MARYLAND’s DEADLY HEAT PREDICTED TO WORSEN WITH CLIMATE CHANGE: Twenty-five Marylanders have died from heat-related illness this year, the most since 2018, according to the Maryland Department of Health. Heat is an insidious killer that exacerbates existing health conditions and especially targets vulnerable populations, including children and older adults. Experts predict climate change will make Maryland hotter and wetter in the future, increasing the risk of heat-related illness. Cody Boteler/The Baltimore Banner.
B’MORE DPW OMITTED SOME HEAT-ILLNESS REPORTS GIVEN TO OIG: When the Office of the Inspector General requested data on heat-related illness within Baltimore’s Department of Public Works, officials sent two different sets of information, according to a letter Tuesday from Isabel Mercedes Cumming, the city’s inspector general. The city’s Bureau of Risk Management worked with Baltimore’s third-party worker’s compensation administrator to produce the records, the OIG letter said, and found 26 heat-related illness reports between January 2021 and July 2024. When the Department of Public Works sent over its records, it listed only 16 reports, the letter said. Cody Boteler/The Baltimore Banner.
- This was the second time this month that the DPW admitted giving erroneous information to Cumming related to her investigation into working conditions at the agency’s Bureau of Solid Waste. Mark Reutter/Baltimore Brew.
STATE PANEL FINALIZING USES OF $100M IN OPIOID SETTLEMENT FUNDS: Maryland will have nearly $100 million of opioid settlement funds to spend in 2025. The state’s Opioid Restitution Fund Advisory Council is finalizing its recommendations on how it believes the money should best be spent. In its latest meeting, the council is considering suggestions like expanding its mobile health clinics, improving transportation to drug recovery clinics and exploring new ways to build a safety net for people with opioid use disorder. Scott Maucione/WYPR-FM.
STATE PAYS OUT $5.4M AFTER IRS AUDIT: For the first time in memory — perhaps ever — the Internal Revenue Service audited Maryland government. And it turns out Maryland taxpayers owe Uncle Sam at least $5.4 million for tax year 2020. “This is a new one,” Comptroller Brooke Lierman said at Wednesday’s Board of Public Works meeting where the audit was discussed. “It might be the first time the state has ever been audited. We looked back 30 years and it had not happened before,” she said. Bryan Sears/Maryland Matters.
INTERVIEWS WITH HOUSE CANDIDATES KLACIK AND OLSZEWSKI: Voters in Maryland’s 2nd Congressional District are choosing between a Democrat who is running on his record and a Republican who will not directly answer who won the 2020 election. In an interview, Republican Kim Klacik said, “I think there were a lot of legal challenges that were kind of swept under the rug (in the 2020 presidential election) but I look forward, you know I don’t look backwards.” In a separate interview, Democrat Johnny Olszewski, Baltimore County’s Executive, asked voters to look at his record. “Compare and contrast to someone like Donald Trump and my opponent in this race, there’s a clear choice if you believe in decency and integrity,” Olszewski said. John Lee/WYPR-FM.
SOME MODERATE REPUBLICANS QUESTION HARRIS PROPOSALS: Kamala Harris in the final week of the campaign has sought to cement one of the biggest differences between her and Donald Trump, often saying that he has an enemies list and she has a to-do list. But some of Maryland’s moderate Republicans, along with the GOP faithful, question why she didn’t get some of that to-do list done during the last four years. They also worry her bullet-point plans would steer the country into peril. Candy Woodall/The Baltimore Sun.
RURAL KENT COUNTY WRESTLES WITH CHANGE: A pandemic influx of wealthy outsiders, remote workers and early retirees from liberal enclaves like Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia — native Kent Countians might call them “chicken-neckers” or “come-heres” — is nudging the county’s electorate to the left. As this Election Day nears, the presidential race pits former President Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” against Vice President Kamala Harris’s “A New Way Forward.” In places like Kent County, those aren’t just campaign slogans. These communities are trying to balance tradition and progress without a clear roadmap for the future. Lee O. Sanderlin/The Baltimore Banner.
NEW YORK TIMES OFFERS ELECTION HUB ACCESS: For a limited time, everyone will have open access to Election Hub through the The New York Times app, featuring explainers, poll trackers and more. Staff/The News York Times.
CHAIR’s DEPARTURE JOLTS NEW STATE LABOR BOARD: Just a year after a board was created to oversee labor relations in state government, the Moore administration is scrambling to fill key vacancies in the agency — including the chairperson’s job, which became open last month. Leaders of the state’s biggest public employee unions say they still have high hopes for the new Maryland Public Employee Relations Board. But they fret that the agency hasn’t been fully built out yet, and fear it could wind up delaying anticipated organizing efforts for state workers. Josh Kurtz/Maryland Matters.
SOME VOTERS GOT SEALED MAIL-IN BALLOT ENVELOPES: More than 860,000 mail-in ballots have been requested this year, but some voters have found that their ballots are coming with a pre-sealed return envelope. A viewer reached out to WMAR-2 News to find out what to do if that’s the case. Amanda Engel/WMAR-TV News.
NEW JUVENILE CRIME LAW UNDER SCRUTINY: State lawmakers approved House Bill 814 in the spring, but despite that, not everyone is welcoming the new law with open arms. “While I understand why the police and elected officials and our prosecutors think this is a quick fix, it’s not going to change materially the kinds of decisions or fear that young people live with on their own and why they make bad choices sometimes,” says Kelly Quinn. Quinn, managing director of the Choice program at UMBC, says certain language in the law, like charging 10- to 12-year-olds with a crime, can be traumatizing and may not influence better behavior down the line. Ja Nai Wright/WMAR-TV News.
FORMER UNIVERSITY PARK MAYOR JAILED ON CHILD PORN CHARGES: While seeking another term as mayor of tiny University Park, a town of roughly 2,500 in Prince George’s County, Joel Biermann ran on a platform of “protecting our children” before abandoning the effort earlier this year, his campaign website and election records show. On Wednesday, Biermann, 46, was ordered held in jail on charges of possessing child sexual abuse material and other counts that include accusations he solicited a man outside the United States to produce specific images of young boys, court filings show. Dan Morse/The Washington Post.
NEW HOPKINS BUILDING TO HONOR HENRIETTA LACKS: The name of Henrietta Lacks will be forever memorialized in an East Baltimore building named in her honor. Ground was broken on Monday, with members of the Lacks family, leaders of Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine, and elected officials present to bear witness. Lacks was a Baltimore County woman who was treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s. She died in October 1951. Without her knowledge or consent, however, Hopkins doctors had given samples of her cancerous cells to a researcher, who discovered her cells had a unique capacity to reproduce and survive rendering them essentially immortal. Aliza Worthington/Baltimore Fishbowl.
