The Baltimore City Council introduced a bill this month that aims to reduce vacant properties in the city by punishing owners with a Vacant Building Notice (VBN) in order to pressure them to sell to someone willing to fix it up. This flawed policy is more likely to increase vacant properties as we continue to lose population.

Loyola University Maryland’s Simon Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship awarded an investment of $20,000 from the Loyola Angel Fund to Keppel & Kismet, a startup business in Baltimore that manufactures and curates premium small-batch corporate and personalized gifts. Loyola established the Loyola Angel Fund, a $250,000 charitable fund, in 2021 to provide students with angel investment knowledge and experience and support local under-resourced entrepreneurs, especially Baltimore-based minority- and women-owned businesses.

Baltimore-area Puerto Rican leaders and residents said Monday they are insulted and offended by comments made by a speaker at a rally for former President Donald Trump Sunday night in New York. During the rally, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, speaking at Madison Square Garden, referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

Overall crime has decreased “significantly” in Montgomery County, Maryland, according to crime statistics presented to the county council’s Public Safety Committee last week. According to the data for the first three quarters of this year, the number of homicides and rapes has dropped and the number of car thefts, which accelerated wildly during the pandemic, has slowed, with the actual number of auto thefts down by 2%.https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2024/10/montgomery-county-crime-downward-trends-continued-problems/

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich plans to run for a third consecutive term in 2026, which would be his last eligible four years under a term limits law passed in 2016. But an initiative on next Tuesday’s ballot led by the Republican who tried to unseat Elrich in 2022 would keep the Democrat from running again by limiting county executives in Montgomery to two consecutive four-year terms.

As he campaigns for the U.S. Senate, former Gov. Larry Hogan touts leaving behind a $5.5 billion surplus, tax breaks, toll cuts and a balanced budget. But state reports show the savings came at another cost — high vacancy rates in state agencies. The Republican governor’s decision to downsize government kept agencies from delivering services when people needed them most, said policy analysts, union officials and nonprofit leaders watching and working for state government during Hogan’s time in office.

President Joe Biden, continuing to make Baltimore a symbol of his administration’s push to upgrade aging infrastructure, will pledge $147 million in grants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the Port of Baltimore. According to the White House, Biden, in a visit Tuesday afternoon to the Dundalk Marine Terminal, will announce that the Maryland Port Administration will receive $145 million in Environmental Protection Agency grants to purchase zero-emission cargo handling and other equipment, and new heavy-duty transport trucks and locomotives It said the port will also receive $2 million to help it “chart a path to greater emissions reductions in the future.” (Photo: Whitehouse.gov)

An increasing number of school systems around the D.C. region have policies that govern cellphone use inside the classroom — Prince George’s County, Maryland, isn’t one of them. As it stands, the decision on such policies is left up to local school systems, which is why some leaders in Prince George’s County are pushing for action.

At a time when Maryland could be accelerating medical innovation to meet the world’s health challenges, our state’s policymakers are taking steps that could curb medical advancements and disrupt patient access and care. The state’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB), established in 2019, voted recently to start the process of imposing Upper Payment Limits (UPLs) on up to six medications that treat heart disease, diabetes, Crohn’s disease and more.

In 2010, after besting four challengers in a crowded Democratic primary race for Prince George’s County state’s attorney, Angela Alsobrooks received her first phone call from a rising political star in California. It was Kamala Harris, then a prosecutor in San Francisco who went on that year to win the state attorney general’s race and would later clinch a U.S. Senate seat — the second Black woman and first South Asian American to ever do so.