Cuts

Even moderate drinking before driving could become illegal if a federal safety panel's recommendation Tuesday is enacted eventually by the states. The National Transportation Safety Board recommended that states cut their thresholds for drunken driving by more than a third — from a blood-alcohol content of .08 percent to .05 percent — to reduce highway fatalities. A 180-pound man would reach 0.05 BAC by consuming three beers in one hour, according to a Wisconsin Department of Transportation online calculator.

St. Mary's College of Maryland has only locked in about two-thirds of the students it needs for a full freshman class next school year, a shortfall that could cost the public liberal arts school $3.5 million in lost tuition. Though the school's admissions department is trying to fill about 150 vacant spots, the president warned faculty and staff to prepare for budget cuts. "All of the numbers on this campus are small numbers, so this has a large impact," said President Joseph R. Urgo, who since becoming president in 2010 has revamped the school's admissions department.

In November, voters approved a major expansion of Maryland's gambling program on the promise that allowing table games and eventually building a sixth casino would ensure that the gambling dollars state residents spend would go toward funding education here and not in states like West Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania. This week, we got the first preliminary snapshot of how that bargain is working out, and it should give us some pause. The Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission reported its first set of figures since the Maryland Live Casino in Anne Arundel County added table games.

A city councilwoman is challenging Baltimore's plan to charge businesses some of the highest stormwater fees in the state - and divert some of the money that had gone to Chesapeake Bay cleanup to help fund property tax cuts. Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke says the Rawlings-Blake administration's stormwater plan would create a financial hardship for many local businesses. And Clarke and environmental groups object to raising revenue intended for pollution abatement to help pay for property tax relief.

Hiring for federal jobs in Maryland has fallen 30 percent since 2008, and for the first time in years is being outpaced by the number of employees retiring or resigning - a trend that has raised concerns among some about the government's ability to deliver services in the future. The rapid reduction in hiring at Maryland-based federal agencies, a consequence of tighter budgets, mirrors a national trend that analysts say is all but guaranteed to become more pronounced this year as agencies trim spending further under the across-the-board government cuts known as sequestration.

Maryland hospitals said they will need to cut jobs and patient services after a state panel voted Wednesday to keep hospital rates flat, despite a 2 percent cut in Medicare payments required by federal sequestration. "There are significant job cuts literally on the near-term horizon," Robert A. Chrencik, CEO of the University of Maryland Medical System told commissioners during a hearing before the vote. "I think folks need to be aware of that. " The 5-1 vote by the Health Services Cost Review Commission, which sets the state's hospital rates, effectively forces the hospitals to absorb the cut in Medicare reimbursement at a time when hospital margins are razor-thin.

A Northwestern High School student was cut across his right thumb on Thursday after an altercation with another student outside the school. According to Baltimore City Public Schools, a male and female student were teasing each other off school grounds at the corner of Fallstaff Road and Park Heights Avenue. The teasing escalated, school system spokeswoman Edie House-Foster said, and the female cut the male student across his right thumb. Baltimore City Public Schools police took the girl to the state Juvenile Services department while the boy was taken to Sinai Hospital and treated for a superficial cut, House-Foster said.

Nearly seven years after she admitted that she plotted to have her boss killed in his Glen Burnie office to cover up thefts from his dental practice, Shontay Joyner Hickman had her life sentence reduced Thursday to 40 years in prison for testifying against her cousin. The reduction, in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, was part of a sealed plea agreement in which Hickman, 38, of Baltimore, pleaded guilty last year to first-degree murder in the slaying of Dr. Albert Woonho Ro, who hailed from a family well-known in the area's Korean-American community.

The Sun's editorial board just does not get it ("Neuman's reckless veto," April 30). Maryland has been taxed to the hilt in the last seven years. There is nothing left to give. There have been 37 tax and fee increases. That is a failure of leadership here in Maryland. Constantly crowing about making budget cuts that never occurred is a failure of leadership. Perhaps, The Sun should stop pushing its progressive agenda and start being objective when it comes to the tax-and-spend ways of Annapolis.

Five air traffic control towers in Maryland that had been scheduled to shut down in June as a result of federal budget cuts are now expected to remain open, lawmakers said Wednesday — easing fears that the closures could back up flights at BWI Marshall Airport. A provision tucked into a high-profile bill approved by Congress last week to end furloughs of air traffic controllers — and the flight delays they caused — also leaves more than $30 million available for towers at 149 small airports nationwide, lawmakers said.