The night Kevin Torres was shot and killed in Highlandtown, his sister-in-law dialed 911 for help. “Hello, I speak Spanish,” she can be heard saying frantically in a recording of the call. Within 25 seconds, the 911 operator looped in an interpreter through Language Line, a telephone interpretation service the city has used for years. The 911 operator told the interpreter, Raúl, to ask for the address of the emergency.

Sections 2 and 3 of Article 4 in the Bylaws of the Maryland State Board of Elections make it clear what type of behavior is considered acceptable for the men and women who serve on the five-member panel, which supervises how elections are handled in the Free State. A board member can’t, for example, manage someone’s campaign or serve in a political party post. He or she can attend a political event but can’t publicly indicate they are an elections board member while there. One can sign a petition but not solicit signatures.

No one likes a zoning hearing. That’s a fact. No journalist ever relished one, no lawyer rubbed his hands in glee and no nervous property owner ever, ever wished for endless hours of talk about land-use law. Which leads me to an interesting question. Does Gavin Buckley control the weather? If you wanted to focus the public’s mind on a zoning hearing, it would be the one that starts Thursday. The Annapolis Planning Commission will hold the first of two hearings on the largest public works projects in city history.

Global fintech company Acrisure Tuesday announced the formation of the company’s mid-Atlantic region, encompassing its businesses in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia. As with all other platforms announced in 2023, the Region will operate under the Acrisure brand. Geoffrey Goldwater will serve as managing partner for the mid-Atlantic region.

A bill pending before the Maryland General Assembly seeks to preclude people of convicted of certain sex crimes from receiving diminution, or good time, credits that allow them to reduce their prison sentences. Inspired by the killing of Baltimore entrepreneur Pava LaPere, House Bill 301 would prohibit people serving sentences for first-degree rape or first-degree sex offense from accruing credits behind bars to reduce their sentences.

Eric Stephenson remembers the day he had his epiphany about Baltimore. He was here on a work assignment and living in a comfortable apartment not far from North and Pennsylvania avenues. It was April 27, 2015, the day the uprising erupted in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death from injuries suffered in police custody. “I could smell the smoke from the fires and hear the young people walking past my window recounting what they had just witnessed,” Stephenson said.

 

Montgomery County bus commuters would get 28 miles of new, faster lines under a $580 million expansion of the county’s bus rapid transit (BRT) system proposed Tuesday by County Executive Marc Elrich (D). The proposal — part of a larger $5.84 billion six-year capital improvement program that the executive is required to submit to the Montgomery County Council every two years — would represent a tripling of the expedited bus service that the county rolled out on U.S. Route 29 in 2020.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday unveiled long-awaited changes to how the nation’s biggest banks structure overdraft protection plans. The independent watchdog agency said the new rule closes a loophole that for decades has exempted overdraft loans from the consumer protections required by the 1968 Truth in Lending Act. Since 2000, American consumers have paid an estimated $280 billion in bank overdraft fees, according to CFPB data.

House and Senate leaders appear to be on opposite sides of the road when it comes to solving the problem of how to fund transportation projects in Maryland. Maryland faces a funding deficit of more than $3 billion over the next six years. An expected infusion of $150 million, while welcome, is viewed as a small bandage on a gaping wound. “We should solve the problem in this session this year and not leave the uncertainty sitting out there and resolve what are really important Transportation Trust Fund shortfalls and needs,” said House Appropriations Chair Del. Ben Barnes (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel).

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has been a fundraising machine over the last year, bringing in millions of dollars for himself, the Maryland Democratic Party and President Joe Biden’s re-election effort, according to his team. Moore and Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller raked in $4 million combined between their own campaign accounts and for the Maryland Democratic Party, their campaign said on Tuesday — one day before the latest state campaign finance reports are due.