It’s past time to shed light on the dramatic increases in rates that many Marylanders are paying utilities to deliver their electricity and gas. Rate hikes have been fueled by aggressive and highly profitable capital spending by many of the state’s largest gas and electric utilities — spending that has been super-charged by state law and Maryland Public Service Commission decisions.

In the District of Columbia, a lie about a townhouse will cost the owner $1.8 million. The house is a former brick beauty with a corner turret, built while William McKinley was president, at 10th and C Streets NE. According to the district’s top attorney, the owner claimed for more than a decade that the house was occupied when, in fact, it was vacant and in disrepair.

 

Growing up in Ocean City, I was cool-adjacent. I ran a beach stand but was never a lifeguard. I drove a city bus but was never a summer police officer. So I was saddened when a colleague told me that Ocean City will end its summer police program. The final 21 temporary officers will turn in their guns and badges after Labor Day.

For anyone concerned about people killed as the result of unnecessary police chases — and given that National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data shows such deaths have reached 577 annually nationwide that should apply to all of us — this has been a difficult week. First, it’s clear that police in Maryland (whether county by county or municipality by municipality) don’t have a uniform policy for deciding when it’s reasonable to initiate a high-speed pursuit.

On June 5, Montgomery County faced something unusual but not unprecedented in our county: two confirmed EF-1 tornadoes. On June 6, MoCo 360 quoted a Montgomery County emergency management official as saying, “We had no forewarning whatsoever that the storm was coming.” I’m not sure how much warning this official expected to receive, but the county actually was well warned of the June 5 tornado threat, given the nature of tornadoes.

Not long ago, I got in the car, and a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tune was on the radio. I was hopeful that the next song would be another Tom Petty favorite, since it was Tuesday, and “Twofer Tuesday” has been a staple of rock radio as long as Petty himself. But the next song was Journey, and the song after that wasn’t another Journey song.

As a governor-appointed member of the Maryland Cannabis Public Health Advisory Council, many of my colleagues have asked for my thoughts on what will happen next with the rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III in the Controlled Substance Act (CSA). As a physician who integrates medical cannabis into my patients’ treatments, I do welcome this change as an important step forward, but the journey is far from over.

Shaneka Henson wants to be the next state senator from Annapolis. Dana Jones does, too. Ellie Tierney is leaving the City Council early — or maybe she isn’t. The Anne Arundel register of wills resigned after being convicted of misconduct, and her replacement was picked in a virtual secret vote. It is a season of replacements in Annapolis, with political dominoes deeply lined up for a chain-reaction fall. As many as six political vacancies in Annapolis could be filled by early next year.

As we enter the last summer before Sen. Ben Cardin retires from many years of distinguished service in Maryland, I am awash with memories of my short stint working for him in the House of Representatives. I was lucky to have the opportunity to closely observe a political anomaly — that rare political leader who doesn’t shed integrity the higher he climbs.

If you were alive in 1965, feel free to skip this missive. If you weren’t, you might not grasp why Willie Mays was such a big deal, and even putting it that way doesn’t give the great man his full due. In his prime — and his prime lasted for what seemed forever — he was the best all-around player baseball had ever seen. Was, and maybe still is.