


In Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley is continuing a series of forums on a variety of topics before his inauguration later in January. Monday's focus is education.
O'Malley wants the state to improve job training programs and classes, particularly at the community college level. He says that can then help with the most pressing problem facing the state, which was discussed at his first forum in December on job creation.
"Sixty percent of employers in Maryland were reporting difficulties in finding skilled and trained employees for the jobs openings that they had. And they're not all sort of your Ph.D., big-brained, physicist sort of jobs," O'Malley says.
Funding new job training program will be difficult, as the state is facing a budget shortfall of close to $1.3 billion.
O'Malley adds the coming budget could be especially tough for education because he will not have federal stimulus money to spend, as he did the past two years. Much of the stimulus money went to restore school funding for local governments.
The new rules create a long-awaited regulatory framework for what has become a popular and industry made up of over 150 food trucks.
Thirteen first-time Democratic candidates said yesterday that they hoped to unseat Northern Virginia Republicans as part of a plan to get closer to a majority in the House of Delegates.

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