Politics

With a rainbow sticker affixed to his campaign ballcap and another on his black polo shirt, Larry Hogan zig-zagged from one side of the street to the other, shaking hands and posing for selfies at the Annapolis Pride Parade on Saturday afternoon. The former governor, now a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, was marching in his first-ever Pride Month event. “How you doing? Happy Pride!” he said to obliging parade-watchers.

Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee and daughter-in-law of Donald Trump, slammed former Maryland governor Larry Hogan on Sunday after he’d urged Americans to “respect” the verdict in the former president’s hush money trial. Hogan is running for a Senate seat in Maryland and represents one of the GOP’s best chances at taking back control of the chamber. Still, Lara Trump — who was recently named co-chair of the party, alongside Michael Whatley — said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Hogan “doesn’t deserve the respect” of any Republican for his comments.

A fund managed by Baltimore immigrant affairs officials after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse has raised more than $800,000 for the families of victims and will remain open until the end of August, Mayor Brandon Scott announced Friday. The city’s fund, one of several collecting donations for the survivors and victims of the Key Bridge disaster, was originally slated to close Friday, but the mayor’s office said it planned to keep it open because of continued support.

A new Maryland law recently signed by Gov. Wes Moore aiming to crack down on exhibition driving or street racing is now in effect. Anyone participating in street racing in Maryland could face jail time and hefty fines. Street racing has caused chaos and death in Baltimore and beyond. In Maryland, the cost of showing off is now much higher. “It’s all about showing off and at other people’s risk and expense to life and health and business and peace,” said John Seng, Chair of Safe Roads Maryland, the group that lobbied for the bills.

Maryland is one of 21 states joining a push by the Biden administration to modernize America’s aging electric grid, which is under pressure from growing demand, a changing power-generation mix that includes lots of wind and solar, and severe weather. The administration, which has set a goal of a carbon-free power sector by 2035, announced Tuesday that the states had joined what it called the “Federal-State Modern Grid Deployment Initiative,” which is intended to “help drive grid adaptation quickly and cost-effectively to meet the challenges and opportunities that the power sector faces.”

John Sarbanes was talking to reporters from The New York Times this spring, giving a video interview along with other members of Congress leaving office at the end of the year. While the others — including Sarbanes’ Maryland colleague U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin — talked about why Congress is so dysfunctional, the Democrat from Towson didn’t exactly follow the script.

Baltimore has funded only one of four budget requests made to satisfy recommendations issued following a deadly fire on Stricker Street that killed three city firefighters in 2022, however it has made significant progress in tagging unsafe vacant buildings. That update came Thursday during a budget hearing for the city’s Fire Department before the Baltimore City Council.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday reiterated his administration’s support for restoring the Francis Scott Key Bridge and bringing business back to the Port of Baltimore and the communities that rely on the port for their livelihoods, according to a statement released Wednesday by the White House. Biden’s comment followed Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) and Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld’s meeting Tuesday with White House officials and officials from the Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Transportation Department and Federal Highway Administration.