Politics

The leaders of the National Governors Association said Friday they’re forming a bipartisan working group to come up with recommendations to stop mass shootings following the Texas school massacre. Reaching consensus could be a tall order given that the nation’s governors have been divided along partisan lines on how to approach issues of gun control and school safety. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, the group’s chairman, and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, the vice chair, told the White House in a letter that they will convene a group of six to 10 governors, with a particular focus on making schools safe.

Gov. Larry Hogan is calling for a criminal investigation into the Baltimore City school system after the state’s education watchdog found inconsistencies among teachers, assistant principals and principals changing failing grades to passing ones. The Office of the Inspector General for Education’s recommended this week that Maryland State Department of Education authorize a performance audit of the city school system after its investigators found differing interpretations, applications and adherence to grade change procedures among high school staff.

A May 29 encounter between Howard County Council member Deb Jung and a group of young men has some county leaders asking for an apology. Representatives from the NAACP Howard County, Council of Elders of Howard County, Howard County African American Community Roundtable, other organizations and residents gathered outside the George Howard Building in Ellicott City Wednesday to address the encounter.

Gov. Larry Hogan announced a long-term plan Thursday to manage the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that centers on ensuring accessibility of the latest tests, vaccines and medications. “Our state public health response has now fully transitioned from an emergency into an ongoing operation of state government,” Hogan said at a news conference Thursday. Called COVIDReady Maryland, the long-term preparedness plan aims to maintain readiness for emerging variants and surges in cases so people stay healthy and out of the hospital.

When Sen. Chris Van Hollen felt a sharp pain in his neck, then felt light-headed, two minutes into a speech at the Rocky Gap Resort last month, he had to make a quick decision. Should he tell his audience, which had gathered for the Western Maryland Democratic Summit, that he wasn’t feeling well, and sit down? Or should he ignore his symptoms and “muscle through”? He decided to continue speaking, propping his arm on the lectern for balance. “It was a pretty good speech, after all,” he recalled with a chuckle.

Child care, community partnerships and removal of carcinogenic firefighting equipment were the big-ticket budget items added to the Annapolis city budget Monday during a 12-hour meeting to discuss more than 40 proposed amendments. All amendments were additions (or in a handful of cases, subtractions) to the $170 million budget proposed by Mayor Gavin Buckley in April. Some were technical corrections, and a few others adjusted fees and fines.

The Harford County Council passed a resolution to establish a search committee to help find a new county health officer at its meeting on Tuesday. The council appointed nine members to the committee: council president Patrick Vincenti; council member Andre Johnson; council vice president Robert Wagner; the county executive or a designee; previous county health officer Dr. Russell Moy; Bari Klein, executive director of Healthy Harford; Katherine Feldman, chief public health strategist for the Maryland Department of Health; Mary Nasuta, Harford County Public Schools’ supervisor of health services; and Vicki Jones, president of the Harford County NAACP.