MARYLAND BRIEFING
MARYLAND BRIEFING
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HOME LOANS
State Examines Baltimore Lawsuit
The Maryland attorney general's office is examining the lawsuit that Baltimore filed against Wells Fargo bank last week to determine how the city developed its legal claim against lenders that sold higher-interest subprime loans to blacks more often than whites.
"Reverse redlining is an issue we're interested in," Steven A. Silverman, chief of the consumer protection division in the attorney general's office, told a Maryland House committee Wednesday during a briefing on the subprime mortgage crisis in Maryland.
The state office is looking at how the city collected its data and arrived at its legal theories.
Thomas E. Perez, secretary of the labor, licensing and regulation, said statewide numbers show that African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately affected by foreclosures. He said he was glad to hear that the attorney general's office was interested in reverse redlining. "It's undeniable in my judgment that people qualified for better loan products, and that's a civil rights issue," Perez said.
Maryland is also gathering information about a lawsuit filed against 21 banks by the city of Cleveland. The city is suing almost two dozen banks over the effect of the subprime mortgage crisis.
-- Ovetta Wiggins
U-MD. MEDICAL SCHOOL
Tissue Transplant Funding Received
The University of Maryland medical school has received $3 million in federal funds for groundbreaking work on tissue transplantation, officials announced yesterday.
Researchers at the school are trying to develop techniques for composite tissue transplants -- massive transplants of skin, muscle and bone -- that would not trigger the body's immune system. Their success would free many recipients from a lifetime of taking high doses of powerful drugs, and risking serious side effects, to keep transplanted tissue from being rejected.
