First Click -- Maryland

Your daily download of Maryland's top political news and analysis

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009:

Obama administration considers cutting off Chesapeake Bay funding, Dixon pleads not guilty and a stabbing death spells more trouble for Maryland prisons.

Dixon pleads not guilty, trial begins
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's corruption trial continues to be the top political saga this week in Maryland. On Monday, she pleaded not guilty to seven theft-related counts. The Baltimore Sun reports that prospective jurors whispered about Dixon possibly losing her job and pension. The AP reports Dixon had a one word answer about her first day in court: "interesting."

EPA proposes cutting funding, penalties in Chesapeake cleanup
"Trying to impose new accountability measures in the failing effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, the Obama administration is considering an odd-sounding threat: Stop missing deadlines for cleaning up polluted waterways, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would tell states in the bay watershed. Or we'll cut off funding," writes The Post's David Fahrenthold. "That idea, announced Monday in a new "draft strategy" for the Chesapeake, might sound as if the EPA is threatening to shoot itself in the foot. But it is at the heart of the Obama administration's plans to overhaul the failed cleanup of the Chesapeake, where federal and state governments have repeatedly broken promises to reduce pollution. EPA officials said this tactic, and other possible punishments announced Monday, are intended to erase the sense that deadlines mean little around the bay."

Latino civil rights groups sue Frederick County over immigration enforcement
LatinoJustice PRLDEF and Casa de Maryland say they will file suit in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt today alleging immigration and civil rights violations over the detention last year of a Salvadoran immigrant. Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins says LatinoJustice has left out some of the facts surrounding the arrest. Nicholas Stern has more details in the Frederick News-Post

More violence in Maryland prisons
State corrections officials say one inmate died and another was injured Sunday night in the Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover. The inmate was serving 5 years on a drug charge.

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