Around Maryland

If Keith Davis Jr. is tried on the same murder charge for the fifth time, the trial will take place in a Baltimore courtroom. Baltimore Circuit Court Judge John Nugent denied prosecutors’ request to have murder case against Davis and a separate attempted murder case moved to another county. Prosecutors contended that extensive pretrial publicity, highlighted by the escalating campaign pushing for State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby to drop charges against Davis, would make it impossible to seat a jury or for the state to receive a fair trial in Baltimore.

The federal agency responsible for reviewing offshore wind projects will hold a series of virtual public meetings later this month as it begins the process of evaluating a planned wind farm off the coast of Ocean City and southern Delaware. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Tuesday that it will formally launch its review of the environmental impacts associated with a wind farm of up to 121 turbines that US Wind LLC plans to build by 2026.

Buses will remain free in Anne Arundel County but not in Annapolis, after a proposal to eliminate transit fares was voted down by the City Council Monday. The vote was 7-2 against the budget amendment, which was earmarked to cost the city $700,000. Mayor Gavin Buckley and Alderman DaJuan Gay voted for the measure. After a lengthy debate — including testimony from the city’s acting transportation director supporting the idea — Buckley graciously conceded defeat, saying the fee-free plan was “not ready for prime time.”

A sports complex referendum petition has 68% of the required signatures with one month to go, officials confirmed this week. The citizen committee working on a petition for referendum regarding Worcester County’s use of more than $11 million in bond funding turned in a petition with 3,287 signatures May 31. Officials with the Worcester County Election Office verified that 3,064 of the signatures were valid by the end of the week and confirmed that the petition had 68% of the required 4,494 signatures.

Titled “The Crime Journal,” the true crime podcast is an attempt by the police department to get new information on the department’s 82 cold homicide cases. They believe renewed interest in certain unsolved homicides could lead to crumbs of new information that could eventually crack a case open. The Anne Arundel County Police Department sees true crime podcasting as a new way to revive interest in cold cases where investigators are still searching for leads.

When Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. pulled the plug on the Red Line in 2015, he slammed the long-planned Baltimore project, calling it a “wasteful boondoggle.” The nearly $1 billion in federal funding that Maryland had secured to build the rail line was returned to the U.S. Treasury for use elsewhere. Seven years later, the Maryland Transit Administration has unveiled a new set of transit options that would serve the Baltimore region in similar ways. The agency hopes the public will study the options and offer comments.

The Maryland Department of the Environment may still impose upon counties stormwater pollution-prevention standards more stringent than those called for under the federal Clean Water Act, the state’s top court ruled Wednesday in rejecting Queen Anne’s County’s argument that the court should overturn its similar 2019 decision. Citing its earlier ruling as binding precedent, the Court of Appeals said MDE acted within its Clean Water Act authority when it issued a permit holding the county responsible for stormwater runoff to the Chesapeake Bay not only from the county’s Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems – known as MS4s – but from natural “nonpoint” sources such as parking lots and fields.