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  1. Home Delivery - When it comes to giving birth, some say there’s no place like home

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    BY RITA RUBIN Workers finished remodeling Leslie Stone’s master bath less than 24 hours before she went into labor with her third child. It was a good thing they’d completed the job and cleared out, because she nearly gave birth in the bathtub. Stone had filled the 4-foot-long soaker tub with warm water and eased into it to soothe the pain when her contractions started. But the baby arrived so quickly she barely had time to get out of the tub and into her bed, where she delivered daughter Paloma as planned: with a view of the trees in her backyard and two midwives in attendance. Stone’s other two children were still asleep when their baby sister entered the world at 7 that November morning in 2010. Stone lives in a 1950s rambler in the town of Somerset in Chevy Chase, not on a farm far from the nearest hospital. Now 38, she’s one of a small but increasingly vocal group of Maryland women who’ve decided that the safest and most …

  2. Income Tax Hike Will Unfairly Hurt Montgomery

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    Published: Wednesday, May 23, 2012State chamber: Income tax hike will unfairly hurt Montgomery by Kate S. AlexanderStaff Writer Maryland's income tax hike on high earners will affect more residents in Montgomery County than elsewhere in the state, could inhibit its small business growth and would hinder employee recruitment at larger corporations, according to the state chamber of commerce. Legislators passed a budget plan during May’s special session that includes a provision to raise the income tax rate for high-income Marylanders. The lion’s share of the anticipated revenue from increasing the tax will come from Montgomery County, according to state data. Of the $154.7 million in expected additional annual revenue, $62.9 million or 40.7 percent will come from Montgomery County residents. However, only an additional $10.2 million in state income tax revenue will come back to the county, effectively as an offset to shifted state teacher pension costs, according …

  3. Progressive Delegates Objected to the Income Tax Hikes Too

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    As Republican delegates railed against the proposed state income tax hike Wednesday afternoon, a lone freshman Democrat from one of the most liberal and affluent districts inside the Capital Beltway got up to explain why she too could not vote for the taxes. “I believe this discriminates against two-income families with children at home,” said Del. Ariana Kelly, a Bethesda mom with two young children at home. The State and Local Revenue and Financing Act raises state income tax rates by .25% to .50% for joint returns with more than $150,000 in Maryland taxable income — a 5% to 15% increase in the rate. And the law reduces personal exemptions for these couples, totally eliminating them for couples with more than $200,000 in federal adjusted gross income. This raises both state taxes and the local piggyback income tax. “We are not talking about people sitting on great piles of money,” Kelly said. “Kids are extremely expensive.̶…

  4. My Washington: Bethesda lawmaker keeps kids active with Spy Museum, Capital Crescent, Great Wolf Lodge

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    October 15, 2011Washington Examiner    Faves and raves by Ariana Kelly Ariana Kelly is a Maryland delegate representing Bethesda and Chevy Chase. PERSONAL STATS AGE: 34 NUMBER OF YEARS IN D.C. AREA: 26 NEIGHBORHOOD: Bethesda - Hayley Peterson 1. FAVORITE LOCAL SPORTS EVENT Washington Nationals games at Nationals Park are my favorite. I'm a longtime Redskins fan, and FedEx Field gets the job done. But I miss the electricity of RFK. One of the great perks of my job is getting to attend local high school sporting events. I had a number of wonderful campaign volunteers from Walter Johnson, B-CC and Whitman. I love to bring my kids to their games to cheer them on, and wax nostalgic about my own WJ days. 2. BEST MODE OF TRANSPORTATION Nothing beats a bike on a beautiful day. Or the Metro on a day escalators are functioning. 3. BEST COFFEE SHOP Having worked my way through college as a barista, I am picky about my coffee shops. D.C.-area entrepreneurs have…

  5. SlutWalk DC rally against sexual violence disproves stereotype of feminists as prudes

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    SlutWalk DC rally against sexual violence disproves stereotype of feminists as prudes By Robert McCartney, Published: August 10 Although it happened nearly two decades ago, Maryland state legislator Ariana Kelly still recalls the anguish. When she went to a Montgomery County hospital emergency room after being raped as a teenager, a doctor there chided her for supposedly having loose morals. “He said I shouldn’t be so upset because I’d been promiscuous before,” said Kelly, 34, describing the incident publicly for the first time. “I hadn’t been promiscuous, but that’s not relevant,” continued Kelly, now a first-term Democratic delegate from Montgomery. What was “awful,” she said, was “hearing that word ringing in my ears for days and weeks as I was trying to recover from a sexual assault.” Kelly plans to tell that story Saturday when she speaks at the SlutWalk D.C. rally downtown. It…

  6. Transgender anti-discrimination bill approved

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    The Baltimore SunMarch 26, 2011Employers and housing groups could not discriminate against transgendered people, under a plan that won final passage today in the House of Delegates. After a floor debate that veered into what some delegates said was offensive territory, the anti-discrimination measure passed by a vote of 86 to 52, a preliminary tally showed. The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration. Home owners who rent rooms or apartments in their residence are exempted from the bill. Religious groups also are exempted. Some Republicans who opposed the bill argued that education and child-related groups should have been excluded, too. Del. Nicholaus R. Kipke, an Anne Arundel County Republican, said some parents may not want to explain to their children why a female teacher, for example, decided to dress as a man.   "It's one thing to protect adults who want to be eccentric in front of other adults," said Del. Steven R. Schuh, an Anne Ar…

  7. Md. House OKs family planning bill to expand Medicaid eligibility for poor women

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    By Associated Press, Saturday, March 26, 5:17 PM ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The House of Delegates on Saturday approved a bill that would allow Maryland women who are at or below 200 percent of the poverty level to be eligible for Medicaid family planning services. The vote was 122-14. Maryland currently only allows women to be eligible for family planning under Medicaid after they have their first baby, according to Delegate Heather Mizeur, D-Montgomery. That is partly why Maryland ranks 42nd in the nation in infant mortality and 38th in the nation for low birth weight babies, she said. Expanding eligibility could reduce unintended pregnancies by about 4,000 each year, according to a January estimate by the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health. “This saves the state millions of dollars,” Mizeur said. “Every Medicaid pregnancy costs the state $19,000 per birth, so if you remove a little over 4,000 of those each year we could s…

  8. Pepco trailed other utilities, didn't call for help until well into snowstorm

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    Pepco trailed other utilities, didn't call for help until well into snowstorm Pepco did not call for major reinforcements to help restore power to its customers until late Wednesday night, well into the storm and several hours after Baltimore Gas and Electric had begun assembling outside contractors for help. Similarly, Dominion Virginia Power began moving its own crews from southeastern Virginia and North Carolina closer to Northern Virginia as early as Tuesday, anticipating weather problems. As a result, it has called in only about 200 outside workers for additional help, a spokeswoman said. BGE had arranged for about 400 extra workers by about 5 p.m. Wednesday, according to its spokesman. Pepco didn't ask for mutual aid until an 8:30 p.m. conference call among mid-Atlantic region utilities - a call arranged by BGE, both companies said. Perhaps because of the earlier calls for help, BGE and Dominion Virginia Power had restored electricity to a greater …

  9. Republican lawmakers planning legislation to stop late-term abortions

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    Republican lawmakers planning legislation to stop late-term abortions Effort prompted by Nebraska doctor's move to Montgomery County by Erin Cunningham | Staff Writer Some Republican lawmakers say they will introduce legislation in the upcoming session that would ban Maryland doctors from performing late-term abortions. While some say the abortion issue has long been settled, a controversial Nebraska doctor's decision to begin performing later-term abortions at a Montgomery County clinic has revived the issue. The doctor, LeRoy Carhart, began working at the Reproductive Health Services clinic Monday, prompting about 300 anti-abortion protesters to rally outside the Germantown facility. Another protest has been planned for Saturday. Now, Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. (R-Dist. 31) of Glen Burnie says he is organizing a group of anti-abortion legislators to introduce a bill that would ban clinics from offering late-term abortions for any reason. Dwyer says the coalition will b…

  10. WJ Student Contributes to Election Day Victory

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    "The Pitch" November 17, 2010   Josh Benjamin, Staff Writer & Ali Jawetz, Online News Editor, Print Copy Editor  Mutale Matambo is a high school junior, a campaign volunteer and a political advocate. His experience with the mid-term election campaign process gave him an interesting view of politics and campaigning as a teenager in high school.   “It was kind of weird at first [working on the campaign everyday], and then I started getting used to it,” said Matambo. “I went to people’s houses, knocked on their doors, and took surveys of who they were going to vote for. I felt really great when I was working.”  Matambo campaigned for Ariana Kelly, a democratic candidate who succesfully ran for the open house seat in District 16, which represents Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac. Kelly is actually a WJ alum , and when she was a student, she volunteered for the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign.   Mata…