Gov. Wes Moore announced his plan Tuesday to sponsor three criminal justice-focused bills that intend to aid crime victims, recruit more law enforcement and quell gun violence. “When it comes to public safety, we aren’t going to point fingers — we aren’t going to just simply place blame — we’re going to lead and lead together,” the governor, a Democrat, said at a morning news conference in Annapolis.

Patients living with rare and chronic illnesses are all too familiar with unknowns. Only about 5% of the more than 7,000 known rare diseases have an FDA-approved treatment, meaning that the vast majority of patients, including myself, are living with no treatment for their condition. Many patients in the rare disease community are holding out hope that we’ll be able to access new treatments and cures as they’re researched and developed. Yet, several state and federal policies intended to lower drug prices can have disastrous consequences for rare disease patients.

The Maryland General Assembly’s 2024 legislative session begins in Annapolis on Wednesday, both sides of the aisle say that juvenile crime and changing justice reforms is a top priority. MoCo360 reached out to Maryland decision-makers on both sides of the political divide. Democrats say that only minor tweaks to clarify the 2022 Juvenile Justice Reform Act are necessary, but Republicans said that some parts of the law need to be completely rolled back.

As the 2024 Maryland General Assembly prepares to convene its three month session on Wednesday, the threat of state budget cuts, along with the drying up of federal COVID money as well as inflation are teaming up to create a rocky budget year not just for Baltimore County but for localities across Maryland. “You put all of that together and it’s going to be a much more challenging budget cycle for us,” Baltimore County Johnny Olszewski said.

Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman, who had been one of the central bank’s staunchest advocates for tight monetary policy, said Monday she’s adjusted her stance somewhat and indicated that interest rate hikes are likely over. However, she said she’s not ready to start cutting yet. In remarks delivered at a private event in South Carolina, Bowman noted the progress made against inflation and said it should continue with short-term rates at their current levels.

 

 

A long-running dispute over a historic Black cemetery buried beneath a Bethesda parking lot went before the Maryland Supreme Court on Monday as justices dove into the technical nuance of whether state law could be used to halt the sale of property that includes the burial site. Approximately 95 people packed into the courtroom in Annapolis, most of them backing efforts to restore and properly memorialize the area.

It was hardly after midnight when the scythes started sweeping down. With Atlanta’s late-night firing of head coach Arthur Smith, the NFL’s Black Monday started within minutes. Washington’s Ron Rivera was dismissed later in the morning after four seasons plagued by all kinds of tumult, including an ownership change.

Two writers could not be more different than Bruce Fleming and David Poyer. Fleming is a professional rebel, a Naval Academy professor and nonfiction author who tells anyone who will listen how his institution is broken and desperately needs change. Poyer, who graduated from Annapolis in 1971, is best known for a long-running series of naval fiction thrillers about the derring-do career of his Navy hero, Dan Lenson.

 

When you’re deeply immersed in a project like I am in this one about single motherhood, you find yourself frequently falling down Google rabbit holes, some completely random and others more fruitful. It was during one of the latter that I came across “The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind.”

Mayor Brandon Scott and City Council President Nick Mosby clashed repeatedly last fall over plans to redraw Baltimore’s legislative lines — a dispute that culminated in November with a last-minute veto by the mayor that deprived council members of any chance to respond. Now, Mosby wants to change the once-a-decade redistricting process to bar future mayors from overriding the council-approved map.