Governors Maryland

In a victory for death penalty opponents, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening commuted the sentence of a death row inmate to life without parole, saying he was not certain of the man's guilt. Eugene Colvin-El, convicted of stabbing Lena Buckman 28 times with a kitchen knife on her 82nd birthday in 1980, had exhausted his court appeals and was to die by lethal injection next week. But death penalty opponents around the world stepped up a campaign to prevent the execution .

In a victory for death penalty opponents, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening commuted the sentence of a death row inmate to life without parole, saying he was not certain of the man's guilt. Eugene Colvin-El, convicted of stabbing Lena Buckman 28 times with a kitchen knife on her 82nd birthday in 1980, had exhausted his court appeals and was to die by lethal injection next week. But death penalty opponents around the world stepped up a campaign to prevent the execution .

With the political pounding William D. Schaefer has absorbed since granting clemency to eight battered women who killed or assaulted their mates, other U.S. governors probably are wondering: Is it worth it? But critics of the Maryland governor say a better question may be: Do I know enough about these women's cases to release them from prison? In fact, the experience of Schaefer and former Ohio Gov.

With the political pounding William D. Schaefer has absorbed since granting clemency to eight battered women who killed or assaulted their mates, other U.S. governors probably are wondering: Is it worth it? But critics of the Maryland governor say a better question may be: Do I know enough about these women's cases to release them from prison? In fact, the experience of Schaefer and former Ohio Gov.

The population of the three-state Chesapeake Bay region will soar 20% by the year 2020 and the amount of developed land will increase 59%, accelerating environmental threats to the fragile estuary, an advisory panel named by state governors predicted. The panel, suggesting still more strong action to protect the bay, delivered its report shortly after the governors of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania and federal and Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's affirmation of same-sex marriage sets up four state battles over gay unions as important tests of whether his stand - and changing public perceptions - will combine to reverse a long string of defeats at the ballot box. Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state are expected to decide in November whether to allow gay marriage. Despite growing public support for such unions, opponents have won almost every time the question has come before voters.

Grass-roots environmental groups are urging newly elected political leaders to take seriously the task of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay or risk losing it as a thriving ecosystem. River-protection advocates representing Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., have signed a Declaration for Our Watersheds, which calls on state and federal officials to honor cleanup commitments outlined in the Chesapeake 2000 pact.

In the Capitol courtyard where Arnold Schwarzenegger once puffed cigars, Gov. Jerry Brown sits in the fall breeze sipping coffee, munching almonds and holding marathon study sessions on hundreds of bills. One catches his eye: a bid to legalize the stuffing and exhibition of dead mountain lions. He OKs it, even as he scoffs with the weariness of a headmaster convinced his students haven't learned much. "This presumably important bill earned overwhelming support by both Republicans and Democrats," Brown writes in his signing message.

As bad as California's budget crisis is for the state's $1.8-trillion economy, just wait. It could get worse. The spectacle that played out in the national media this week of a state unable to get its fiscal act together is reinforcing the notion that the Golden State is a rotten place to do business, experts say.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Hundreds of thousands of people were told to flee low-lying areas, New York and Washington shut down their subways, federal offices and local schools closed, and presidential candidates curtailed their campaigning as Hurricane Sandy roared ever closer to the Eastern Seaboard on Sunday, promising epic storm surges, howling winds and drenching rain across much of the Mid-Atlantic region and Northeast. Facing the fury of a storm system nearly 1,000 miles wide, at least five states declared emergencies.

Susan Bustamante was a credit officer in a bank, Glenda Virgil a veterinarian's assistant, Brenda Clubine a nurse. They never knew each other--or that they had so much in common--until they killed their husbands. They met in the California Institution for Women at Frontera, where they continue to meet, along with 34 others, in a support group for battered women.