Politics

Maryland will get a visit next week from a U.S. Senate leader whose committee is considering a bill to pay for the replacement of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge. U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Delaware, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is tentatively planning an on-site visit next week, 11 News has learned.

In a somewhat unusual move, Maryland’s top housing official voiced concerns before the Baltimore County Council passed a bill earlier this month designed to prevent and mitigate overcrowding in public schools. Advanced with a 4-2 vote, the policy requires housing developers to obtain approval from an established “public school capacity committee” before they can build in overcrowded school districts.

National Democrats are offering a financial boost to the Maryland Democratic Party in their effort to elect Angela Alsobrooks to the U.S. Senate. The Democratic National Committee is sending a $250,000 grant to the state party, bringing their total contributions to more than $600,000 for this election cycle. The state party plans to use the money to hire and train organizers and field staff who will reach out to voters.

Before Ohio voters amended their constitution last year to protect abortion rights, the state’s attorney general, an anti-abortion Republican, said that doing so would upend at least 10 state laws limiting abortions. But those laws remain a hurdle and straightforward access to abortions has yet to resume, said Bethany Lewis, executive director of the Preterm abortion clinic in Cleveland. “Legally, what actually happened in practice was not much,” she said.

A week after a state parole-and-probation agent was killed while visiting the home of a registered sex offender he was monitoring, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services announced Friday that it was shaking up its leadership ranks. In a statement, the department said it had named three new interim leaders, including one to lead the parole and probation division, though it did not make clear what had become of those in the jobs previously.

At a Timonium bar on Tuesday, the Patriot Club of America kicked off their monthly meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer. The speaker asked the two dozen or so in attendance to pray for former President Donald Trump after a New York jury had just convicted him five days earlier on 34 charges of falsifying business records.