HOGAN PUSHES BACK ON EPA VIOLATION: The Hogan administration is challenging the Environmental Protection Agency over its finding that an old coal-burning power plant in Anne Arundel County likely is violating air pollution control rules and needs to take steps to fix the problem, writes Scott Dance in the Sun.
ADDICTION PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Jean Marbella and Meredith Cohn report about Baltimore City’s heroin-user stabilization program. As early as next year, Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen hopes to open a “stabilization” center where addicts can be taken to sober up and get referrals to treatment and other services. The addicts — many of whom now end up in hospital emergency rooms or jail — also would receive food, clothing and a shower.
FIXING THE BAIL SYSTEM: In an op-ed for the Sun, Tricia Bishop writes that Antonio Muhammad sat in a Baltimore jail for weeks last year on $2,500 bail after being swept up in the riot-related arrests on charges of burglary. If it weren’t for a crowdfunding effort to help people like him afford bail and the efforts of his court-appointed attorney, the 20 year old with no criminal record might have sat there for 11 months — until prosecutors dropped his case this spring — simply because he was unable to buy his way out.