Late last week, the Alabama Supreme Court released a ruling that determined frozen embryos are children under state law, observing that those who destroyed them could be held liable for causing a wrongful death. The decision stemmed from two lawsuits brought by three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed in a fertility clinic accident. The all-Republican court, in a majority opinion written by Justice Mitchell, made the sweeping claim that the embryos didn’t merely hold the potential to be children, but were children, regardless of their development stage, physical location or “other ancillary characteristics.”

Baltimore’s spending board approved an $18.4 million deal Wednesday to purchase two hotels to shelter city homeless residents as Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration pledged to continue the search for additional properties to use for housing. The purchase, which will be covered by the city’s federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, will give Baltimore control of a Holiday Inn Express and a Sleep Inn, both of which are in the area of Gay and Front streets near the mouth of Interstate 83. The city is also purchasing a parking lot between the two hotels, which are catty-cornered from the city’s juvenile justice center.

Developers of a new $1 billion container terminal at Tradepoint Atlantic in Baltimore County say they expect to break ground by the end of next year and open in 2028, creating 1,100 jobs. But much of that timeline depends on navigating a complex government permitting process and resolving environmental issues, such as how to safely dispose of dredge material. On Tuesday, the developers of Tradepoint Atlantic, a logistics hub on the former site of Bethlehem Steel in Sparrows Point, discussed their vision with federal officials from an agency that works to keep major infrastructure projects from getting tangled in red tape.

 

The University of Maryland Center for Environment Science has named Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm as the new president of the statewide graduate school, leading six research labs across the state. Miralles-Wilhelm joins UMCES on July 1 from George Mason University, where he served as the dean of the College of Science, overseeing 350 full-time teaching and research faculty and 160 staff, according to a news release Tuesday.

Cesar Diaz says he struggles to get out of bed some days after he lost his sister Melanie Diaz in a fire in a downtown Silver Spring high-rise apartment complex one year ago. “I just wished that it was me instead of her that was gone from this world,” Diaz told members of the Maryland General Assembly House Environment and Transportation Committee during a hearing Tuesday in Annapolis as his parents looked on, crying. “[We want] to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anybody else and that nobody else has to go home and have an empty chair and empty room and empty bed because somebody in their family is no longer here.”

 

Ocean City officials have issued a resounding public rejection of offshore wind company US Wind’s Community Benefits Package offer. The Community Benefits Package, which was extended to various Delaware Coastal Towns as well, included up to $2 million disbursements to communities over a 20-year period. According to Ocean City, in exchange for the commitment, US Wind expects local government officials to refrain from commenting negatively or objecting to US Wind’s offshore project.

Officials announced Superintendent David Bromwell will be stepping down from his role. Dorchester County Public Schools (DCPS) announced in a Facebook post that The Board of Education and Superintendent Bromwell have mutually decided that Bromwell will step down effective March 1. The Board of Education will reportedly vote on an Interim Superintendent to serve the remainder of Bromwell’s term through June 30. That vote will be held at a meeting tomorrow, Feb. 22.

 

President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order and created a federal rule aimed at better securing the nation’s ports from potential cyberattacks. The administration is outlining a set of cybersecurity regulations that port operators must comply with across the country, not unlike standardized safety regulations that seek to prevent injury or damage to people and infrastructure. “We want to ensure there are similar requirements for cyber, when a cyberattack can cause just as much if not more damage than a storm or another physical threat,” said Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser at the White House.

Under former Gov. Parris Glendening’s 1999 Electric Choice and Competition Act, Maryland made the wise choice to join other states to restructure the market to address rising utility rates. Today, 13 states and the District of Columbia allow consumers to purchase their energy outside a single-choice, traditional monopoly utility model. Glendening recently published an op-ed, “Time to hold consumer retail energy suppliers accountable.”

A bill that proposes to protect library books, reading materials and other resources from would-be censors received a long and at times dramatic first public hearing Wednesday. The Freedom to Read Act stands atop a “decency agenda” championed by House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County), which has become part of a national conversation on what literary material is being made available in public schools and public libraries.