News You Can Use: D.C. troops dent everyday life, MD worries about spillover

News_You_Can_Use_graphic_(2).png One of Maryland's intractable problems -- the shortage of affordable housing and the (therefore) increasing rental hikes across the state -- got tackled by Gov. Moore in his keynote speech at the Maryland Association of Counties meeting last week. It'll be a heavy lift for the state government and private sources to provide more "social housing" but that is emphatically what is needed, and our regular readers should not let him or others off the hook. The private sector is not going to pull this load by itself -- it is not actually in its interest.

Maryland (with the help of its judiciary, which Trump has come to hate) is fending off some of the worst of Trump's assault on human freedoms -- but it's a constant battle, also being fought by some other states.

It's all News You Can Use.

HERE IN MARYLAND

Moore Vows Fresh Action on Housing Affordability: Gov. Wes Moore told a gathering of county leaders Saturday that he is preparing to take action that he said will ease the cost of housing by spurring new projects. “We must go faster on affordable housing,” Moore told an audience of county leaders and state Cabinet officials as he delivered the traditional speech to close out the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City. Housing has been a priority for the governor, but a bill that was part of his legislative priorities was derailed in the 2025 legislative session -- in part because of opposition from MACo, the association that represents governments in the state’s 24 major political subdivisions. Maryland Matters

Court: Portion Of State Digital Ad Tax Violates Constitution: A provision in Maryland’s digital ad tax is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The 2021 law — the first of its kind in the nation — imposes taxes on large tech companies for the digital ads they sell within the state. But it also prohibits those companies from passing the tax on to consumers as a surcharge, fee or line item on their bills — what a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saw as a ban on telling customers about the new added tax. Maryland Matters.

Covid-19 Cases Surge As Summer Ends: COVID-19 hospitalizations in Maryland are up 123% over the last two weeks, the most hospitalizations in a month since April. While the state has typically seen a surge in COVID-19 cases during summer, this one is coming later than usual. Baltimore Sun.

Hoyer, Olszewski Meet With Netanyahu, Urge Him To End War: Two members of Maryland’s congressional delegation returned from Israel last Thursday after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pressing him to end the war and address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Baltimore Sun.

‘I Am Asking You To Resist’: Officials Plead With Ice Agent During Panel Discussion: What started as a discussion on the various arms of immigration enforcement nearly spiraled into a shouting match last Thursday as advocates and some elected officials pleaded with a federal agent to “be kinder” when interacting with the immigration community. Maryland Matters.

Fed Cuts To Close Snap-Ed Program, Counties Seen As Possible Lifeline: A program in Maryland that helps low-income students and families lead healthy lives through increased food access, nutrition education and physical activity has turned to local governments for funding after federal cuts have jeopardized its future. Aegis.

Former Federal Workers Help Fill Teachers Shortage: When the Trump administration gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development, Ethan Taylor knew the writing was on the wall for his USAID-funded job at the Department of the Interior. Now Taylor is one of 18 participants in an accelerated teacher training program in Montgomery County, which is attracting former federal workers in droves in the wake of government workforce reductions. Baltimore Sun.

Americorps Support in MD Takes Big Hit. The Trump administration abruptly canceled nearly $400 million in active AmeriCorps grants across the United States that fund volunteers who embed in communities, in exchange for a small stipend and education award. AmeriCorps — and its nonprofit partners — are now assessing the damage and seeking a way forward. AmeriCorps programs that survived last spring’s DOGE cuts are slowly beginning a new year of service amid major uncertainty over whether they will be able to continue their work in classrooms, food banks, senior centers and other community hubs. Maryland Matters

Judge Blocks Trump From Cutting College Diversity Programs: In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland found that the Education Department violated the law when it threatened to cut federal funding from educational institutions that continued with DEI initiatives. Associated Press/Baltimore Banner.

Fed Judge Denies Perdue’s Request To Stay Salisbury PFAS Lawsuit, Dismisses Two Counts: A United States District Court judge has denied Perdue Farms’ request to fully dismiss or stay a class action lawsuit against the company over PFAS, or “forever chemicals.” Delmarva Now. >>After a federal judge blocked Perdue Farms’ attempt to dismiss a class-action lawsuit over PFAS pollution from its Salisbury facility, the company and the plaintiffs are beginning to chart a way forward. Baltimore Sun.

‘Indefinite Lockdowns’ Keep Prisoners In Nearly 24 Hour Confinement: The Prisoner Rights Information System of Maryland, which provides legal aid to state prisoners, wrote the state attorney general and corrections secretary last week to “raise urgent concern about the constitutional crisis unfolding” in the prison system, particularly at facilities on the Eastern Shore and in the Hagerstown area. Baltimore Banner.

Mo Co Worries About Homelessness Rise If Trump Cracks Down On DC Encampments: Montgomery County leaders are bracing for a possible increase in homeless residents, as President Donald Trump orders law enforcement agencies to crack down on homeless encampments across Washington, D.C. Maryland Matters.

And Right Next Door: A more than 25% decline in restaurant reservations hit Washington, D.C., in the days following the Trump administration’s moves to take over the city’s police department, according to OpenTable data. Every other major American city, except Las Vegas, has seen restaurant reservations increase this month. (WUSA) via Pluribus

Maryland ranks third in July number of foreclosures behind Nevada, Florida: 1 in 2,326 housing units in Nevada received a foreclosure notice in July, the highest rate in the nation. Florida, Maryland, South Carolina and Illinois rounded out the top five. Florida ranks second behind Nevada, with proceedings initiated in July on one in every 2,420 units in that state, up 12% from June and 27% from July 2024. Maryland (one in every 2,566 housing units with a foreclosure filing), South Carolina (one in 2,588), and Illinois (one in 2,722) round out the top five states. (Nevada Current) via Pluribus

THE OTHER 49

Americans are moving between cities at historically low rates, with drastic consequences for the country’s economy and politics. Experts worry the lack of internal migration may put the country’s historic dynamism at risk: [Wall Street Journal] More people are keeping their homes, and their jobs, resulting in fewer opportunities for younger ones. Some smaller cities are trying to address the issue by offering bonuses to lure remote workers, hoping to help reverse a longrunning brain drain. The US was characterized by moves toward opportunity, but a recent book by the historian Yoni Appelbaum argues that “a country that once made it possible for its people to move freely and chase a better life has steadily strangled that mobility over time.”[Bloomberg News via Semafor

Florida’s new line of business in immigration detention facilities hit a hiccup as the state GOP labeled one new moneymaker too casually: “the Florida GOP retreated from selling “The Deport Depot” merch after the Home Depot objected to its branding being used, WaPo’s Marie-Rose Sheinerman reports. POLITICO Playbook

IMMIGRATION: The federal Department of Justice has sent letters to 32 sanctuary states and cities threatening to take action unless those jurisdictions repeal policies barring law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities. Exactly what legal action the federal government could take is unclear. (Oregonian) via Pluribus

SPECIAL EDUCATION: The Minnesota Department of Education notified Minneapolis Public Schools that it has violated state and federal law by overidentifying Black students in the category of “developmental cognitive disability” for the past three years, the Minnesota Reformer reports. The notification is part of an annual review process conducted by the state, as required by federal law, to determine what’s known as “disproportionality” in special education. Stateline daily

SOCIAL MEDIA: A coalition of tech companies has sued Colorado in federal court over a law that requires social media companies to display warning labels to young users over the impacts of use on brain development and physical and mental health. The companies allege the law requires them to speak in an unconstitutional manner. (Denver Post) via Pluribus

Trump’s bid to support coal could cost ratepayers billions, report finds: Keeping retiring coal plants online could prove expensive, the analysis backed by environmental groups said. Mandates from President Donald Trump’s administration to retain aging coal plants could cause a massive spike in energy costs, according to an independent analysis commissioned by several environmental groups. Orders from the U.S. Department of Energy to save coal plants from retirement could cost ratepayers more than $3 billion per year, according to a report from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm. [PJM region, which includes Maryland, would incur $731 million extra costs due to retained use of coal-fire power, the report shows]. Stateline

GLOBAL, NATIONAL AND THE FEDS

Trump wants states to feed voter info into powerful citizenship data program: Republicans are laser-focused on purging noncitizens from voter rolls.

The Trump administration is developing a powerful data tool it claims will let states identify noncitizens registered to vote. But Democratic critics and data experts warn it could allow the federal government to vacuum up vast quantities of information on Americans for unclear purposes. Stateline

But the Data We Really Need – and Paid For – is Vanishing

People rely on data from federal agencies every day – often without realizing it.

Rural residents use groundwater level data from the U.S. geological survey’s National Water Information System to decide where to dig wells. High school coaches turn to weather apps supported by data from the National Weather Service to decide when to move practice inside to avoid life-threatening heat. Emergency managers use data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to ensure that residents without vehicles have seats on evacuation buses during local emergencies. But on Jan. 31, 2025, websites and datasets from across the federal government began to disappear. As that happened, archivists and researchers from around the world sprang into action, grabbing what they could before it was gone. The Conversation

Trump’s move to sanitize US history gets little support with national park visitors: Public comments show that a crackdown on signs ‘disparaging’ Americans is not popular -- As part of his administration’s war on “woke”, Donald Trump has asked the American public to report anything “negative” about Americans in US national parks. But the public has largely refused to support a world view without inconvenient historical facts, comments submitted from national parks and seen by the Guardian show. The Guardian (UK)

Union-Buster in Chief: Trump has surpassed Reagan in his war on workers’ rights.

Until now, the go-to example of a president using his power to try to destroy unions and set back the labor movement was Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981. That move threw 11,000 dedicated workers who kept Americans safe and flight paths clear out of their jobs. It declared open season on workers who exercised their fundamental rights to improve their working conditions, sending a message to private employers that they, too, could fight worker organizing drives, break strikes, and undermine workers’ rights. And its impact—a decades-long decline in union density and workers’ bargaining power—reverberated throughout the 1980s, ’90s, and into this century.

Donald Trump has taken that playbook and weaponized it for his own War on Workers. It wasn’t enough for him to use his Department of Government Efficiency (creating inefficiencies wherever it went) to put nearly 150,000 federal employees out of work. It wasn’t enough for his administration to traumatize its own employees and threaten them with criminal prosecution for talking to the media, and even to family and friends, about what was happening to workers inside the federal government. Now, the Trump administration has stripped workers of their unions at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). At 430,000 workers, this is by far the single biggest employer-imposed contract abrogation in American history. The American Prospect

ALSO What Trump’s decertification of federal employee unions means: The Trump administration moved ahead last week with its plans to void the collective bargaining agreements covering hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The labor movement appears largely quiescent in the face of this historic union busting. Jacobin

It’s The Stupid Economy: Trump Tariffs have just begun to show up in store-shelf retail prices, but people are already paying attention to the cause-and-effect cycle as businesses show they are not willing to “eat the tariffs” (as Trump has demanded. We say “ It’s the Stupid Economy” – here’s the public opinion data story from Pew research. (Pew)

People's Action executive director Sulma Arias has a warning and some guidance about the increasingly authoritatian trend of the Trump administration in "The Rider and the Horse" -- "History shows us there is a fast and slippery road from the loss of freedoms to the overreach of power. If we allow our rights to be stripped away, we lose far more than we gain.

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