Pelosi is speaker emerita of the United States House of Representatives, the first woman to be elected speaker of the House and reportedly a driving force behind President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside in the 2024 race. She’s also a Baltimore girl. Born and raised in the city, Pelosi attended the Institute of Notre Dame, an all-girls Catholic school that has since closed.

Kevin Plank believes Under Armour is an elite brand, and elite brands don’t give discounts — or at least not as many as his company has been. The Baltimore-based apparel company has recently been slashing its number of online promotions, pushing consumers to pay full price, Plank told investors Thursday. The discount pullback is part of Plank’s mission to revive the brand he founded in 1996.

Headed to Manassas, Quantico or even Fredericksburg, Virginia, but want to skip the constant Carmaggedon of the Capital Beltway? Now you can get there on a single MARC train ticket when you get a pass for a week or longer. The Maryland Transit Administration and Virginia Railway Express, which operates commuter rail service in Northern Virginia, will honor tickets for each other’s commuter train services as part of a new agreement announced Thursday.

Young Marylanders with severe mental health needs are being “inappropriately” sent to detention settings that are struggling to help them, according to the state’s Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit. And it’s possible those environments, including the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, are worsening the young people’s conditions, the monitoring unit said in a recent report.

Former president Donald Trump touts himself as a businessman who will grow industry and jobs, but his policy proposals call for deep cuts and drastic changes to the D.C. area’s most valuable employer: The federal government. Trump’s Agenda47 policy manifesto and his Republican Party platform seek to “shatter the Deep State” with actions that experts say could be devastating to the area’s economy, such as: Moving up to 100,000 federal government positions “out of Washington to places filled with patriots who love America.”

Three weeks after the Board of Public Works approved nearly $150 million in budget reductions for this year, Gov. Wes Moore (D) announced Thursday that 36 colleges and universities will share nearly $19 million in grants for campus safety projects. The funding will be administered by the Maryland Higher Education Commission’s Campus Safety Grant program and will include campus security assessments, implementation of enhanced security operations and mechanisms, and emergency management planning.

The morning after her business won a competition, Jessica Grigsby still couldn’t believe she won. Grigsby is the owner and sonographer at First Sight Frederick, which provides expectant parents and families with high-quality ultrasound images of their unborn child. The company won the an award for new companies at the S.H.E. Pitch competition at Hood College Wednesday night.

On Dec. 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and proceeded to shoot and kill 26 people, including 20 first-graders, before killing himself. His weapon was an AR-15-style assault rifle with ten magazines containing 30 rounds each. A lot of Americans were rightfully outraged that this powerful military weapon, designed to spray bullets on the battlefield, could be readily available to someone so ill-suited to wield its destructive power.