Long-promised legislation on a proposed excise tax on guns and ammunition to fund Maryland’s trauma system was filed late last week. According to Senate Bill 784, sponsored by Sen. Sarah K. Elfreth (D-Anne Arundel), an 11% excise tax would be imposed on the gross receipts of firearms, firearms accessories and ammunition. The state’s Trauma Physicians Services Fund, which helps cover costs for medical care by trauma physicians, for Medicaid-enrolled patients and for other trauma related on-call and standby expenses, currently generates $12 million annually primarily through a motor vehicle registration fee. Maryland currently has 10 facilities that are designated as trauma care centers across the state.

 

The Board of Education is planning to vote to appoint Monique Felder — a former Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) administrator who most recently was superintendent of a small North Carolina school district — as interim superintendent at its meeting Tuesday. The school board announced its plans to appoint Felder on Monday, days after former superintendent Monifa McKnight and the board agreed Friday to part ways.

No father wants to get the call Frank LaPere did last Sept. 25, informing him his daughter, Pava LaPere, a 26-year-old tech CEO, had been found dead on the rooftop of the Baltimore City apartment building where she lived. The condition of the crime scene was so grim, it prompted a Baltimore City Police detective to call in the homicide unit. “I got a call from the detective who was on scene and who discovered her body,” LaPere, who resides in Arizona, said in an interview this week. “I knew something was wrong on Sunday because she always calls me on Sunday.”

 

An overflow crowd gathered to watch the Howard County Council meeting Monday night at the George Howard Building in Ellicott City, crying out and interrupting council members as they discussed a proposed resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Council member Liz Walsh, a Democrat who represents District 1, introduced the resolution last week. It asked for the Biden administration and congressional leaders in Maryland to facilitate an end to the Israel-Hamas war and to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

The FBI’s November announcement that it will be moving its headquarters from downtown DC to Greenbelt, Maryland, ended a long-running jurisdictional competition over the agency’s future and its coveted economic redevelopment potential (if a challenge fails to overturn the decision). Now, the move promises to bring 7,500 jobs to Greenbelt, along with 61 acres of mixed-use development for the site itself, plus an additional million square feet of nearby development, presenting a huge opportunity to close our region’s east-west economic divide. The project would be a joint development between WMATA, Prince George’s County, and the federal government.

We should all be able to go to work each morning without the fear that we won’t make it home to our loved ones. But our election workers don’t have that security right now, and it is our collective responsibility to change that. A poll by the Brennan Center found that 45% of local election officials said they fear for the safety of their colleagues. Nearly one in three election officials have been harassed, abused, or threatened because of their job, and more than one in five are concerned about being physically assaulted on the job in future elections.

As briefly satisfying as it may have been to watch some Big Tech CEOs squirm under a bipartisan grilling from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday — including an outright apology from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to parents who say social media contributed to their child’s exploitation and, in some cases, death — it’s also fair to wonder if a dysfunctional Congress is capable of doing much about online youth safety.

Given the public’s continued concern about youth crime in Maryland, it was no surprise that top Democrats in Annapolis — including Gov. Wes Moore, Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones — formally unveiled plans to strengthen accountability in Maryland’s juvenile justice system. But make no mistake, their idea of accountability centers on improving outcomes for all.

A historic waterfront property is about to undergo a massive redevelopment that could dramatically change the future of Baltimore. No, it’s not Harborplace. It’s Coke Point, a small, heavily polluted peninsula that juts into the Chesapeake Bay from Sparrows Point. Generations of workers labored at the blistering coke ovens there, turning coal into the fuel that powered nearby steel factories — and the region’s economy — until the steelmaking industry moved overseas and left an industrial wasteland behind.

 

The Webstaurant Store LLC has executed a long-term lease to use a 1.2 million-square-foot building near Funkstown as a distribution center, according to a news release from MCB Real Estate. Webstaurant expects to have over 700 new jobs at the facility once it’s at full capacity, according to the release and Kristen Durkin, spokesperson for MCB Real Estate. Durkin said the lease is for more than 10 years.