By Steve Crane | Editor-in-chief
“Moving forward, there will be marriages here. There will be proposals here. There will be first hikes here. There will be first campsites here. There will be first s'mores here. And I think those are the kind of things that leave a lasting indelible mark on people.” - Maryland Department of Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz, at opening ceremonies for Savage Highlands, the newest state park, in Garrett County.
You seemed to love the yurt story last fall, so we lead off today’s newsletters with more yurts. Along with the ongoing fight over federalizing elections and the long fight of Harford County Council member to regain his seat, which appears to have come to an end.
Four luxury yurts are open, along with primitive campsites, at Maryland’s newest state park, Savage Highands near Frostburg. The state has plans for more improvements at the park, which until last year was a private, rustic ski resort, including improvements to the lodge and cabins. Christine Condon has that story.
The Supreme Court handed a win to President Donald Trump in his push for greater federal control over elections, saying a plan for the U.S. Postal Service to set new rules for mail-in ballots can proceed for now, with just over two months to the election. Two dozen Democratic jurisdictions, including Maryland, had sued to block the plan, as Ashley Murray reports.
Former Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie, removed from his post after pleading no contest to a felony theft charge, has been fighting a legal battle to get his seat back, but that appears to have come to an end with the Maryland Supreme Court’s refusal to hear his appeal, as Bryan P. Sears reports.
Those stories and more headlines are below to ease you into your Tuesday. Enjoy!
Four of the eight yurts at the new Savage Highlands State Park will be available to rent through October, after which they will likely close for the season and reopen in 2027. (Photo by Christine Condon/Maryland Matters)
By Christine Condon
The yurts are open for business.
On Friday, the gates will officially open on Maryland’s newest state park, Savage Highlands, unlocking some 55,000 acres of Western Maryland woodlands outside of Frostburg for public use, free of charge. Online bookings are already open for overnight stays at four small but luxurious yurts — at a cost of about $200 per night — as well as $20-a-night primitive campsites along the property’s hiking trails, complete with a fire ring, picnic table and bear-proof storage container.
Once a privately held vacation resort called Savage River Lodge, anchored by a rustic ski lodge with its own restaurant, the facility used to be geared toward adults, advertising romantic getaways for couples and even charging added fees for children to tag along. But the state park service is determined to welcome families. In other words, out with the loveseats and in with the sofa beds.
For now, the yurts and campsites are open for bookings through the end of October. The state plans to close them over the winter due to the bumpy condition of the steep gravel road entering the property, which the state is hoping to repair. State parks officials say even more improvements are in the works at Savage Highlands, which they hope will become a hub for visitors to other nearby state lands, including nearby Savage River State Forest, New Germany State Park and Dan's Mountain Wildlife Management Area.
Absentee ballots are prepared to be mailed at the Wake County Board of Elections on September 17, 2024 in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
By Ashley Murray
With just over two months until the November midterms, the U.S. Supreme Court gave way Monday for President Donald Trump to have a hand in regulating mail-in ballots nationwide, a voting method he has falsely claimed is rife with corruption since he lost the 2020 presidential election.
In an unsigned emergency docket opinion, the court’s conservative majority wrote the Trump administration is likely to prevail on its argument that 23 Democratic-led states, including Maryland, do not have standing to stop his executive order to change how the U.S. Postal Service processes mail-in ballots. The majority also wrote that a lower court’s injunction is “causing irreparable harm,” but left open the possibility that the executive order could still be considered unconstitutional.
The March 31 executive order at the heart of the case in part directs USPS to direct the redesign of mail-in ballot envelopes, including adding a unique barcode. It also asks USPS to collect voters’ names and addresses from state elections officials and directs the U.S. Justice Department to investigate and prosecute state officials who violate the order.
In a lengthy dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the ruling “needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections…. States administering elections and the voting public that relies on them to do so deserve clarity, not caginess or confusion.”
Then-Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie (D), who lost his seat after pleading no contest in 2024 to felony theft charges. The Supreme Court of Maryland on Friday declined to hear his appeal of his removal from office. (File photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
By Bryan P. Sears
A former Harford County Councilman is not backing down from claims he was wrongfully removed from office after entering a no contest plea to felony theft charges, even after the Maryland Supreme Court rejected his case Friday.
The high court's decision ends the nearly two-year effort by Dion Guthrie, a Democrat, to overturn his removal from office. Guthrie was removed in 2024 after pleading nolo contendere to felony theft charges from the union where he was a longtime officer. The plea, under the Maryland Constitution, triggered his immediate removal from office "by operation of law."
Doug Gansler, a former Maryland attorney general who represented Guthrie on appeal, called the court's refusal to hear the case "stunning."
"The decision below is so clearly wrong," Gansler said Monday. It only takes three of the seven justices on the high court to agree to hear an appeal. And while there could be a request for reconsideration, Gansler acknowledged "it's the end of the case."
While his appeal was pending, Guthrie ran for his old seat but lost the June primary by 29 points to Nolanda Robert, who had been picked by the county Democratic Central Committee to replace Guthrie in January 2025.
IN OTHER NEWS
No more ‘hypothetical situations’: State Democratic officials are preparing for chaos at the polls this November, as President Donald Trump continues to cast doubt on election security and push for more federal involvement in local voting..
Measles outbreak declared in three counties: Maryland is declaring a measles outbreak in St. Mary's, Carroll and Cecil counties as cases continue to rise across the state, highlighting the importance of getting immunized, health experts say.
Former Prince George’s Councilmember Tom Hendershot dies: Thomas Hendershot, a former Democratic Prince George’s County school board member, county council member and basketball coach, died Aug. 18. He was 82.
MATTERS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
Latino student enrollment drops: Hispanic enrollment in Maryland public schools began to decline during the last school year, the first year of the Trump administration, after growing at an average rate of 4.7% a year since pandemic-era lows.
Violent crime continues to plunge: Violent crime in the U.S. fell by an estimated 9.3% in 2025, marking the largest year-to-year decline in the national violent crime rate since the FBI began estimating crime in 1936, according to new national data.
Surge in sturgeon: Last fall on Marshyhope Creek, biologists found six female sturgeon that looked ready to spawn, surprising biologists who thought it had vanished from the waterway. Sturgeon have long provided surprises, including the fact that they still exist.
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