John C. Astle

Another summer, another agonizing season of Bay Bridge traffic. Admired, cursed and studied, Maryland's sole Chesapeake Bay crossing is being eyeballed again as state engineers try to determine how many years remain in its girders and suspension...

Motorists in Maryland could be pulled over and ticketed for driving while talking on hand-held phones even if they weren't breaking another law under legislation that is poised for final passage in the General Assembly. The Senate voted 40-6 Monday to...

The Maryland legislature recently voted to abolish capital punishment in the state, making Maryland the sixth state in the last six years to eliminate the death penalty. The primary argument for repealing the law is that our justice system is...

State Sen. Allan Kittleman is torn. When lobbied by the ACLU and the NAACP to repeal Maryland's death penalty, Kittleman asks how he can ensure the most heinous murderers will never kill again. When approached by fellow senators or state's attorneys...

As of New Year's Day, arsenic is officially off the menu for Maryland chickens. The nation's first statewide ban on the use of additives in chicken feed containing the toxic metal is among a dozen new state laws that take effect Jan. 1. The new civil...

Democratic members of the Maryland Senate  caucused Wednesday morning  in Annapolis, apparently summoned by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller to discuss the prospects for special sessions of the General Assembly this year. More than half the members...

A bill that would have let gas utilities seek a surchage of up to $2 a month on customers' bill was shot down -- for a second time --  Wednesday by a bipartisan coalition of senators who contended the measure would let monopolies charge ratepayers up...

 A bill that would ban smoking in vehicles occupied by children under 8 survived an attempt to love it to death on the Senate floor Friday morning as proponents managed to reverse the vote on an amendment that probably would have doomed the legislation....

Some tourists came for gelato. One couple lunched on raw oysters. And a woman hovered near a display of half-pound jumbo lump crab cakes, pointing to a companion and saying, "Oh, my God." As the historic Annapolis Market House reopened Monday amid a...

Baltimore County senators rebuffed an effort to abolish Maryland's death penalty yesterday, persuading lawmakers instead to restrict when capital punishment can be used. The Senate's first full debate on the death penalty in more than three decades was...

State police officials tried yesterday to reassure critics in the General Assembly that Maryland's emergency medical transport system was in capable hands despite a recent audit detailing numerous maintenance and management deficiencies at the police-...

Gov. Martin O'Malley's push to end the death penalty in Maryland would probably fall short if a legislative vote were held today, even though the governor insisted yesterday that the repeal effort "has a real shot this year." A Baltimore Sun survey of...