With session abbreviated by coronavirus, Md. lawmakers speed through 500 bills

With session abbreviated by coronavirus, Md. lawmakers speed through 500 bills

The last day of a historic session of the Maryland General Assembly began with a long line at the hand-sanitizing station.

Working with a skeleton crew, in conditions that defied social distancing guidelines, Maryland’s 188 lawmakers passed about 500 bills in a matter of days this week and adjourned nearly three weeks early while the Maryland National Guard was stationed outside.

The legislature rushed to secure the top priorities of the Democratic majority: a package of tax increases that targets the digital economy, new laws to help cushion an expected virus-related economic freefall, and a curtailed version of a top-to-bottom revamp of public schools that was more than three years in the making. [Washington Post]

Parrot Foundation missing a cockatoo

The Wilson Parrot Foundation in Damascus is missing a male Galah Cockatoo named Sydney.

The foundation was opened in 1996 by Brian Wilson, a retired firefighter known as a “bird whisperer,” a year after he got in a serious car accident and was rehabilitated by parrots who helped him walk and talk again.

Wilson believes Sydney, who has never flown before, either got out of the house when no one was looking or someone took the bird. [Montgomery Community Media]

Deadline for paying income taxes extended