WOMEN’s ADVOCATES HELPED KILL MARRIAGE AGE BILL: Most state lawmakers agree 15-year-olds are too young to get married, but a proposal to raise Maryland’s legal marriage age failed this week in the General Assembly because of pressure from an unexpected group — women’s rights advocates, reports Scott Dance in the Sun.

COLLEGE SEX ASSAULT POLICIES: Tim Curtis of the Daily Record writes that universities in Maryland must develop sexual assault disciplinary provisions that allow students access to an attorney, set parameters for sexual assault proceedings and restrict the use of mediation in resolving these disputes, under legislation passed by the Maryland General Assembly.

STATES COLLABORATE ON DAM POLLUTION: For years, the Conowingo Dam was considered a “time bomb” looming over Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts, as it would begin spilling more water-fouling nutrients downstream when its 14-mile-long reservoir stopped trapping pollution. Recent analyses of monitoring data, though, have shown that the bomb actually went off years ago — but not with a resounding boom. A framework for cleanup calls for all states in the watershed to work on a new, collaborative watershed implementation plan aimed specifically at reducing enough nutrient pollution to offset the impact of more nutrients flowing past Conowingo, Bay Journal’s Karl Blankenship writes in MarylandReporter.

State Roundup, April 13, 2018