City State: Morning Roundup

Poll: Virginians still divided on uranium mining; Census: D.C. has fastest-growing population; Frey enters race for Va. attorney general; Marylanders react to proposed redistricting map; Pepco will pay $1M fine for outage delays; Audit: Fired Md. workers rehired by other agencies; Four overnight shootings in D.C.

A poll of 1,135 registered Virginia voters found the state divided on whether uranium mining should be allowed, according to a survey released today by Quinnipiac University. Forty-three percent said mining should be allowed because of the economic benefits, while 41 percent oppose it based on environmental concerns. The difference was within the margin of error of 2.9 percentage points. Virginia has had a 30-year ban on uranium mining, but a company wants the state to lift the ban so it can mine a 119-million-pound deposit in Pittsylvania County, according to the Associated Press.

The District of Columbia’s population is growing faster than any state in the country, according to a new U.S. Census report that shows an acceleration of a trend in which largely skilled and educated workers have flocked to the city’s resilient local economy and its well-paying jobs connected to the federal government, reports David Hill of The Washington Times.

Fairfax County Circuit Court Clerk John Frey has announced he’s running for Virginia attorney general in 2013, joining Delegate Robert B. Bell, a fellow Republican from Albemarle County, who said earlier this month that he was running. Mr. Frey, who was elected clerk in 1991, said Wednesday his experience running the state’s largest circuit court and one of the largest in the country would allow him to bring a “unique perspective” to the office, reports David Sherfinski of The Times.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley will host a hearing today on legislative redistricting in the General Assembly. The hearing will give residents a chance to weigh in on the proposed new districts for the state’s 47 state Senate seats and 141 seats in the House of Delegates. The map contains 12 districts that are majority black, an increase from the 10 districts that the Court of Appeals created in 2002. In addition to those districts, there are four districts that are majority-minority — and increase from two on the last map, according to the Associated Press.

Pepco says it will not appeal a $1 million fine imposed by the Maryland Public Service Commission for long outages in 2010. The electric company was fined Wednesday for failing to maintain its system properly over a period of years and subjecting customers to long outages too often. The commission began looking at Pepco’s outages after thunderstorms in July and August 2010 knocked out power and resulted in a high number of complaints, according to the Associated Press.

Five dozen Maryland employees were fired for egregious misconduct and subsequently rehired by other state agencies, according to a new state audit. The 61 workers were “terminated with prejudice” from the state’s Department of Transportation, meaning they were disqualified from future employment at the transportation agency. But because of variations in employers’ personnel policies, nothing prevented those workers from being hired at any of Maryland’s other executive agencies, reports the Washington Examiner.

Four men were shot Wednesday in three separate incidents in Washington according to the Metropolitan Police Department. In the first incident, two men were found shot at about 7:40 p.m. in the hallway of an apartment building in the 2500 block of 14th Street Northeast. Nearly two hours later, police found another man shot in the 4700 block of Alabama Avenue Southeast. At about 11:20 p.m., a fourth man was found shot in the leg in the 4400 block of Sheriff Road Northeast. Police said the injuries do not appear to be life threatening, according to The Washington Post.