Nearly 150 bills signed into Maryland law, with some focusing on criminal justice reform
Maryland Gov. Moore signed nearly 150 bills into law Tuesday, including several that focus on criminal justice reform and improving public safety.
The latest round of new state laws comes after the governor signed 94 bills after the end of the 2025 legislative session in early April.
While the bills have been signed by the governor, many do not go into effect until later in the summer or fall of 2025.
New bills on criminal justice reform, public safety
Several of the bills signed into law this week focus on criminal justice and prison reform.
The Second Look Act gives convicted criminals a chance to request a shorter prison sentence if the crime occurred while they were between 18 and 25 years old.
The bill allows incarcerated individuals to request that their sentence be reduced if they meet certain criteria, like having served at least 20 years of their sentence.
Gov. Moore also signed SB181, which requires the Maryland Parole Commission to consider the age of an incarcerated person when deciding if they should be granted parole.
Another bill, HB775, requires the Commissioner of Corrections to notify certain representatives when an incarcerated person dies in a correctional facility. It also requires the Department of Public Safety and Correction Services to comply with certain federal regulations.
The Organized Retail Theft Act of 2025 was also signed into law this week. The bill cracks down on people who commit thefts in multiple counties in an effort to stay below Maryland's $1,500 theft threshold.
142 bills signed into law
Of the 142 bills that Gov. Moore signed Tuesday, some also focus on the rising use of Artificial Intelligence, like HB956, which creates a workgroup to monitor and make recommendations about the regulation of AI.
Another bill, SB305, focuses on the rise of cryptocurrency. The bill establishes requirements for virtual currency kiosk operators and allows the Commissioner of Financial Regulation to investigate and enforce those requirements.
Here are some of the other bills that were signed into law this week:
Buddy's Law increases the amount of compensation from $10,000 to $25,000 for the owner of a pet that was injured or killed by another person or pet.
The Maryland Secondary Market Stability Act establishes a workgroup to study and make recommendations about licensing requirements for those who provide financial services.
SB186 establishes the Invasive Blue Catfish Pilot Program to slow the spread of the blue catfish in the Chesapeake Bay.
SB550 authorizes Baltimore City leaders to impose a property tax on vacant and abandoned properties owned by certain organizations that would otherwise be exempt.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
GOP unveils new weapon to help slash billions in government waste as Republicans rally behind Trump's plan
Congressional Republicans are racing to harness the momentum left behind by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and the leaders of a new House GOP initiative are hoping they have the solution. "You tell people the word 'rescission,' in my district, I'm sure that polls pretty low, but they know waste, they know fraud, and they know abuse," Rep. Riley Moore, told Fox News Digital. "This is why this process needs to be not only explained to our own members, but also to the population out here that might not know what the heck a rescission is, but know that they want the wasteful spending to end." Moore is leading the Republican Study Committee's (RSC) new task force, aimed at getting both fellow House Republicans and the American public on board with the GOP on a mechanism for spending cuts known as rescissions. House Gop Targets Another Dem Official Accused Of Blocking Ice Rescissions proposals are requests from the White House for cuts to funding already approved by Congress in the current fiscal year. Read On The Fox News App Once submitted to Capitol Hill, lawmakers have 45 days to pass the proposal, or it is considered rejected. The House is voting on the first of what Republican leaders hope are several such proposals this week – President Donald Trump sent Congress a request to cut $9.4 billion in funding to PBS, NPR and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The $9.4 billion figure is part of a larger $180 billion sum of waste that Musk said his DOGE efforts had uncovered. RSC Chair August Pfluger, R-Texas, said Moore "is able to educate our members, work with the White House, liaise directly with [the Office of Management and Budget], talk to leadership, voice the conservative concerns… and to dispel myth and speak truth." Pfluger's 189-member RSC serves as a de facto conservative think tank of sorts for the House GOP. It's a natural extension of the group's work to focus on how to message government spending cuts, particularly while Democrats are accusing the GOP of trying to rip away critical programs. Pfluger and Moore signaled the task force's most immediate goal will be easing concerns of moderate Republicans who may be wary of the $9.4 billion spending cut plan. With just a razor-thin majority, House GOP leaders can afford no more than three defections to pass legislation along party lines. "If members do have problems, the conservative conscience of our conference, RSC, can help them understand why it's important to vote on it. And that's what Riley is going to do," Pfluger said. Both suggested they would like to see future rescissions packages, but would not go into detail about what could be cut. Moore noted he was on the Appropriations Committee, the keepers of the House's purse strings, and that there were ongoing conversations between members of that panel and the White House about identifying future rollbacks. And both Pfluger and Moore said they were undaunted by Musk's somewhat dramatic departure from the federal government – insisting the public was still behind the idea of DOGE, even without the Tesla billionaire at the forefront. Mccaul Touts Money In Trump Tax Bill To Pay Texas Back For Fighting Biden Border Policies "I don't think the mainstream media is covering that aspect of it, because they want to talk about this breakup between the president and Elon Musk, but the president said as recently as today that he still believes in what he did," Pfluger said. Moore added, "Media cycles moved extraordinarily fast. I think obviously there was a lot of excitement when it was first announced. But I can tell you when I'm doing Lincoln Day dinners and going around the counties in West Virginia, they're still acutely focused on this. I hear from folks all the time… it is very much the average American still wants to see this happen." "I think they're, you know, they're just waiting for us to do the right thing," Moore article source: GOP unveils new weapon to help slash billions in government waste as Republicans rally behind Trump's plan
CNBC
17 hours ago
- CNBC
Huawei chips are one generation behind U.S. but firm finding workarounds, CEO says
Huawei Technologies' chips are one generation behind those of U.S. peers but the firm is finding ways to improve performance through methods such as cluster computing, Chinese state media quoted CEO Ren Zhengfei as saying on Tuesday. The chipmaker invests 180 billion yuan ($25.07 billion) in research annually and sees promise in compound chips — chips made from multiple elements — Ren said in an interview with the People's Daily newspaper of the governing Communist Party. There is "no need to worry about the chip problem", Ren said, addressing concerns stemming from U.S. export controls. The article, published on the front page of the newspaper, comes as top U.S. and Chinese officials are set to resume trade talks for a second day in London, where topics such as U.S. tech restrictions on China are expected to be discussed. Since 2019, a slew of U.S. export curbs, aimed at curbing China's technological and military advancements, have restricted Huawei and other Chinese firms from accessing high-end chips and the equipment needed to produce them from abroad. Ren's comments are the first ever from him or Huawei about the company's advanced chipmaking efforts, which have become a flashpoint in U.S.-China tensions. Huawei is just one of many Chinese chipmakers, Ren said in the interview, adding: "The United States has exaggerated Huawei's achievements. Huawei is not that great. We have to work hard to reach their evaluation." "Our single chip is still behind the U.S. by a generation. We use mathematics to supplement physics, non-Moore's law to supplement Moore's law and cluster computing to supplement single chips and the results can also achieve practical conditions. Software is not a bottleneck for us," he said. Cluster computing is when multiple computers work together. Moore's law refers to the speed of chip advancement. Huawei's Ascend series of AI chips competes in China with offerings from Nvidia, the global leader in AI chips. The U.S. Commerce Department last month said the use of Ascend chips would be a violation of export controls. Nvidia's AI chips are more powerful than Huawei's, but the company has been barred by Washington from selling its most sophisticated chips to China, causing it to lose significant market share to Huawei. In April, Huawei launched "AI CloudMatrix 384", a system that links 384 Ascend 910C chips in a cluster that companies can use to train AI models, which has been described by analysts as able to outperform Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 system on some metrics. Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an article that month that it meant that Huawei and China now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia. Nvidia and the U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ren's remarks. Ren also said about a third of Huawei's annual research spending went to theoretical research, while the rest was spent on product research and development. "Without theory, there will be no breakthroughs, and we will not catch up with the United States."
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Yahoo
Huawei chips are one generation behind US but firm finding workarounds, CEO says
By Brenda Goh BEIJING (Reuters) -Huawei Technologies' chips are one generation behind those of U.S. peers but the firm is finding ways to improve performance through methods such as cluster computing, Chinese state media quoted CEO Ren Zhengfei as saying on Tuesday. The chipmaker invests 180 billion yuan ($25.07 billion) in research annually and sees promise in compound chips - chips made from multiple elements - Ren said in an interview with the People's Daily newspaper of the governing Communist Party. There is "no need to worry about the chip problem", Ren said, addressing concerns stemming from U.S. export controls. The article, published on the front page of the newspaper, come as top U.S. and Chinese officials are set to resume trade talks for a second day in London where topics such U.S. tech restrictions on China are expected to be discussed. Since 2019, a slew of U.S. export curbs, aimed at curbing China's technological and military advancements, have restricted Huawei and other Chinese firms from accessing high-end chips and the equipment needed to produce them from abroad. Ren's comments are the first ever from him or Huawei about the company's advanced chipmaking efforts, which have become a flashpoint in U.S.-China tensions. Huawei is just one of many Chinese chipmakers, Ren said in the interview, adding: "The United States has exaggerated Huawei's achievements. Huawei is not that great. We have to work hard to reach their evaluation." "Our single chip is still behind the U.S. by a generation. We use mathematics to supplement physics, non-Moore's law to supplement Moore's law and cluster computing to supplement single chips and the results can also achieve practical conditions. Software is not a bottleneck for us," he said. Cluster computing is when multiple computers work together. Moore's law refers to the speed of chip advancement. HUAWEI'S LAUNCHES Huawei's Ascend series of AI chips compete in China with offerings from Nvidia, the global leader in AI chips. The U.S. commerce department last month said the use of Ascend chips would be a violation of export controls. Nvidia's AI chips are more powerful than Huawei's but the company has been barred by Washington from selling its most sophisticated chips to China, causing it to lose significant market share to Huawei. In April, Huawei launched "AI CloudMatrix 384", a system that links 384 Ascend 910C chips in a cluster that companies can use to train AI models, which has been described by analysts as able to outperform Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 system on some metrics. Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an article that month that it meant that Huawei and China now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia. Nvidia and the U.S. commerce department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ren's remarks. Ren also said about a third of Huawei's annual research spending went to theoretical research while the rest was spent on product research and development. "Without theory, there will be no breakthroughs, and we will not catch up with the United States." ($1 = 7.1802 Chinese yuan)
