An urgent debate over how best to protect low-income renters in Montgomery County, where the median household income is $117,345 but 8.5 percent of residents live in poverty, has pitted the interests of tenant advocates against developers and landlords — and has split the County Council. The heated dispute over a rent stabilization measure has fractured alliances and forged new coalitions on the council, as powerful real estate interests and vocal tenant advocates have jockeyed to sway the body.

Record high temperatures and record low air quality. The summer of 2023 has barely begun, and it already feels oppressive. If it’s not the Canadian wildfire smoke, it’s the heat, humidity and pop-up thunderstorms plaguing the region. The toxic cloud originating from forest fires in eastern Canada is again infiltrating America, with smoke wafting into Maryland through Tuesday, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott made his nomination of Richard Worley to be the city’s next police commissioner official Monday, submitting the selection to the Baltimore City Council and kicking off a confirmation process. The council, which met Monday night, received the nomination without discussion. Worley’s appointment was assigned to the council’s Rules and Legislative Oversight committee, which will hold a hearing Aug. 15.

As artificial intelligence finds its way into aspects of everyday life and becomes increasingly advanced, some state legislators feel a new urgency to create regulations for its use in the hiring process. Artificial intelligence, commonly known as AI, has been adopted by a quarter of businesses in the United States, according to the 2022 IBM Global AI Adoption Index, a jump of more than 13% over the previous year. Many are beginning to use it in the hiring process.

 

Gov. Wes Moore is fond of saying that Maryland needs to “win the decade.” Sitting in his office in the historic State House in Annapolis, Moore paints a broad vision of Maryland as a state with more economic opportunities, better schools and safer communities. He wants to eschew the “lazy” thinking of the past, and chart a bolder future for the state. “When I say we’re going to win the decade, we’re going to be intentional, and we’re going to be bold and we’re going to make big investments,” Moore said near the end of a long day, sitting in an armchair, a mug of mint tea within reach.

Before trying Copa Airlines’ brand new direct flight from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to Panama City, I did a little online research on the Copa customer experience perspective. And honestly? It made me nervous. For every post that raved about the attentiveness of the staff or the food, there were five complaining about that same staff’s rudeness, cancellations with no explanation and inability to get anyone on the phone to fix it, or just fervently beseeching someone to reveal the whereabouts of their luggage.

The most selfish Americans are those who finance the endless lawsuits of the National Rifle Association and other organizations that want all guns at all times at all costs. In Maryland, they have gone to federal court to try to overturn the state’s gun licensing law and our ban on assault-style rifles. And the gun extremists fight even modest attempts to address our national public health crisis, the common good be damned.

The long and winding road to electing a president in 2024 has a most interesting, unpredictable curve. The curve is No Labels, a national movement whose organizers have branded themselves as concerned citizens working to bring America’s leaders together to develop common-sense two-party solutions to America’s biggest problems. While No Labels does not identify itself as a third political party, it may nominate a No Labels candidate for president in 2024.

The educational and emotional harm done to our children during the pandemic is still being tabulated, but the statistics in both realms continue to tell a terribly sad story. In a world with little good information and many justifiable fears, radical steps were taken in the spring of 2020 to protect the lives of our children and our school staffers and teachers.

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is moving to finalize a proposed rule to ban menthol cigarettes, according to agency officials and news reports. For a variety of reasons, implementation of this decision will carry significant ramifications for policing. Responding to concerns from some law enforcement officials and civil rights activists, the FDA has stated it will enforce the prohibition only against menthol cigarette manufacturers and distributors, not individual smokers.