Border control issues loom over Thursday’s presidential debate following the apprehension of a suspect in a Harford County murder case who entered the United States unlawfully. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s presumed nominee at next month’s convention, will meet Thursday night in Atlanta in the first debate of the campaign.

The departure of the Dali, the enormous 984-foot-long container ship that slammed into a critical support column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge causing it to collapse, marked a pivotal coming and going for Baltimore’s waterfront. Gone as of last Monday was the errant vessel that generated so much misery and destruction on March 26, including the deaths of six road workers, the collapsed span choking off marine traffic on the Patapsco and leaving thousands of port-related workers temporarily without a livelihood.

A Baltimore City program that provides $1,000 a month to parents in need will come to an end next month, and the mayor is calling the program a clear success. The Baltimore Young Families Success Fund was a pilot project that gave 200 young city parents $1,000 a month over a two-year period. The final payment will go out in July.

After a big surge in fatal crashes that claimed the lives of pedestrians in recent years, a new report from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association showed nationwide there was a more than 5% decline in such crashes in 2023 compared to 2022. But as encouraging as that sounds, the numbers are still much higher than those recorded nationwide before the pandemic, and still over 77% higher compared to 2010.

Baltimore City Del. Robbyn T. Lewis (D-Baltimore City) had hoped she would be riding Baltimore’s Red Line Rapid Transit System by now. Lewis, an unabashed transit advocate, likes to boast that she is the only state legislator who does not own a car. She remains bitter with the decision in 2015 by then-Gov. Larry Hogan to cancel the Red Line, a proposed light rail project that he called a “wasteful boondoggle.”

Same-sex couples could already get married in Maryland before the U.S. Supreme Court extended the right nationwide nine years ago, but the numbers have risen sharply since the ruling was handed down in Obergefell v. Hodges. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there were about 4,400 same-sex married couples in Maryland in 2012, the year before the state made it legal.

As boomers continue to age, commercial real estate (CRE) developers are adapting to a new, younger group of financiers who are relatively new to investing, more risk adverse and potentially hesitant to provide large sums. But is it any wonder? Given current interest rates, many big box stores going out of business, and general economic uncertainty, a cautious approach is understandable.

The Prince George’s County Council has approved an expedited schedule for the special elections to replace former Council Member Jamel “Mel” Franklin, who was charged last week with multiple counts in what authorities said was a campaign theft scheme. Under the schedule approved in a special meeting of the council Tuesday, would-be candidates will have until July 5 to file a certificate of candidacy with the Board of Elections to run in the special primary election that was set for Aug. 6.

Ahead of July 4 celebrations next week, state fire marshal and health care officials on Wednesday outlined how to handle legal fireworks safely and cautioned against illegal fireworks in a demonstration showing the effects of firework explosions on the human body. Fireworks can easily cause surrounding structures, vegetation and clothing to catch fire, according to Acting State Fire Marshal Jason Mowbray.

President Joe Biden is pardoning US veterans who were convicted by the military over a 60-year period under a military law that banned gay sex, three US officials told CNN. In a statement on Wednesday, Biden said he was “righting an historic wrong” by pardoning service members “who were convicted simply for being themselves.”