MLK Day | AmeriCorps

Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman kicked off a series of town halls this week to hear residents’ priorities for the upcoming fiscal 2024 budget. Residents of District 2, which includes Glen Burnie and part of Millersville, gathered at Glen Burnie High School Thursday to advocate for better pay for library staff, remedying staffing shortages at Anne Arundel County Animal Care and Control, and funding to help ease a learning gap in county public schools. Pittman will be visiting the other six districts in the coming weeks as he prepares to introduce his spending plan to the council this spring. The new fiscal year begins July 1.

A Maryland biotech that’s been working to wipe out drug-resistant infections, or superbugs, is hustling to take its therapy to the patients who need it — now with another avenue to get it done. Gaithersburg’s Adaptive Phage Therapeutics Inc. said Thursday its bacteriophage therapy, which attacks bacteria that don’t respond to antibiotics, is being tested in a study of adults with cystic fibrosis who have a germ called Pseudomonas aeruginosa in their lungs. The National Institutes of Health and its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which have backed APT’s work previously, are funding the trial.

Maryland is a national powerhouse in finance, health care, education and manufacturing; coupled with several of its public and private colleges and universities, the state is looking to boost outcomes in these industries through venture capital and private investment. TEDCO is proud to serve as a lead collaborator in Maryland’s support of businesses within emerging and underserved communities statewide. Its work with institutions ranges from collaborative marketing of venture funding to direct programming support for startups based at institutions.

As we ready ourselves for the 2023 legislative session in Maryland, a new dawn is truly on the horizon. With the election of Wes Moore as our incoming governor and the turnover of so many executive office and committee leadership positions, we can expect a legislative session chock full of change. But with change comes opportunity. Gov.-elect Moore ran a campaign based on the premise to “leave no one behind.” At the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, we couldn’t agree more that no matter where you start in life, you deserve an equal opportunity to succeed. Every Marylander deserves access to a job that allows them to support their family and build wealth.

It’s hard to swallow, but the rising cost of your breakfast is a taste you will be forced to acquire. Egg prices are up, along with bacon, because of climate-influenced animal disease and a growing world population that demands more protein. One of the world’s largest producers of liquid eggs — already cracked and sold mostly in bulk to restaurants and bakeries — is practically in my backyard. Called Rembrandt Foods, the plant has been shut down since last spring over the bird flu. It’s the company’s second shutdown in seven years. Five million laying hens were destroyed. More than 200 workers, mainly immigrant, were laid off. There is no word on when the huge henhouse will cluck again.

“Politics is a very humbling business,” said Wes Moore. “When we were first got into this race, I was polling at 1%!” Moore is a bestselling author, former Army captain, and now, as a first time’s-the-charm politician, Maryland’s Democratic governor-elect. He won in a landslide, beating his Republican opponent with more than twice as many votes. “We ended up receiving 89% of the vote in Baltimore,” he said. A vote of confidence from a city that’s struggling with high crime rates, high poverty rates, and high unemployment rates. Sanneh asked, “A lot of smart people have been working on these issues for a long time. What makes you think you can do something that all these smart, talented people haven’t been able to do?”

The first builders arrived this week at a half empty 1970s public housing project within a West Baltimore neighborhood. Over the next year, the 1970s Rosemont Homes, a village of town houses, will emerge renewed, with an upgraded recreation center. Rosemont, a neighborhood that follows the contours of the hilly Gwynns Falls Valley south of Walbrook, is a community where residents remain proud of their tidy streets. “It’s a blessing that the recreation center will be restored,” said Robert Hunt, a longtime Rosemont resident. “We’re a community with a majority of homeowners … I consider Rosemont my oasis.”

A new era in Maryland politics began to take shape Tuesday in Annapolis as the state’s most prominent Democratic elected officials reveled in their party’s expanded powers, while outgoing Republican Gov. Larry Hogan gave a farewell speech and unveiled his official portrait. “It is morning in Maryland after eight long years,” Maryland Democratic Party Chair Yvette Lewis told a crowd of hundreds of local, state and federal officeholders on the eve of the General Assembly’s new legislative session. “We’ve been tested, no doubt about it,” Lewis said at the first pre-session summit the state party has held in-person since 2020. “Eight years of a Republican governor. We had a pandemic. We had recessions. We had threats to our democracy. We had hate and division. And still, we rise.”

The Maryland General Assembly session launches Wednesday with larger Democratic supermajorities in both chambers and an incoming Democratic governor to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. It will have a multibillion-dollar budget surplus to work with. State lawmakers convene at noon for a 90-day marathon of lawmaking, with the Republican minority resisting a swing to the left as Democrats seek to put abortion rights into Maryland’s constitution, curtail gun access and set up the state’s newly approved recreational marijuana industry. The day will begin with a clear changing of the guard: Gov.-elect Wes Moore (D) will join House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) in an annual public interview about the state’s next chapter.