LONG-AWAITED HEAT PROTECTION STANDARDS GO INTO EFFECT: Long-awaited heat protection regulations for workers have been finalized and will go into effect today – two days after the official end of a deadly “heat season” that took the lives of dozens of Marylanders this summer. With just days left in the annual Heat-Related Illness Surveillance Report monitoring period – the so-called heat season – the Maryland Health Department had recorded 25 deaths and just under 1,200 emergency room visits due to heat-related illnesses this year. Danielle Brown/Maryland Matters.
- They were first issued, as proposed standards, last July. They originated from state legislation passed in 2020, but were never implemented during the administration of Gov. Larry Hogan. They will take effect two months after the death of Ron Silver II, a Baltimore sanitation worker who collapsed on a woman’s doorstep, begging for water. Mark Reutter/Baltimore Brew.
- The new regulations requires all workers to have access to water, shade and rest breaks when temperatures exceed 80 degrees — it joins just a handful of other states that have standards protecting workers from extreme heat. Emily Hofstaedter/WYPR-FM.
SCHOOLS FACE DEADLINE FOR ALLOCATING $450 MILLION IN PANDEMIC FUNDS: Maryland could lose up to $450 million in federal education funds meant to combat learning loss and other difficulties stemming from the coronavirus pandemic if the state fails to designate the funds for use by Monday’s deadline. State-level school officials said Friday that they and local school districts had committed $1.5 billion of the total $1.95 billion Maryland was set to receive from the third round of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund allocations. Dan Belson/The Baltimore Sun.
HIT BY KEY BRIDGE COLLAPSE, BUSINESSES NOW FACE LONGSHOREMEN STRIKE: What started as roughly 1,000 applications for low-interest loans in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the Key Bridge in March has skyrocketed to more than 5,500 as of late September. By a wide margin, most are from transportation companies. Now dockworkers along the East Coast — including in Baltimore — are poised to strike Tuesday morning. A work stoppage would ripple across the local economy and affect the same companies that were hurt by the bridge collapse. Bria Overs and Brenna Smith/The Baltimore Banner.
OVERDOSE DEATHS IN MARYLAND DECLINE, MIRRORING NATIONAL TREND: The number of Marylanders dying from overdoses fell over the past year, mirroring a national trend but lagging behind the nation on the pace of the decline, according to recent federal data. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data estimates that 2,348 Marylanders died of an overdose from April 2023 to April 2024, down from 2,506 deaths the year before, a 6.16% drop. Overdose deaths in the U.S. during the same period fell 10%, according to current estimates. Danielle Brown/Maryland Matters.
CONSERVATIVE SUPER PAC POURS $18M IN PRO-HOGAN AD BUY: A deep-pocketed conservative super PAC – Maryland’s Future — funded by Trump skeptics and backers alike jumped into the Maryland Senate race in the past week, airing three political ads with strikingly different tones — all aimed at swaying voters to support Republican Larry Hogan in the increasingly expensive and unexpectedly close contest that could determine which party controls that chamber. It reserved $18.3 million in airtime during the last six weeks of the race. Katie Shepherd/The Washington Post.
DNC TO PUT $75,000 TO HELP ALSOBROOKS CAMPAIGN: Still more national money is coming into the Maryland Senate election. The Democratic National Committee will announce Friday that it is transferring $75,000 to the Maryland Democratic Party to help boost Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in her race against former Gov. Larry Hogan for the U.S. Senate. Josh Kurtz/Maryland Matters.
POLITICAL MESSAGING: INDEPENDENCE VS. PARTY IDENTITY: Democrats and Angela Alsobrooks are making the case that the U.S. Senate race is about party politics and who will control the Senate — suggesting that Alsobrooks, as a Democrat, will ensure that the Senate considers issues like protecting abortion access and supporting working families. Republicans and Larry Hogan are stressing the idea that Hogan will fight against gridlock in Washington, and that he’ll make decisions in the interests of Marylanders, not party leaders. Pamela Wood/The Baltimore Banner.
HOGAN, A NEVER TRUMPER, AGAIN DISMISSES VOTING FOR A DEMOCRAT: Former Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday that neither former President Donald Trump nor Vice President Kamala Harris has earned his vote in the presidential election. “Neither one of the two candidates has earned my vote, and the voters in the country are going to be able to make that decision,” Hogan said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” Kaia Hubbard/WJZ-TV News.
- You can view the interview with CBS’s Robert Costa here as well as read the transcript.
- Hogan didn’t vote for Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden either. In 2016, he wrote in his own father, former Maryland Rep. Lawrence Hogan. In 2020, he wrote in former President Ronald Reagan. Greta Reich/Politico.
D.C., ALSOBROOKS DISCUSS PROPERTY TAX SITUATION: The District of Columbia has determined that U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks owes $18,000 — and potentially another $41,000 in penalties and fees — for receiving property tax credits she was not qualified for, a campaign spokesman said Friday. Connor Lounsbury, a campaign senior adviser, said the figures resulted from talks between Alsobrooks representatives and Washington, D.C., tax officials. Jeff Barker/The Baltimore Sun.
COMMENTARY: STREAMLINING PROCESS TOWARD AFFORDABLE HOMES: Gov. Wes Moore and his secretary of Housing and Community Development, Jake Day, are bona fide celebrities in housing affordability circles. Pro-housing advocates favor increasing the supply of all types of housing and getting rid of onerous regulatory barriers to construction – to bring down rental and home purchase costs for working families and grow our economy in the process. Jonathan Robinson/Maryland Matters.
JUDGE TO HEAR GROUP THAT SEEKS TO STOP UM FROM BANNING GAZA VIGIL: A federal judge today is scheduled to hear arguments over a request by a University of Maryland student organization to prevent the university from canceling an Oct. 7 campus vigil that would commemorate the lives lost in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the past year. Mennatalla Ibrahim of Capital News Service/MarylandReporter.com.
COMMENTARY: SPLITTING TICKETS IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND: The presidential election this year may well be determined in places like the neighborhood where I grew up in Croydon, Pennsylvania, an aging white working-class town in lower Bucks County, just north of Philadelphia. By contrast, your neighbors here in Maryland might have little effect on the presidential race. Trump will lose deep blue Maryland again decisively, but we could affect which party controls the U.S. Senate. Pennsylvania is again the Keystone State in this election, as it was four years ago. Len Lazarick/MarylandReporter.com.
ALSOBROOKS’ RECORD HAS HIGHLIGHTS, CONTROVERSIES: U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks’ record is largely based on her six years as Prince George’s County executive and eight as its state’s attorney. Accomplishments — such as overseeing an overall decrease in crime and securing the new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt — have come alongside controversies, including defending police in a discrimination lawsuit before ultimately settling, and fielding blowback from the county’s Latino communities for a lack of diversity in her top appointed positions. Sam Janesch/The Baltimore Sun.
MD ELECTIONS OFFICIALS SAY OPPONENTS WAITED TOO LONG TO CHALLENGE BALLOT QUESTION: State elections officials are asking the Supreme Court of Maryland to overturn a lower court ruling that would block them from counting votes on a Baltimore City ballot question, and could derail the redevelopment of the Inner Harbor area. In a 63-page brief filed Friday, attorneys for the Maryland State Board of Elections said a group of city voters waited too long to challenge the ballot question, Question F, in court. Bryan Sears/Maryland Matters.
2nd STUDENT ARRESTED IN HARFORD SCHOOL THREATS: The Harford County Sheriff’s Office charged a student for allegedly making threats to a school last week, marking the second such arrest of a Harford County Public Schools student in a week. The student was arrested and charged with making a threat of mass violence and possession of illegal ammunition after the student resource officer at Fallston High School was made aware of the threats. Matt Hubbard/The Aegis
