BILL WOULD FORCE DALI OWNERS TO PAY FOR KEY BRIDGE DAMAGE: A new bill in Congress would alter an 1851 shipping law to force the owners of the Dali to pay up for the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. U.S. Reps. John Garamendi, a California Democrat, and Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, introduced the Justice for Victims of Foreign Vessel Accidents Act on Tuesday. The bill would force the company to pay as much as $854 million in damages as it proposes increasing the liability rate up to 10 times the dollar value of the vessel and its cargo minus expenses. Dillon Mullan/The Baltimore Sun.
HEAT WAVES MORE COMMON, RELATED DEATHS RISE: On-the-job, heat-related deaths are growing in numbers as heat waves become more frequent and extreme, and heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, the U.S. Department of Labor says. Lorraine Mirabella/The Baltimore Sun.
FAMILY OF DPW WORKER DEMANDS HEARINGS ON TOXIC WORKPLACE: Relatives of Baltimore City Department of Public Works employee Ronald Silver II, who died on the job because of extreme heat, have demanded public hearings into what went wrong—and they will soon get them. Baltimore’s City Council has agreed to hold oversight hearings on Thursday, Oct. 22 after reports of a toxic workplace culture. The head of Silver’s union praised the development. Mike Hellgren/WJZ-TV News.
SOME MARYLAND PROSECUTORS SHARE CASE METRICS FOR RESEARCH: A cadre of Republican and Democratic state’s attorneys have launched efforts to share case metrics not typically available to the public, and they’re doing so despite the prosecutors’ own professional organization opposing the idea. The projects already under way in Baltimore City and Charles, Frederick and Montgomery counties are done in consultation with criminal justice researchers from top universities and are backed by grant funding. Brenda Wintrode/The Baltimore Banner.
GOP HOUSE NOMINEE PARROTT’s ANTI-LGBTQ+ STANCES HIGHLIGHTED: Controversial comments by Neil Parrott, the Republican nominee for Maryland Congressional District 6, stating his opposition to in-vitro fertilization for same-sex couples, have come to light as the Human Rights Campaign announced its endorsement of Democratic nominee April McClain Delaney. Ginny Bixby/MoCo 360.
POLICE DRONES: PRIVACY VS. PUBLIC SAFETY: The ACLU’s Jay Stanley acknowledges that he’s paid “to think about the ways this could go wrong” – but he said he’s thought of 10 issues that communities should think about before they let their local police use drones to respond to calls. Drone supporters said that they understand the concerns, but that police use of drones can help departments stretch their resources and improve their response times, while installing safeguards to protect peoples’ privacy rights. That debate played out Wednesday morning at a Maryland Association of Counties session at MACo’s summer conference in Ocean City. William Ford/Maryland Matters.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS GET STATE FUNDING FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS: The Frederick County Board of Education has received two separate allocations totaling $195,000 from the Maryland Energy Administration. The agency awarded Maryland school districts a combined $24 million on Wednesday for renewable energy projects in public schools, which aligns with the statewide climate goal of reducing energy usage and adopting renewable energy technologies. Esther Frances/The Frederick News. Post.
DELAWARE, VIRGINIA OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS AWARDED LEASES: The federal government has awarded two new offshore wind energy leases in the mid-Atlantic — one off the coast of Delaware, the other near the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay in southern Virginia. The two projects, totaling almost 278,000 acres, brought in more than $92 million in bids at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management auction. They were the first offshore wind leases to be awarded in the mid-Atlantic in a decade, and come at a time when several wind turbine projects, including one off the coast of Ocean City, are inching forward. Josh Kurtz and Charlie Paullin/Maryland Matters.
B’MORE IG DETAILS $10M IN HOMELESS GRANTS THAT HAD TO BE RETURNED: A report Tuesday from Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming offered details on the more than $10 million in grant awards that the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services had to return to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last year. HUD had also cleared the city to reapply for $6 million of the forfeited $10 million, though the city has not yet seen those funds returned. Hannah Gaskill/The Baltimore Sun.
SUN STAFFERS DECRY ‘SUBSTANDARD’ CONTENT IN SINCLAIR CONTRACT FIGHT: Baltimore Sun Newspaper Guild leaders said it and Sun management are far apart in contract negotiations, with management making “egregious proposals,” including slashing seniority protections during a layoff and whittling down the requirement of just and sufficient cause for dismissal. A letter from the Guild demands an end to newly imposed story quotas “that force us to prioritize quantity over quality” and an end to the publishing of content from “questionable wire services.” The letter also calls on the management to only publish journalism that meets Sun standards “for fact-checking, word use and sourcing.” The Sun is now owned by conservative media Sinclair Broadcast Group. Fern Shen/Baltimore Brew.
