It took 178 years, but a woman has taken the helm of the U.S. Naval Academy for the first time. At a Thursday ceremony, Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids assumed command of the Annapolis military college from Vice Adm. Fred Kacher, the interim superintendent. Davids becomes not only the first woman but, as a Mexican-American, the first person of color to lead the school.
The slower winter months can drag on for restaurants, but a week of deals can often help reinvigorate people’s desire to eat out. That’s what many Greater Baltimore restaurants are hoping for as four area restaurant weeks – Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Harford County and Howard County – kick off this month. Restaurant owners use the weeks to bring in new customers and draw in regulars during a historically slow time.
When Simone Day was in the ambulance taking her to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in 2016, she looked into the bright lights and thought “I had died.” Like other patients with sickle cell disease, the 27-year-old Baltimorean had made many trips to the emergency room for pain crises and worsening organ damage. This time, she ended up in a hospital bed for more than a month and hooked up to a life-saving ECMO machine that was circulating blood through her body.
City officials who continue to exhibit a phenomenal lack of imagination, civic courage and respect for taxpayers have done it to us again. The Baltimore City Planning Commission’s pro forma approval of land-use bills that would effectively shift public waterfront land into private hands in perpetuity and remove building height restrictions near the Inner Harbor will be rolled up into a charter amendment and put before voters next year. But as city voters have a reliable history of approving ballot motions, this is virtually a done deal.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit directed a lower federal court Wednesday to consider the merits of a challenge to Maryland’s first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax on First Amendment grounds, while agreeing that three other challenges should be dismissed. It’s a law that attorneys for Big Tech have contended unfairly targets companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon. The legal case is being closely watched by other states that have also weighed a similar tax for online ads.
Maryland lawmakers — buzzing with both optimism and concerns about an increasingly tenuous state budget situation and still robust plans that could make that financial problem even tougher — converged Wednesday in Annapolis for the first day of the Maryland General Assembly’s three-month session. Addressing public safety concerns and dealing with growing budget issues were major topics of conversation for many of the 188 lawmakers and hundreds of other activists and lobbyists who filled the historic State House and will return throughout the annual 90-day lawmaking sprint — the 446th such gathering for the historic governing body.
Congress on Wednesday appeared to be on track to pass a third deadline extension for at least some of the government funding bills that were supposed to become law more than three months ago — putting off a potential government shutdown. The move, while not final, would give the Republican House, Democratic Senate and Biden administration a few more weeks to reach a bipartisan compromise on the dozen annual appropriations bills.
The Frederick County Board of Elections has adopted plans for the upcoming primary election in May that reflect the changing nature of the voting process here and around the country. It is a good plan, using fewer Election Day polling places and more ballot drop-box locations, as compared to the 2022 gubernatorial election, reflecting the way an increasing number of voters are participating in elections.
The cynical among us can be forgiven if they scoffed at the latest plan to revive Baltimore’s dilapidated Pimlico Race Course, home to the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown. But the new (or perhaps more accurately, revised) blueprint for the track may be the most sensible, most practical one yet. As detailed in a 16-page report from the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, created last year by the General Assembly to recommend a path forward for Maryland racing, Pimlico would be closed shortly after the next running of the Preakness in four months to undergo a $400 million renovation and the big race diverted to Laurel Park for two years.
The Wes Moore-Aruna Miller Administration has made “work, wages, and wealth” our North Star. We must ensure that every Marylander can get a good job, earn good pay and pass something on to their children — besides debt. Over the last 12 months, we’ve looked under the hood of our state’s economy to learn about the barriers standing between Marylanders and opportunity. Our economic engine is getting stronger thanks to programs we championed in our first year. But we’re still leaving too much potential on the table — resulting in fewer pathways to work, wages and wealth.