HOW MANY CHILDREN ARE MISSING FROM STATE CHILD CARE? Maryland officials claim they have policies for what to do when children disappear from state-supervised care. What they have not yet provided is a clear answer to a basic question: How many are missing right now? The state hasn’t answered that question. Gary Collins/The Baltimore Sun.
MOORE SIGNS HOUSING BILLS INTO LAW: Gov. Wes Moore signed into law Tuesday bills that will encourage housing development around transit hubs and grant developers so-called vesting rights that will keep approved housing projects from being held up by new regulations from local jurisdictions. The bills were part of the governor’s housing priorities this session, and came a year after the administration saw lawmakers reject its push for legislation that would grant more “certainty” for developers as a project progressed. William Ford/Maryland Matters.
NEW LAWS TARGET WELFARE OF YOUNG PEOPLE: It was a good day for young people in Annapolis on Tuesday. Gov. Wes Moore signed bills into law that will make it harder to charge juveniles as adults, will expand funding for child-care scholarships and will create a commission to study the treatment of Black youth in the 19th and 20th centuries at the old House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children, just some of the 274 bills signed into law at the final bill-signing of the year. William Ford/Maryland Matters.
CANDIDATES SPEND BIG TO COUNTER MAIL-IN BALLOT CONFUSION: Maryland political candidates in competitive races in Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties are spending thousands of dollars on turnout operations and voter outreach, concerned that confusion caused by errors in mail-in ballots could hurt their campaigns. Tinashe Chingarande/The Baltimore Sun.
DEM ATTY GENs QUESTION EXPERTs’ SNUB AT WHITE HOUSE EVENT: A handful of Democratic state attorneys general said Tuesday that expert officials from their offices were denied access to a major White House anti-fraud meeting convened by Vice President JD Vance and attended by Republican AGs. Two dozen Democratic attorneys general, including from Maryland, had earlier declined invitations, citing extremely short notice and a lack of an agenda, but instead sent experts in their stead who were turned away. Shauneen Miranda/Maryland Matters.
OPINION: SORTING THROUGH WHEAT & CHAFF TO ENDORSE FOR GOVERNOR: When selecting a candidate for governor, the first place to stop is the general ideology. As we are conservatives, that immediately disqualifies Democrat Gov. Wes Moore and Green Party nominee Andy Ellis. Sorting through the wheat and the chaff in the Republican Primary is not a difficult process. In a state where any schmuck can pay $290 to put their name on the ballot for governor, a lot of thoroughly unqualified candidates are appearing as gubernatorial choices for Republican voters this year. Brian Griffiths/The Duckpin.
ADVOCATES CALL FOR MANDATORY TESTING FOR RADON GAS: Those who work in detecting, remediating or researching the colorless, odorless radon gas that can seep up from the soil and into homes and other buildings to grave consequences, are calling for greater education and regulation for radon, which the Environmental Protection Agency estimates causes about 21,000 lung cancer deaths a year in the U.S. Jean Marbella/The Baltimore Sun.
BRAVEBOY SPOKESWOMAN ACCUSED OF ASSAULT: A communications director for Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy is accused of assaulting a colleague at work in March, according to court records. Olivia Garrett Miller, of College Park, said she was assaulted at work by Sharon Taylor, a longtime spokesperson in county government who was serving as a communications director for Braveboy. Ben Conarck/The Baltimore Banner.
BOWIE STATE FACING A LEADERSHIP CRISIS: Multiple Annapolis lawmakers say they cannot reach Bowie State University President Breaux as concerns mount about the university’s future. Bowie State — Maryland’s oldest HBCU and one of the state’s most symbolically important institutions — is facing what several senior political and campus figures describe as a rapidly escalating leadership crisis, fueled by silence at the top, falling enrollment, and deepening fears about the school’s long term stability. Barry O’Connell/The Maryland Wire.
MARYLAND WOMAN SELF-DEPORTS AFTER ICE ORDEAL: ICE chased and arrested a Maryland woman who was on a legal path to a green card. After two weeks in detention, she asked to leave the U.S. with her citizen daughter. Is this the “quieter approach” to U.S. immigration enforcement in the wake of the Minneapolis backlash? Madeleine O’Neill/Baltimore Brew.
