MOORE ANGRY, FRUSTRATED AS 2nd MASS SHOOTING IN DAYS OCCURS: Gov. Wes Moore (D) and other state officials expressed anger and frustration Wednesday following the death of an Eastern Shore teen during the second mass shooting in the state in three days. Seven people were shot in Salisbury just after midnight Wednesday at a neighborhood block party and a 14-year-old boy died of his wounds. Bryan Sears/Maryland Matters.
- Moore had spent part of his July 4 holiday visiting with victims of the mass shooting that took place in the Brooklyn Homes apartment complex on July 2. City and state officials are vowing to arrest those responsible for the barrage of gunfire that left two people dead and 28 wounded at a Southeast Baltimore block party early Sunday morning. Ron Taylor/The Afro.
STATE TO PAY $13M TO CORRECTIONS WORKERS OVER LOST WAGES: Almost 3,900 current and former employees of the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services will be paid more than $13 million to resolve what union officials called a wage theft scheme. The settlement approved Wednesday by the three-member Board of Public Works, dates back to claims over the last three years and includes workers at all state prisons. Bryan Sears/Maryland Matters.
Fishing on the Chesapeake. Bay Journal photo
BAY ‘DEAD ZONE’ SMALLEST EVER: The Chesapeake Bay’s annual “dead zone” is expected to be the smallest ever recorded this summer, providing an unexpected boon to the estuary’s vulnerable ecosystem. Scientists forecast that the mass of oxygen-starved water will be one-third smaller than its historic average. The tracking began in 1985. Jeremy Cox of the Bay Journal/MarylandReporter.com.
DESPITE SINKING PREDICTIONS, SMITH ISLAND REAL ESTATE HOT: Ten summers ago, Maryland offered to buy residents off of Smith Island, a bit of land in the Chesapeake Bay known for watermen’s villages, famous cakes and pyrotechnic sunsets. Hurricane Sandy had damaged homes and climate change models predicted that rising waters could virtually wipe it off the map. But Smith Islanders rejected leaving, instead organizing to get millions in government funding for infrastructure upgrades and fortifications against the waves. And in recent years, something improbable has trailed in its wake: a real estate boom. Justin Jouvenal/The Washington Post.
NEW PSC CHAIR VOWS TO ‘LEAVE NO MARYLANDER BEHIND:’ Fredrick H. Hoover, the new chair of the Maryland Public Service Commission, vowed to follow the lead of the man who appointed him, Gov. Wes Moore, and “leave no Marylander behind” as he takes over a powerful regulatory agency that will increasingly have more say over how the state confronts climate change. Josh Kurtz/Maryland Matters.
MAN GETS $2.6M COMPENSATION FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTION: State officials have awarded $2.9 million to a Harford County man who spent 32 years behind bars for a wrongful conviction in an infamous 1981 double murder. The amount set for John Norman Huffington, who was released a decade ago and pardoned by Gov. Larry Hogan earlier this year, is one of the largest such awards in Maryland in recent years. Sam Janesch/The Baltimore Sun.
ALSOBROOKS RAISES $1.73M IN EARLY WEEKS OF SENATE RUN: Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) raised $1.73 million in her first seven weeks as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. That’s according to a memo on the “State of the Maryland Senate Race” that her campaign manager, Dave Chase, began circulating to “interested parties” on Wednesday. Josh Kurtz/Maryland Matters.
SHERIFF JENKINS ASKS JUDGE TO DISMISS FIREARMS CHARGE: Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins on Tuesday filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss federal firearms charges against him, saying he didn’t “knowingly and willfully” enter into a conspiracy. He called the basis for the charges “vague.” Jenkins and local firearms business owner Robert Krop were indicted in April on five counts of conspiracy and making false statements to illegally acquire machine guns. Clara Niel/The Frederick News Post.
MARYLAND FORWARD PARTY SEEKS TO GET ON BALLOT: On a hot day in June, five people set up a tent in Frederick during the annual Pride Festival. The volunteers were asking for signatures to get the Forward Party on the ballot in Maryland. The party is just 20 months old, formed by 2020 Democratic hopeful Andrew Yang and former Republican Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman. The party needs 10,000 valid signatures to make it on the ballot for 2024. Scott Maucione/WYPR-FM.
LEGAL CANNABIS ALSO BRINGS CHANGES IN RELATED LAWS: Big change came to the state Saturday — not only with the legalization of adult-use recreational cannabis, but also with shifting criminal justice policies that have disproportionately impacted communities of color and low-income Marylanders including laws to aid people with the process of expunging cannabis charges and convictions from their records and limiting the circumstances for police to execute traffic stops based on the odor of cannabis. Hannah Gaskill/The Baltimore Sun.
FBI SEEKS TO EXHUME BODY OF WOMAN IN ‘KEEPERS’ CASE: The FBI plans to exhume the body of Joyce Malecki, who was found killed in 1969 on Fort Meade property in a case explored in the documentary “The Keepers,” according to her brother and one of the family’s legal advocates. Julie Scharper and Justin Fenton/The Baltimore Banner.
