The Maryland State Board of Elections voted Tuesday afternoon to appeal an Anne Arundel County judge’s ruling to nullify a Baltimore ballot question needed for the redevelopment of Harborplace. Maryland Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis posted on X that the five-person board voted unanimously to appeal Anne Arundel County Judge Cathleen Vitale’s Monday ruling that the proposal, which would amend the city’s charter to allow for residential development and off-street parking along the Inner Harbor, was not appropriate for a charter amendment.

Suspicious packages were sent to elections officials across the country on Tuesday, including Maryland, officials said. The U.S. Postal Service intercepted a suspicious package intended for the Maryland State Board of Elections office, according to Jared DeMarinis, the state’s elections administrator. DeMarinis thanked federal officials on social media for their “prompt notification & assistance.”

University of Maryland student activists on Tuesday made good on their threat to sue the university after administrators blocked demonstrations on campus planned for the Oct. 7 anniversary of the bloody Hamas attack on Israel, which has led to a wider war in Gaza. The group University of Maryland Students for Justice in Palestine filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, seeking an injunction that would bar the university from canceling the event.

A printing company with a nearly century-long history in the Baltimore area is leaving the city, a move that potentially puts 144 people out of work. BC Graphics, which produces direct mail, is not renewing its lease on a South Baltimore industrial site and will shift its operations to facilities in Western Maryland, Virginia and Kansas, according to a company spokesperson. Edge Direct, a sister company based at the same facility, is also leaving Baltimore.

Unionized sanitation workers at Ecology Services, a company contracted by Anne Arundel County for recycling and yard waste collection, remain on strike this week with no end in sight. Dozens of employees who are part of Teamsters Local 570, the union representing Ecology Services workers, went on strike Sept. 4 over the company’s refusal to address unsafe working conditions and unfair wages.

A group of House Republicans is rallying for policy change via executive order after a poll found that the majority of Marylanders support law enforcement coordinating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to turn in people unlawfully in the U.S. who have been convicted of a violent crime. “Marylanders clearly want change in Maryland’s ICE policies,” Del. Matt Morgan, a St. Mary’s County Republican, said in a statement Tuesday.

Two bills that would have helped establish a land bank authority in Baltimore, allowing the city to foreclose on certain vacant lots and properties, did not garner enough support at a City Council committee hearing Tuesday, and members will recommend against its passage at the next council meeting. The move signals yet another blow to efforts to reverse the city’s vacant housing crisis. More than 13,000 dwellings are empty in the city, with most of them located in areas with “high concentrations of both vacancy and poverty,” according to the Abell Foundation.

Belinda Robinson always had thick natural hair and treated it gently, without harsh chemicals. But one day about 17 years ago, she noticed a small smooth spot on the back of her head. After several more years of thinning, she was diagnosed with a kind of alopecia, the general term for hair loss. “When I was first diagnosed I cried, I really cried; it was hard to swallow,” said Robinson, now 53 and an adjunct professor and federal employee who lives in Northern Virginia.

 

Bank of America announced it has raised its U.S. minimum hourly wage to $24 per hour in Maryland and nationwide, the latest step in the company’s commitment to a $25 hourly minimum wage by 2025. The announcement was made by Sheri Bronstein, Bank of America’s chief human resources officer. With the increase, the minimum annualized salary for full-time employees in the U.S. will rise to nearly $50,000.

 

 

Baltimore Orioles fans headed to Oriole Park at Camden Yards may have been surprised recently to discover that it’s not so easy to get a seat on the light rail, usually one of the most convenient ways to get to and from the downtown ballpark. Why? Simply because the Maryland Transit Administration has been forced to sometimes use single-car trains packing riders in like sardines instead of the double- or even triple-car trains that once were standard during peak travel times.