Cannabis taxes paid to the state for the first three months of 2024 grew by less than 1% even as collections fluctuated sharply on a regional basis. Maryland collected nearly $14.7 million in taxes on sales of recreational cannabis in the first quarter of this year, an increase of less than 0.7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the Office of the Comptroller. The data released Wednesday is just the third quarterly report since July 1, 2023, when Maryland residents 21 and older could legally purchase cannabis for recreational use.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is among the latest cohort of governors and senators to break bread, so to speak, with journalist Alexander Heffner on the second season of his docuseries, “Breaking Bread with Alexander.” In a roughly half-hour episode being released this summer, Moore and Heffner talk politics while feasting on stadium fare — including hot dogs garnished with crab dip — at an Orioles game.

Last month, a Baltimore County judge ordered the Maryland Department of Health to pay over $600,000 for its failure to meet the needs of people in the criminal legal system who have intellectual disability and severe mental illness. Even though the law requires transfer to an appropriate treatment facility within 10 days of a court order, people with significant needs are waiting nearly half a year in jail without meaningful care.

I’m not a spiritual person. There is no heaven above, no hell below. We make our own right here, right now. I’ve come to think of life on Albert Einstein’s terms, or at least those he expressed in his theory of energy conservation. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It forever changes from one form to another and another.

The Maryland legislature passed a bill to create a “water regionalization” workgroup. So, what does this mean for Baltimore residents? Regionalization is not just a matter of administrative restructuring. It is a pressing concern that will impact every Baltimorean. Therefore, before the state makes any decision, conducting a thorough study of the challenges facing Baltimore residents through a racial and economic equity analysis is crucial.

Hundreds of bills that were passed by Maryland lawmakers in session this year will become law in on July 1, covering everything from banning vaping indoors to benefits for uniformed service members and diversity efforts in higher education. This follows a wave of laws that went into effect in January and precedes another batch that will be put in place in October.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) improperly used emergency procurements to acquire crisis management and communication services in the wake of a scandal involving former middle school principal Joel Beidleman, according to a report released Thursday by the county Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Beidleman was a former Farquhar Middle School principal who the inspector general’s office determined Dec. 1 had engaged in bullying and harassment and violated the school system’s code of conduct.

A summer camp hosted at the University of Maryland is trying to make playing sports more accessible for lower-income kids with a focus on important life lessons. The program, LiFESports, started at Ohio State University and is replicated at other colleges around the country. It provides middle school students with four weeks of free summer camp, with transportation and meals included, and introduces them to a different sport every day. This is the program’s first year in College Park, and it’ll be hosting about 30 kids from Mount Rainier.

Frederick County’s four charter schools recently filed a petition with the Maryland State Board of Education after Frederick County Public Schools implemented a new funding formula that gives the schools 75% of their per-pupil allocated funds rather than 100%. During a May 29 meeting, the county’s Board of Education approved reducing the four charter schools’ per-pupil allocation (PPA) from $12,749 in fiscal year 2024 to an average of $11,738 in fiscal year 2025.

Krystal Gonzalez prays everyday, normally while on a walk in nature. Sometimes her daughter or another one of her three surviving children will walk alongside her. Other times Krystal is alone with God and the memory of Aaliyah. When she lost her daughter, Gonzalez began to study how other cultures handle death. “In Indian culture, there was a tradition that when a person dies in the family, not just the household, but in the family, each person moves a piece of furniture,” Gonzalez says, “When they wake up in the morning, there’s this visual representation that everything has changed. Because everything has changed.”