A House committee vote Wednesday set up another battle with Senate fiscal leaders over finding new revenues this year. The House Ways and Means Committee voted 15-7 to approve House Bill 1319, which could open the door to casino-style iGaming in Maryland. The committee vote fell mostly along party lines with Del. Joe Vogel (D-Montgomery) joining the six Republicans in opposition.

As the General Assembly scrambles to process bills in the waning days of Maryland’s 90-day session, renters and housing advocates are pushing for passage of measures that would ease the burden of housing insecurity across the state. Gov. Wes Moore (D) has offered his own legislative package to address Maryland’s housing shortage, estimated at 96,000 units statewide. But addressing the housing shortage is complicated, and legislative solutions range from incentivizing development of new affordable housing units to protecting renters from unnecessary evictions.

 

The owner of Pimlico Race Course has reached an agreement to donate the historic Baltimore track to the Maryland state government, allowing the state to take over operations of the storied sport of thoroughbred horse racing, officials said Thursday. The Stronach Group, which has owned Pimlico for more than two decades, has made a “binding commitment” to transfer the track to the state as early as this summer, according to state officials, with the state taking over racing operations next year.

University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, a member of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), has been recognized as a 2024 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient by Healthgrades. This national award recognizes hospitals throughout the nation that have the lowest occurrences of 14 key preventable patient safety events as designated by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and reflects UM SJMC’s commitment to delivering safe, high quality care. Healthgrades evaluated risk-adjusted complication and mortality rates for approximately 4,500 hospitals nationwide to determine this year’s top-performing hospitals for patient safety.

Nearly nine years after former Gov. Larry Hogan shuttered the old Baltimore City Detention Center, a new centerpiece facility for the city’s pretrial jail population is poised to rise from its ashes. But it’s going to cost you. The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which has run the city’s jail system for decades, is pushing ahead with ambitious plans for the Baltimore Therapeutic Treatment Center — a sort of hybrid jail, hospital and mental health and substance use treatment facility for people facing criminal charges.

 

They’re nearly empty now, those rusting silent behemoths overlooking the water at Harborplace, and all anyone can talk about is how they’re going to be demolished and replaced with something newer and more modern. John Pleyvak knows the nostalgia for the landmark won’t make sense if you didn’t see it before, when it was extraordinary. Bustling. Beautiful. “It’s a shell of itself,” said Pleyvak, who worked for years in the 1980s at Jean Claude’s, a celebrity-filled French restaurant in the Pratt Street Pavilion. “But back then, it was the place to be. It was on the cover of Time magazine. They said in the article that more people came through in the second year than Disney World.”

 

If you climb out on a ledge, there is always a chance that you will fall. What the heck. I am going out there anyway. Joe Biden gave the State of the Union Address on March 7, 2024. But he did much more than that— he secured a second term. I can hear you loud and clear: “Come on now. There’s a long way to go.” You are correct, but campaigns always have seminal moments. Last Thursday night was one of those moments. Admittedly, the bar was low. The President needed to show that he could still walk and chew gum at the same time. He needed to show that he could focus for more than an hour without nodding off. And he needed to demonstrate that he could draw a clear contrast with Donald J. Trump, or as he will forever be known, “My Predecessor.” He did that and so much more.

 

Kevin Plank is returning to lead the company he founded 28 years ago, Under Armour announced Wednesday, ending a four-year stretch during which Plank had surrendered day-to-day control of the Baltimore-based sports apparel and shoe company. The move brings to an abrupt end the 13-month tenure of Stephanie Linnartz as president and CEO of the company. Linnartz, a highly regarded senior executive at Marriott International, had replaced Patrik Frisk as CEO last February. Linnartz will remain an adviser to the company through April 30, 2024.

Lutherville Station, a now-abandoned shopping center in Baltimore County, has become ground zero for a prickly debate about who gets to say what kind of development happens in a community. Adjacent to a light rail stop, and formerly the home of a Caldor’s, a Borders, a warehouse store for Best Buy, and other now-defunct establishments, Lutherville Station sits mostly vacant. But a developer wants to change that. Mark Renbaum, principal of MLR Partners, has proposed converting the site into a mixed-use development, with new retail, office space, and, most controversially, up to 450 rental apartments.

More than a century ago, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis articulated a maxim that has guided journalists and open government advocates ever since — that “sunlight is the best disinfectant” in a healthy democracy. Again, this year, news organizations are honoring the wisdom of the late justice by celebrating Sunshine Week. The News Leaders Association, which directed the annual program from 2005 until this year, said this event “highlights the importance of open government and the dangers of excessive and unnecessary secrecy.”