This week's Memo will be posted here after the email version has been sent.

Scraping for $,  dumping $

A state budget shortfall (estimated) of nearly $3 billion  next year is not leaving much room for the state to help the most vulnerable, either with healthcare costs climbing like kudzu or keeping students' university system costs under control and fully funding the Blueprint for school improvement. Maryland teachers will wince at hard-pressed Assembly members' reaction to news the state is highly ranked as a good place for teachers to ply their trade. Our reaction: Just what is wrong with being a good place to work? For anyone? We'd like Maryland to be a better state for farming, too, but between farmland being (expensively) gobbled up by development, climate-fueled erratic weather and the outside agitators like Donald Trump and his tariff shenanigans, farming is hard times here. So, for that matter, might be voting. People may actually have to raise a little hell to make sure that MAGA doesn't take desperate measures here and in other states to preserve at least its grip on the Senate -- which, as we see below, is within the grasp of the House majority. As Baltimore hero Frank Zappa set to music, "The torture never stops" when MAGA is dipping into its war chest for a fresh batch of fabrications dumped before the public. For better or mostly worse, it's all News You Can Use.

What can we say: like rust, ICE never sleeps, but seems to sleepwalk through a fascist fog. Read about how Frederick fought back. Elsewhere: Streams and rivers increasingly flow uninterrupted as more and more of the Chesapeake Bay area's 6,500 dams are removed (just a token of the US's more than a half-million dams).  The summer's heat death toll in Maryland has nearly doubled from last year's 36, a record on its own. Virginia moves to de-flock the roadways. Nationally, we find after Labor Day that unions are very popular throughout the country but it's a whole lot easier to organize or join in some states than in others. The end of health plan subsidies (Trump, of course) has increased dis-enrollments drastically, leaving thousands uninsured. But TrumpWorld loves big businesses so much it wants to start calling them small businesses so they can horn in on Small Business Administration benefits. Just another week in MAGA land, where Trump is doing his best to keep you from voting.  It's News You Can Use for this week. 

The Memo will be posted here after the email version has been sent.

Topline news: Pepco's electric rate request was cut in half by the PSC, relieving strapped households. Maryland's schools start up again, so how are we doing at implementing the state's ambitious and costly Blueprint school reform project? A seasoned editor takes a look on a podcast while stressed local school districts and governments scramble to find the resources to comply. Meanwhile, the cost of UMD's university system schools has (shocker!) not gone down. The state's attempt to put a redistricting referendum on the November ballot has run into trouble from not just one but two judges. Sun Bucks, the nutritional supplement to cover kids' lunch-free summer hiatus, will run out 122 days after issuance, so use them fast. The Trump tariffs, as in many other states, are putting the hurt on Maryland's farmers. Statewide and nationally, data centers are suddenly a controversial element of economic development. And yes, Flock surveillance cameras have joined the list of nationally hated brand names. And we have Megan E's roundup (per People's Action) of misbehavior among the power classes in DC; the GOP-led House is back in session -- bad news since they won't bother to really govern. The good news is they work a week, take a week off (whew!), come back to work for a week  (maybe) and then skedaddle home to protect their incumbency. It's all News You Can Use.

The Memo will be posted here after the email version has been sent.

Trump's immigration policy, disastrous across the US and requiring Maryland folks to fight off detention centers and ICE offices across the state, is cutting into Hispanic student enrollment in the state's K-12 schools as well -- when enrollment numbers were already declining as school-agers lose ground to retirees.

The mortal scuffle over whether or not to redistrict in Maryland stays in court as more combatants lawyer up. Late spring frost (past tense) keeps tourists away even as a leetle tornado (present tense) doesn't help either. The ambivalence of the local residents in Greenbelt about having the new FBI headquarters placed there is suddenly back on the agenda, thanks to a judge; only the thought that Kash Patel will hopefully be a distant memory before the first shovelful is turned over makes the idea even halfway attractive. But Prince George's County has been shorted for decades on federal installations and, who knows, may be shorted again by the odious Supreme Court majority. Meanwhile, neighboring states feel the pinch as the effect of wholesale federal workforce sacking and federal budget cuts continue to whipsaw us too. Trump takes credit for falling drug prices that are actually traceable to a Biden initiative, and more and more little wars (according to several scholars) are starting to add up to one bigger one in ways we haven't got our heads around yet. Alas, it's News You Can Use.

If you’ve opened your utility bill lately and wondered, “Why is my bill so high?” you’re not alone. Families across Maryland are experiencing rate shock as electricity costs continue to climb, forcing many to make impossible choices between paying their utility bill and covering other household expenses.

The Memo will be posted here after the email version has been sent.