Politics

Maryland has an abundance of unissued sports wagering licenses that one state delegate says should not be allowed to gather dust. Currently, there are 12 physical sports book locations. The state also has a dozen mobile sports wagering apps in operation. State regulators say instability in the market and ongoing consolidation mean no more are needed yet.

As of June, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City owed more than $7 million in water bills to the city, according to a report released Tuesday by the city’s Office of the Inspector General. The inspector general’s investigation began last October, when the office received an anonymous complaint alleging that the HABC had stopped paying its water bills in 2018, and owed the city’s Department of Public Works millions of dollars.

Property owners, housing advocates and city tenants who receive government subsidies took members of the Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services to task Tuesday morning, slamming them for being late to pay the third-party housing providers who are responsible for paying rent and other services on behalf of some of the area’s most vulnerable households.

Autoworkers at Detroit’s biggest vehicle manufacturers are signing up for strike shifts, buying burn barrels and saving money to prepare for a possible work stoppage as contract talks remain tense ahead of Thursday’s deadline. Many say they see a strike as inevitable, even as small signs of progress between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — appear.

U.S. poverty spiked over the past year, with child poverty more than doubling, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday, while the proportion of people lacking health insurance in 2022 dropped to an uncommonly low level. The new figures reflect the uneven pace at which the government has ceased some forms of pandemic assistance as well as the calamitous effects of record inflation on household finances.

U.S. Rep. David Trone on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to terminate an immigration enforcement agreement between the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, citing anti-immigrant statements by the embattled sheriff and numerous reports of civil rights violations by his agency.

Gun rights nonprofit Maryland Shall Issue appealed a federal judge’s decision to uphold an Anne Arundel County law requiring gun sellers to hand out pamphlets on suicide prevention and safe gun storage. Since then more than 20 parties have filed amicus briefs defending the county’s bill.

Ever wondered what it’s like to serve in the halls of Congress? Think you can do better than the elected officials there now? A unique public policy experiment created by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation seeks to put the average American in the decision-making shoes of their congressional representatives — and sow common ground and build public policy polling at the same time.

Amid fretting and high hopes that their children will succeed in the academic year, concerns that students could be exposed to toxic pesticides might not be the first thought on parents’ minds. But ensuring that Maryland schools reduce pesticide-exposure has been an ongoing concern for groups like the Maryland Pesticide Education Network and the Children’s Environmental Health Network, who have been advocating for clear policies on pesticide use in schools for years.