The City of Baltimore on Wednesday received nearly $475,000 from a settlement involving Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, which filed for bankruptcy in October 2020 to resolve widespread litigation brought by states, local governments and private individuals accusing it of deceptive marketing practices with respect to the sale of its opioids, including downplaying the risks of addiction and abuse.

Only one Maryland jurisdiction ranked favorably on a new report into pollution. One in four Americans live in an area with air pollution that’s harmful to their health and can even shorten their lives, according to the American Lung Association’s “State of the Air” report. The report focuses on ozone and particle pollution. Although the Clean Air Act is credited with improving air quality, pollution remains a big problem for much of the country.

 

President Joe Biden lambasted Republicans’ emerging trade-off plans to raise the nation’s debt limit only in exchange for spending cuts and other policy concessions on Wednesday, declaring that GOP lawmakers are threatening a historic default on U.S. obligations “unless I agree to all these wacko notions they have.”

A former top Maryland official who skipped his trial on corruption charges and died last month as a fugitive in an armed confrontation with federal agents after a three-week manhunt had made no plans to travel for his trial in Baltimore, according to a newly-unsealed FBI affidavit. Roy McGrath, a one-time chief of staff for former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, missed the first day of trial in federal court on March 13, triggering a manhunt that ended when McGrath was wounded in a shooting April 3 near Knoxville, Tennessee. He died at a hospital.

Many people reading Maryland Matters over the last month were focused on a myriad of issues specific to this year’s session, I usually fall into that category. But that’s not what I am writing about today. I have been ruminating on something for the last month after waking up one day to find my inbox full of articles and statements about the unprecedented rise in antisemitism nationally which was documented in a newly released report by the Anti-Defamation League. It has weighed on me ever since.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture is teaming up with the Maryland Food Bank and Capital Area Food Bank to get locally sourced food from Maryland farmers and watermen onto the tables of people in need. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore was on hand in Annapolis on Tuesday to announce the new program. “I’m really honored to be a part of this and really proud to be a Maryland farmer,” Nia Nyamweya told WTOP.

 

Westminster transformed an old auto repair shop into an education center to create self-driving vehicles as part of an effort to turn the small rural town into a technology hub. The Autonomous Robotics Innovation Center at 31 W Main Street will provide educational and job training opportunities to around 500 Carroll County students in its first year.

A consumer watchdog is accusing a powerful Maryland regulatory agency of taking too long to respond to its requests for information and action — and is now seeking a rule that would lay out how quickly the agency must answer its formal filings. The bureaucratic, procedural gambit involves the Office of People’s Counsel, which represents consumers’ interests on utility matters in the state, and the Public Service Commission, which regulates electric, gas and some water utilities.

 

 

A longtime Montgomery County business, community and political leader, W. Gregory Wims, was chosen Tuesday night as Montgomery County Democrats’ pick for a District 39 vacancy in the House of Delegates. Wims was chosen by the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee from a field of six candidates to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former Del. Kirill Reznik (D), who left the seat he’d held for almost 16 years to become an assistant secretary at the Maryland Department of Human Services.

This past September, Baltimore City issued an all-too-familiar boil water advisory to residents of West Baltimore, a region of the city with historically and predominantly Black communities. A potential E. coli exposure meant residents had to boil their tap water for at least a minute before consumption. Months after the contamination incident, residents remain concerned about the water quality.