Former Gov. Larry Hogan paints himself as one of a few Republicans who never backed down to ex-President Donald Trump, but the Democratic attorney general who served during Hogan’s two terms disagrees. Hogan’s latest political campaign ad for a U.S. Senate seat has drawn fresh ire from former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.

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.

In my career as a pediatric lung specialist, I have witnessed the terrible impact that poor air quality has on children’s lungs. Every day, I work with young patients whose asthma and other respiratory illnesses are caused or worsened by poor air quality where they live, play and go to school. I routinely advise children and their parents about the importance of reducing exposure during poor air quality days, which could mean forgoing important outdoor playtime or skipping a soccer match.

Nathaniel Jordan was a private man who many hadn’t truly known. Aside from his humor and love for Jamaican music, his daughter Yasmeen Jordan didn’t know much else about him. But she knew about her father’s drug use all too well. “I had to grieve the fact that I didn’t have him around,” Yasmeen Jordan said. “He was funny, he stole, but I feel like, if he had the proper help, the proper assistance, I feel like he would have [still] been here.”

The Baltimore County Council on Monday night passed legislation to tax vacant structures and direct the revenue to funds that help find housing and fix up vacant buildings. The law will take effect July 25. Baltimore County has about 500 structures that are registered with the county as vacant, and 31 that are deemed unfit for habitation or other authorized use.

Outreach meetings for a new planning initiative that will focus on commercial and employment hubs in Frederick County are scheduled to begin this week. Earlier this year, the Livable Frederick Planning & Design Office and the Frederick County Division of Economic Opportunity started gathering information to inform the Investing in Workers and Workplaces Plan.

The Baltimore Regional Transit Commission, which began meeting this year to explore structural changes to how decisions get made about Baltimore’s buses and trains, was the first stop on the state transportation department’s fall tour presenting its six-year budget. State officials will visit with leaders and the public in Baltimore City and Maryland’s 23 counties to field questions and solicit feedback on the roughly $19 billion Consolidated Transportation Program, a roadmap for capital spending through fiscal year 2030.

Questions were raised anew Monday about the ability of lottery funds to cover costs for the planned renovation of Pimlico Racetrack, which will be competing for funding with several other Maryland Stadium Authority projects. Comptroller Brooke Lierman (D) asked Maryland Stadium Authority officials for details on its revenue projections and whether funding from the lottery can support hundreds of millions of dollars of bonds that will be needed for Pimlico, on top of projects at the two stadiums in Baltimore and the Blue Line Corridor project in Prince George’s County.

Seven members of Maryland’s congressional delegation received perfect scores from Common Cause, the national political reform organization, for their votes during the 118th Congress. U.S. Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st), took the “wrong” position, in Common Cause’s view, on all 13 House measures that the organization scored during this Congress.

With autumn just one week away, it’s natural to focus on our most cherished thoughts of the season. Like why did our neighbor decide that 7 a.m. on a weekend morning was a good time to start up his gas-powered leaf blower and start blasting away in his front lawn? Wait, does that sound angry? We didn’t mean to come across as annoyed. Or maybe we did. It’s just hard to think straight with all that awful racket waking up the neighborhood.