The bipartisan Critical Infrastructure Streamlining Act of 2024, Senate Bill 474, accomplishes a simple but important task that will ensure Maryland’s economy is poised for growth in essential sectors like technology, health care and national security. It clarifies and streamlines red tape to ensure that critical facilities have emergency backup power, while maintaining our state’s strict environmental standards.

It’s a new era of Baltimore baseball with the sale of the Orioles to David Rubenstein now official. The Baltimore native was introduced Thursday hours before his Orioles took the field in the season opener at Camden Yards. MLB owners unanimously approved the sale on Wednesday, marking the final move of the transaction.

 

Early in the 2024 General Assembly session, Gov. Wes Moore (D) made clear that pushing legislation that worked to improve Maryland’s 96,000-unit housing shortage would be a top priority this year. But one bill has straggled behind the rest of Moore’s housing package in the legislative process. House Bill 538, aiming to incentivize developers to add affordable housing options in future developments, lagged behind Moore’s other two housing-centered bills as lawmakers deliberated how to balance state oversight with acknowledging local authority over zoning laws.

LaVonda N. Reed will become the new dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law beginning July 1. We would like to take this opportunity to welcome UB law’s first woman dean to Baltimore, and we wish her all the best in her new endeavor. Reed is currently the dean of the Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta, where she has served since 2021.

The haunting videos and images of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing into the Patapsco River are powerful and terrifying. The world will never be able to unsee them. Combined with the 2021 snapshots of container ships lining up at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, these images will become iconic tools in teaching supply-chain management for years to come.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but boy, does Baltimore need the good feelings that come with an Orioles Opening Day right about now. From Tuesday’s traumatic bridge collapse to the more everyday challenges of concentrated poverty, drug addiction, crime and urban blight, today’s home opener against the Angels — assuming weather permits — looms large. And not just as a distraction from unhappy circumstances.

Jim Moran is worried about the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Like all of us, he sees the tragedy of the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster — the loss of life, the major disruption to traffic and the gigantic injection of chaos into the local economy. Moran is a Queen Anne’s County commissioner, though, and his vantage point across the Chesapeake puts the Bay Bridge at the forefront of his “what-ifs.”

 

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday led to a major traffic impact for the region and cut off a major artery into and out of the port city. A bridge column was hit by a large container ship around 1:30 a.m., sending bridge workers and vehicles into the Patapsco River. A water search for six missing workers turned to a recovery effort Tuesday night.

Officials began a news conference to kick off Orioles opening day with a moment of silence for the six men who died in the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, a solemn undertone that permeated what is historically an exuberant affair for city and state leadership. The region and nation were stunned when a cargo ship crashed into the bridge, causing it to crumple into the water. Officials, players and fans alike hope baseball serves as a respite from tragedy.

A total power and propulsion failure like the one the cargo ship Dali experienced before it struck and toppled the Francis Scott Key Bridge is an extremely rare occurrence, one possibly caused by either faulty equipment or contaminated fuel, maritime engineers and experts said. After the power failed, the ship coasted in the darkness before the generators and engine appeared to kick back on and its lights flickered before going dark again.