- The General Assembly's vote to remove Maryland's governor from the parole system for lifers is a bold, and long overdue, strike for justice over politics.
- Be patient, be kind, and one day Camden Yards will be full again and the Orioles will be in the World Series, and the only masks will be on the two guys behind home plate.
- Meet David Bramble, a West Baltimore-raised, Ivy League-educated developer who has kept a low profile while taking on some high profile projects in his hometown and on the East Coast.
- Leaders of the Community Reinvestment Act for Blacks and Latinos of Baltimore say itās time for the banks to do more for minority-owned small businesses and for Black and Latino families that wish to own a home.
- The uneven, politicized response to the coronavirus pandemic, with a worldwide death toll now approaching 3 million, proves the need for the Global Virus Network, says its co-founder, Dr. Robert Gallo, the internationally famous HIV researcher and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
- The discovery last week of a single silvery fish in the Patapsco River confirms the importance of removing old, useless dams and restoring the habitat needed for spawning.
- An appeal to Michael Bloomberg, one of the world's wealthiest men, to donate $1 billion to increase homeownership and business entrepreneurship among minorities in Baltimore.
- Wishing for Baltimore's violence to end isn't enough. We need more cops to make more good arrests and get homicide cases to court.
- The ex-offender who died in a fiery crash March 1 in Gettysburg apparently had found his groove in life when he died.
- After the pandemic, people will be eager to gather in a big, busy public space to eat, drink, shop and feel connected to the beat of life. In Baltimore that could be the new Lexington Market.
- Kurtis Williams of Baltimore tried to go straight after spending 17 years, half of his life, in prison for murder. He died this month in a fiery crash on Baltimore Street in Gettysburg. Where the road had taken him since his last contact with columnist Dan Rodricks is a mystery.
- Homeowners in the Mondawmin area of West Baltimore oppose a proposed drive-thru fast-food restaurant at Gwynns Falls Parkway and Tioga Parkway, saying it will lead to more traffic and trash and contribute to unhealthy diets of the Black residents of West Baltimore. They say such a restaurant in such a place, on the edge of a residential community, would never be permitted in a white section of Baltimore.
- Why is Biden's American Rescue Plan so popular? It helps struggling families. It helps children. And it's undergirded by resentment of the concentration of wealth that occured in the U.S. over the last 40 years and even during the pandemic.
- What Healing Looks Like: A longtime prison chaplain creates a workplace in Baltimore for former inmates, employing the skills they developed over many years behind the walls.
- Somebody call the richer-and-still-getting richer Michael Bloomberg about making a big donation to salvage vacant houses and create affordable housing in Baltimore. If that doesn't work out, Sal Choudhary stands ready to invest in a way that turns renters into homeowners.
- A look at how Baltimore police report homicide clearances reveals that cases are not always being solved with timely arrests, and Thiru Vignarajah, a former prosecutor and candidate for mayor, thinks citizens need a clearer picture of police effectiveness. He also thinks the Baltimore Police Department needs more detectives.
- Nobody asked me but ... 12 items, including one on Maryland Rep. Andy Harris's continuing admiration of the prime minister of Hungary, a democratic backslider condemned by the European Parliament.
- One year of the coronavirus in Maryland: A year of living virtually. .
- A report on the early results of Opportunity Zones in Baltimore says the federal program should change to increase investment in areas of the city that are truly distressed -- not those already enjoying the attention of developers and investors.
- You patronize Walbrook Junction Shopping Center. Why not buy a piece of it?
- What the Green New Deal might look like: Waste-to-energy plants across the fruited plain.
- Baltimore City Councilman Ryan Dorsey said some nasty things about the Baltimore police union and its president over the weekend, raising the question about whether his 3rd District constituents want such anti-cop attitudes in their council representative.
- Build giant water tanks, land on Mars, keep people warm ā if we go big with the Green New Deal, we can do it all
- Don't knock Maryland's 'reasonable Republican' governor for calling for bipartisanship in Congress and a GOP break from Trump. But those are minority views these days.
- Maryland has weathered through the pandemic better than the four states that border it. But when it comes to the vaccine rollout, we should have put our bigger brains to work.
- The 44 Republican senators who voted against putting Trump on trial are engaged in the biggest case of jury nullification in American history.
- Bills have been filed in Annapolis to hold companies responsible for the mess of overhead wires, many of them dormant, left in alleys in the city and suburbs. But how do we deal with the trash?
- At 81 years old, Maryland's Steny Hoyer went old school and stood up for decency as the House of Representatives debated the Democrats' resolution to deprive Republican and QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee assignments.
- The new year is off to another terrible start in Baltimore, with homicides and shootings already ahead of 2020. The anti-violence program, Roca, is in its third year, trying to intervene in the lives of boys and young men who've been shot or face the real risk of death or prison. Roca makes some successful interventions but it's not enough. The city needs interventions on a mass scale.
- This column follows up on Sundayās lead item about the United States Postal Service and the strange and concerning appearance of Christmas cards in late January's mail. There are multiple reasons why that happened.