Building middle-class Baltimore

In passing Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's budget Monday night, City Council members said they hoped the whole thing would be more or less a wash for Baltimore residents. Property taxes are going down, but new fees are coming to pay for stormwater...

Shad run is down to a crawl

You would probably have to over the age of 50 to remember when late May and early June meant shad in Maryland. In those days, the spawning season for American shad and river herring brought young and old to the banks of Maryland tributaries to...

O'Malley intervenes on behalf of Carnival Cruise Lines

Arming Syria's rebels

Having determined that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad has used chemical weapons against his opponents in the country's bloody two-year civil war, the Obama administration is now reportedly preparing to send lethal military aid to...

Balancing privacy and security

Another laurel for Md. schools

A new report showing Maryland schools now lead the nation in efforts to boost student achievement levels has vindicated the commitment the state made more than a decade ago to adequately fund education and adopt smart policy choices that return the...

The case against NSA's phone record surveillance

The American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit against the National Security Agency, seeking an end to the collection of data about nearly every phone call made by Americans, provides an almost unprecedented opportunity for the public to challenge...

Maryland's gun background check backlog

When government is given a job to do in seven days and it takes 10 weeks instead, anger and frustration is likely to be heard. Such is the case with the background checks for gun purchases. The Maryland State Police has a backlog, and gun dealers and...

Is Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor?

Your $8.7 billion investment

Dear Maryland taxpayer,

Bad signs on immigration

Even as the Senate takes up the issue of immigration reform this week, Republicans are increasingly giving indications that the effort isn't likely to go very far. First, it was Sen. Marco Rubio's dance around the issue — repeatedly speaking...

Maryland's new Jim Crow

The good news, such as it is, from the American Civil Liberties Union's report on racial bias in marijuana enforcement is that blacks in Maryland are only about 2.9 times more likely to be arrested for possession of the drug than whites. That's...

St. Mary's troubles are temporary, but its appeal is enduring

The effective resignation Tuesday of St. Mary's College of Maryland President Joseph R. Urgo undoubtedly will come as a disappointment to the many students, faculty and alumni who shared his vision for the school. St. Mary's is unique among the...

The big question about Baltimore's jail scandal

Points to Del. Dereck Davis for the question of the day at the General Assembly's hearing on the pervasive corruption at the state-run Baltimore City Detention Center. Corrections secretary Gary Maynard had just made an extensive presentation about...

Obama's surveillance state

A report late Wednesday that a top-secret court authorized the National Security Agency to collect the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers should raise serious concerns about the scope of the Obama administration's domestic...

Military sexual assaults

The military still doesn't get it

The military's top uniformed leaders did themselves no favors in their testimony Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee about sexual assaults in the military. Certainly, they were willing to give the problem lip service, but in refusing...

Mr. Wilkins goes to the Senate

It was 21 years ago last month that Harvard-educated attorney Robert Wilkins was traveling in a car pulled over for going 5 mph over the posted speed limit on Interstate 68 in Western Maryland. But rather than receive a ticket, the group, all...

Supreme Court decision in Maryland DNA case

Court's DNA decision serves public safety and justice

The Supreme Court's decision today to uphold Maryland's law allowing the collection of DNA samples from people arrested for serious crimes upholds the interests of justice, the Constitution and common sense. Concerns that the DNA samples could...

Good news from Anthony Brown

Fight cyberattacks, not privacy

A Defense Science Board report made public last week contained shocking allegations about the extent of Chinese military hacking of American defense technologies. Though China's government denies it — huffily insisting that it has no need for...

Wicomico's voting rights choice

The Eastern Shore's civil rights history is not a happy one. From the lynchings of the 1930s to the Cambridge riots of the 1960s, the Shore has struggled with race relations. Much of that is in the past — although perhaps not entirely.

'Whatever it takes' for Baltimore schools

As Baltimore Board of School Commissioners conducts a national search for a new leader to replace outgoing schools CEO Andrés Alonso, it must consider is what further changes are needed to build on the reforms he initiated. Specifically, it...

NRA membership for suspended elementary school student

Inevitability and the race for governor

The 2014 Maryland governor's race has been shaping up so far as a fight about inevitability. Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler long fostered the sense of his own lock on the job through a massive campaign war chest. Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown...

Towson baseball's revival

Melancholy fits the game of baseball like a batting glove. For every moment of heroic achievement, there is one of misery and despair; for each Bobby Thomson "shot heard 'round the world" to win the 1951 National League Pennant for the New York...

Rosedale and rail safety

As accidents go, few of recent memory have grabbed the region's attention like Tuesday's collision and explosion involving a CSX freight train and a trash truck in Rosedale. If Baltimoreans weren't close enough to hear the tooth-rattling blast,...

Diplomacy before arms in Syria

Syrian President Bashar Assad's brutal war against his domestic opponents has taken some 70,000 lives so far and reduced much of the country to rubble, yet there's no sign either side has gained a decisive advantage in the two-year-old conflict....

Baltimore should be home to the lacrosse championships

Monday's NCAA men's Division I lacrosse final in Philadelphia was an exciting matchup of one of the sport's most storied teams, Syracuse, against Duke, an underdog that came back from a losing record early in the season (and a 5-0 deficit at the...