Republican Dan Cox entered the final four weeks of the gubernatorial campaign down in the polls and short on cash. And he’s being vastly outspent by his main rival, Democrat Wes Moore. Since Republicans always run uphill in Maryland, because of the 2-to-1 voter registration advantage that Democrats enjoy, all that of that is bad news for the Frederick County lawmaker. Perhaps worse than all that for the Trump loyalist is his failure to take advantage of the single best opportunity he is likely to get to change the trajectory of the contest — Wednesday’s debate on Maryland Public Television and other TV networks. Moore’s mandate in Owings Mills was to avoid a catastrophic blunder, anything that might suggest he’s a flash-in-the-pan — and he succeeded.

Thomas Gross has been living paycheck to paycheck working as a grill cook at Northeastern University’s dining hall since 2017. He lives with several family members in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury, where rents are increasing. But life is about to get more comfortable for Gross, following a union contract victory that increases Northeastern dining workers’ hourly pay by $9.32 over the next 4.5 years. Gross, who will be making more than $30 per hour by early 2026, in addition to other union members and leaders interviewed by The Business Journals, said student support was critical to landing the contract.

Apparently, the Stronghold Corporation will be making good on its threat to close Sugarloaf Mountain to the public. During a public hearing Tuesday night before the Frederick County Council, Attorney Noel Manello, who represents Stronghold, said his client will close the mountain to the public if the Sugarloaf Landscape Management Plan and the rural overlay are adopted. “And I understand from our general counsel, Mr. Clay Martz, that he’s in discussion with the County Sheriff’s Office as to the optimal locations to posting no trespassing on the property and enforcement of same,”: he said. Manello said Stronghold was disappointed in last week’s decision by the County Council to vote down an amendment to the Sugarloaf Treasured Landscape Management Plan which would not change any zoning or land use designations to the holdings by Stronghold.

An investigation into Montgomery County Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson’s conduct has expanded to include the actions of Vice Chair Partap Verma and the abrupt firing of Planning Department director Gwen Wright, County Council President Gabe Albornoz said Tuesday. A confidential complaint sent to the council on Monday and obtained by The Washington Post levied new accusations against Verma, who already had been publicly reprimanded alongside Casey and fellow board member Carol Rubin, deepening concerns about the planning agency’s governance and rattling employees as a council vote looms on a pivotal long-term growth plan.

Although multiple court rulings have cleared the way for mail-in ballot counting to begin ahead of Maryland’s Nov. 8 election, several local jurisdictions, including Baltimore County, do not plan to start until afterward, officials said this week. Ruie Lavoie, election director for Baltimore County, said space constraints in the county’s election office and a late decision by the court system on when counting could begin pushed her to hold off on the county’s canvass until Nov. 10, the Thursday after the election. Locally, Anne Arundel, Harford and Carroll counties also plan to wait to canvass mail-in ballots until after the election, according to notices recently published by each of the local boards.

A coalition of cycling groups has fallen short in their efforts to block the state from dismantling the old Nice-Middleton Bridge in Charles County. A federal judge in Baltimore said late Tuesday that the organizations failed to meet the high legal threshold for blocking demolition, which lawyers for the state said will begin later this week. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and other dignitaries are scheduled to open the new span Wednesday morning. During a three-hour court hearing, the lawyer hired by the cycling coalition said leaving the original Nice-Middleton Bridge in place would preserve the opportunity to use it for recreation. When Hogan announced plans to replace the 1940s-era bridge, he pledged to include a dedicated bike/pedestrian lane on the new span. Those plans were later dropped in a cost-cutting move.

Turn the television on in Florida and Texas and voters are being bombarded daily with ads for gubernatorial candidates who have spent upward of $25 million in the past month making their pitches. The same holds true in Georgia, where candidates have spent almost $22 million in the past 30 days. Meanwhile, in Maryland, where Democrat Wes Moore and Republican Dan Cox are competing to fill the seat being vacated by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, the airwaves are silent. That changes Wednesday when Moore and Cox take center stage to make their pitches in the first and only televised debate — in what essentially amounts to free advertising for the candidates. With a lack of money to purchase ads and trailing by double-digits in polls, the stakes are high for Cox, a hard-right, Trump-endorsed conservative delegate from Frederick County.

Over the next year, the Chesapeake Bay Program will reevaluate its cleanup plan for the nation’s largest estuary — and its 2025 deadline — following a decision Tuesday by the group’s executive council. “We’ve all acknowledged that 2025 is fleeting in terms of achieving our goal,” said Michael S. Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the council’s chairperson. “And so, what we tasked our staff to do is to take a look at: What can we achieve between now and 2025? And what do we need to do to get back on track?” That review is due before next year’s executive council meeting, Regan said.