Progress

When it was built a century ago, Baltimore's Pennsylvania Station was embraced as a new gateway to the city. The elaborate Beaux-Arts building announced Baltimore's significance to the nation and anticipated serving generations of travelers to come. Today, it remains an important passenger rail station, not only for Amtrak but for MARC commuter rail customers, most of whom are headed to and from the nation's capital. But its magnificent architecture suggests it's more historic than inviting.

We at the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative are thrilled that the O'Malley Administration continues to make our state the lead dog in the pack implementing the Affordable Care Act. As with the previous two years, we are once again the envy of states across the nation with this year's bill, the Maryland Health Progress Act of 2013 (SB 274/HB 228). This bill will help complete a three year process to ensure that hundreds of thousands of Marylanders that formally had little to no access to quality, affordable health care now have options that have never existed before.

No. 9 Johns Hopkins has enjoyed a 5-1 start in which the team has outscored its opponents by an average of 8.0 goals in the wins; the only hiccup was an 11-8 loss to Princeton on March 1. Saturday's road contest against No. 10 Syracuse (3-1) will be a measuring stick of the Blue Jays' development since that setback to the Tigers, coach Dave Pietramala said. “I would say that this is an opportunity to see how we've grown since we've kind of started this,” he said Wednesday.

Orioles outfielder Nolan Reimold, who left Friday's game against the Pirates after just two innings with a sore right shoulder, said his throwing shoulder is feeling better. Showalter said he hopes to have Reimold DH on Tuesday against the Blue Jays in Dunedin. Reimold said he hasn't hit since the injury and has given his whole upper body time off. He's optimistic he can return to the lineup Tuesday following Monday's off day. “I had a lot of time off,” Reimold said. “I had neck surgery.

Junior attackman Thomas DeNapoli's fourth goal of the game with 64 seconds left in overtime propelled Towson to a 9-8 decision over Mercer last Sunday - an outcome that netted the team its first win of the season. But the Tigers (1-3) didn't get much aid from their faceoff specialists. Freshmen Conor Pequigney and Zack Gregory and junior Austin Lyons combined to win just 8-of-20 draws. Pequigney's 1-of-3 outing was especially surprising considering his 10-of-23 effort in a 14-9 loss to then-No.

It didn't take long for the talk at this week's national work-life conference in Baltimore to turn to Yahoo Inc. The Internet company's new ban on employees working from home has proved wildly unpopular with working mothers who had expected more support from CEO Marissa Mayer, a new mother herself. And during this week's conference, some professionals who help companies achieve workplace flexibility called the decision a misguided solution to a struggling company's woes. Experts wondered whether progress in the workplace is being eroded, not just for working parents, but for all workers trying to cross the increasingly blurred lines between work and home life.

I can only hope that the scourge of racism is finally purged from Stewartstown and Pinkham's Grant. These are two of 10 New Hampshire towns covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires local officials to get permission, or "preclearance," on any changes to their election laws. Stewartstown has just over a thousand souls in it and is 99 percent white. In 1970, when it was put under the authority of Section 5, the census listed two blacks out of its 1,008 residents.

The independent watchdog agency that oversees Maryland's Department of Juvenile Services recently released a report showing the state made important progress last year toward improving conditions for youths held in its three largest juvenile detention facilities. That's good news given the years of problems the system has encountered with overcrowding, incidents of violence, high staff turnover and aging facilities. Now the state needs to build on those gains by replicating the successful programs at its largest institutions in smaller facilities statewide.

Checks will arrive on time, but nearly every other task the Social Security Administration performs - from answering phones to determining eligibility for claims - will be delayed if Congress fails to stop steep federal budget cuts from taking effect this week, officials warned Monday. The Woodlawn-based agency is bracing for a cut of roughly 8 percent to its $11.5 billion budget if Congress does not avert the government-wide reductions known as sequestration. Officials say the cuts would leave people who call the agency's hotline on hold for 10 minutes and delay some disability decisions by a month.

For 30 years, the Chesapeake Bay Program - a partnership including the six bay states, the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies - has been measuring and assessing the bay's health and working to restore the ecosystem. In many of those years, the health findings were troubling. This year, as we release our annual Bay Barometer summarizing the bay's condition and our restoration progress, there remain many results related to water quality that reinforce our need for continued action.