FORMER PORT CHIEF INVOLVED IN CRASH BEFORE RESIGNATION: William P. Doyle’s abrupt resignation Friday as executive director of the Port of Baltimore came after he was involved in a four-vehicle crash in a state-issued Jeep on the Jones Falls Expressway earlier in the week. Shortly before 8:30 a.m. last Tuesday, three vehicles were stopped in the roadway and Doyle’s state-issued 2017 Jeep Cherokee hit a Ford truck that then caused a chain-reaction crash. Doyle left the scene of the crash and later called police, authorities said. Pamela Wood/The Baltimore Banner.
DESPITE OYSTER BOON, HARVEST RESTRICTIONS CONSIDERED: The Chesapeake Bay’s once-moribund oyster industry has been on a roll recently, and last season Maryland watermen hauled in their biggest harvest in 36 years. Yet state fisheries regulators say they see clouds on the horizon, including a sizable increase in harvest effort and overfishing in areas of the Bay and its tributaries that harbor the most oysters that could spur new harvest restrictions in the second half of the upcoming season, which begins Oct. 1. Timothy Wheeler of The Bay Journal/MarylandReporter.com.
ACTION-FILLED YEAR SINCE ROE OVERTURNED: As the first anniversary approaches of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the constitutionally protected right to an abortion, Marylanders look back at a year of action to shore up the pregnancy choice and abortion medical care for not only residents but for those coming into the state seeking help. Danielle Brown/Maryland Matters.
PEOPLE’S COUNSEL BLASTS BGE RATE HIKE PROPOSAL: The state’s ratepayer advocate criticized Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.’s proposal to raise delivery rates over the next three years as incentive for the utility to “shoot for the moon with massive spending proposals.” Releasing a consumer guide Tuesday to show BGE’s rate hikes, People’s Counsel David S. Lapp, whose office is charged with advocating for utility customers, said the proposed increases averaging 5% over the next three years allows for “little accountability” as to how the company spends funds from raising rates. Dan Belson/The Baltimore Sun.
ELECTIONS BOARD SLAPS GAMBLING GROUP WITH LARGE FINE: A consortium of top gambling companies was slapped Tuesday with the largest fine in the history of the Maryland State Board of Elections. The $48,000 fine levied against Sports Betting Alliance was assessed for failing to comply with the state’s 48-hour disclosure requirements. Bryan Sears/Maryland Matters.
STATE SUPREMES NIX SPECIFIC BALLISTIC TESTIMONY: In Maryland, firearms experts will no longer be allowed to testify that a specific gun fired a specific bullet, after four of seven justices on the state Supreme Court found that the scientific methodology is not reliable enough to allow examiners to testify that a particular gun fired a particular bullet. Alex Mann/The Baltimore Sun.
AS LIGHT RAIL RESUMES FULL SERVICE, MDOT AWAITS RIDERSHIP REBOUND: After a nearly yearlong service disruption that reduced the frequency of its trains, the Maryland Department of Transportation restored regular weekday light rail service earlier this spring and brought on more operators. Yet state data shows that while on-time performance metrics have begun to rebound to pre-pandemic levels, the number of light rail riders dropped off earlier this year, the most recent MTA data shows. Meanwhile, ridership on most other forms of public transit has increased over the same period. Hallie Miller/The Baltimore Banner.
B’MORE-STATE PROGRAM TO GET INCARCERATED JOBS IS CUT BACK: A $12.7 million, Baltimore city-Maryland state government program known as “Returning Citizens Behind the Wall,” designed to connect incarcerated people with jobs doing manual labor for the city at $15 an hour and aimed to help nearly 3,000 people approaching the end of incarceration transition back into society, is being reduced because not as many people are eligible for the program as initially anticipated. Adam Willis/The Baltimore Banner.
TRIAL STARTS IN SEX ABUSE CASE OF FORMER CATHOLIC WRESTLING COACH: A former head wrestling coach of Mount Saint Joseph High School who was the only person indicted in the Maryland attorney general’s investigation into child sexual abuse and cover-ups within the Archdiocese of Baltimore is set to stand trial this week on charges that he groomed and assaulted a teen. Dylan Segelbaum/The Baltimore Banner.
PUGH, MOSBY PROSECUTOR PART OF HUNTER BIDEN PROSECUTION: Leo Wise, a federal prosecutor who helped take down a former Baltimore mayor and has been handling the case against the city’s former state’s attorney, is part of a team now prosecuting President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Hunter Biden was charged with illegally possessing a weapon as a drug user and failing to pay federal income taxes. Cassidy Jensen/The Baltimore Sun.
THOMAS MADDUX, FORMER SECTY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, DIES AT 95: Thomas H. “Tuck” Maddux III, former Maryland secretary of economic development who later was the founder and president of American Stone Mix Co. and a longtime Greater Baltimore Medical Center board member, died of congestive heart failure Thursday at the Brightwood Retirement Community in Lutherville. He was 95. Frederick Rasmussen/The Baltimore Sun.
