Maryland’s U.S. senators are continuing their push to have the federal government pay the entire cost of rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge, calling on their colleagues to pass legislation to authorize the spending. Typically in emergency response funding, the federal government will foot a significant portion of disaster relief projects, usually about 80% to 90%, with the state on the hook for the remainder.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore proposed nearly $150 million in budget cuts Wednesday, aiming to shift funds to critical health care and child care programs his administration says are key to boosting the state’s economy. The Moore-Miller administration will pitch the cuts to the state spending board for final approval next week.

Stepped up enforcement and community engagement are how police say they’ll be fighting crime this summer in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Police plan to focus their efforts in small, concise areas around the county where crime tends to proliferate, and if criminal activity shifts, police assets will shift with it. “Just recently in May and June, we implemented the 12-hour work shift, which put more people out on the street,” said Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz.

 

Each year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents stop thousands of stolen vehicles from being exported and sold in other countries. Agents from CBP’s Baltimore Field Office stopped 343 stolen vehicles between October 2022 and September 2023, a 44% increase compared to the previous year. The vehicles — most of which were bound for West Africa — were valued at about $17.7 million, officials said Tuesday.

A public hearing regarding the opioid epidemic, scheduled for Wednesday in Baltimore City, was cancelled, with multiple sides deflecting blame for the reason the hearing never happened. “We’re being called the overdose capital of the United States of America,” City Councilman Mark Conway, D-District 4, told 11 News. “That is unacceptable. We need to understand the problem in order to begin addressing the problem.

Political central committees in Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions are charged with filling legislative vacancies and vetting the candidates to see if they’re eligible for the offices they are seeking. Those reviews, however, do not always include scrutiny of public records — including court records. A whisper campaign against one candidate seeking to fill a House of Delegates vacancy has spotlighted the vetting procedures of state central committees charged with filling the positions.

Gov. Wes Moore (D) will ask the Board of Public Works to adopt nearly $150 million in cuts to the state’s current budget of $63 billion. Administration officials said Wednesday that higher-than-anticipated Medicaid enrollment and continued growth in a state-subsidized child care program, coupled with a stagnant economy and a flat revenue outlook, were key drivers of the proposed reductions.

With the eyes of the world on him, President Joe Biden delivered a forceful speech to open the NATO summit in Washington, aiming to reverse doubts about his fitness for the job domestically while boasting that his leadership revitalized the storied alliance and saved Ukraine. The address, which kicked off three days of high-profile meetings in the steamy U.S. capital, served as both a political and geopolitical test for Biden.

A community “health village” — where University of Maryland Faculty Physicians will provide primary care services, such as annual wellness visits, pediatrics and geriatrics — is coming next year to the former Target store at Mondawmin Mall in West Baltimore. The University of Maryland School of Medicine announced Tuesday that it has agreed to lease 17,000 square feet of space at the shuttered store, which Tim Regan — president and CEO of the Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. — and his wife Joanne purchased in 2022 with the goal of creating a community hub to help revitalize the neighborhood and Mondawmin Mall.

Gov. Wes Moore on Wednesday will release a plan outlining his preference for solving Maryland’s multibillion-dollar financial shortfalls through budget cuts rather than raising taxes. The Democratic governor’s declaration will be the first time he’s specifically proposed “targeted and strategic spending cuts” — as he said in a guest commentary Wednesday in The Baltimore Sun — although his $63.1 billion state budget proposal earlier this year included trims in areas like higher education.