Fifteen years ago, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation designed to reduce per capita electricity consumption statewide. The design of the EmPOWER Maryland Energy Efficiency Act was relatively simple. Using funds collected through a surcharge on utility bills, customers would be provided incentives to invest in more energy-efficient appliances and upgrades, like insulation and weatherization. In theory, everyone would win.

Former Gov. Larry Hogan’s Sunday announcement that he will not seek the Republican Party nomination for president in 2024 likely came as no surprise to anyone who has been following national politics. Sure, there was a time when a governor who achieved extraordinary popularity leading a state that leaned toward the opposite political party would get serious consideration.

The Cannabis Reform Act of 2023 is expected to hit the floor of the Maryland House of Delegates on Tuesday accompanied by amendments, as the bill to prop up an adult-use recreational marijuana market progresses through the General Assembly. With more edits still possible, lawmakers pushed the bill out of the House Economic Matters Committee last week, voting 16-5 along party lines. Three delegates were excused from voting.

 

Following years of declining student performance and increasing demoralization among teachers and staff, Baltimore County’s newly constituted Board of Education faces the all-important responsibility of recruiting a new school superintendent. The county is at a critical inflection point that will determine the trajectory of local public education — and the health of our community overall — for years to come.

 

Cities across the nation face a dilemma: Downtown office buildings are empty as workers prefer to stay home. Nearly all local leaders agree part of the solution is an office-to-apartment conversion boom. Cities have started rolling out tax incentives to encourage developers to begin this transformation. This strategy is straight out of the playbook that revived center city Philadelphia and Lower Manhattan in the past quarter century. But there’s a problem: City leaders aren’t doing enough.

Maryland prisons are dangerous and unhealthy places, both for staff and for the approximately 15,000 men and women detained behind bars. Now is the time for Maryland to step up to the plate and alter the culture so those who live in prison and who work there can do so in an environment conducive to rehabilitation and successful reentry.

Indexing the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index is an essential component of The Fair Wage Act. The Act, which fulfills Governor Moore’s promise to accelerate the implementation of the state’s $15-an-hour minimum wage, will provide low-wage workers with a much-needed boost in income and will help to narrow the income gap. Without indexing, the minimum wage would be subject to the same challenges that have plagued it for years.

 

David Linthicum, a 24-year-old white man, was arrested by the Harford County Sheriff’s Office in February after violent encounters with police that left two officers with gunshot wounds — one of them was placed on life support. As officers from a special weapons and tactics unit closed in on Linthicum, who was holed up in a wooded area in Harford County, they believed he was armed with weapons from a police vehicle. Police said allegedly stolen that vehicle the night before to escape authorities.

 

No question, Chris Amendola has a thing for mushrooms. The tables in his restaurant, Foraged in Baltimore, take on the feel of a forest with all the wooden sculptures of fungi. The chef clearly likes pigs just as much. Their painted likenesses and photographs, taken by Amendola, alternate with images of mushrooms on the slate-colored, plant-populated walls of his narrow dining room in Station North, near Penn Station.

Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Wednesday pledged to include a “labor peace” agreement when the state next awards a contract to run the concessions operations at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. Moore made the public commitment, which has been long sought by labor leaders and many lawmakers and other stakeholders, as the Board of Public Works voted unanimously to extend the contract of the current airport concessionaire on a month-to-month basis.