- Baltimore artist and photographer Randall Gornowich describes, with words and pictures, his experience outside the U.S. Capitol during the mob attack of Jan. 6.
- Democrat Chris Van Hollen, Maryland's junior senator, says President Biden's call for unity and healing is not in conflict with the Senate's obligation to try the twice-impeached Trump. "We're at a moment of accountability," he says in a conversation about the Capitol mob, Trump and the looming impeachment trial.
- James Timpson, who worked with Dante "Tater" Barksdale at Safe Streets, took his death on Sunday hard and questioned all the time and effort they put into changing the lives of young men at risk of killing or being killed on the city streets. But there's no quit in the realm of violence intervention and peacemaking. "You have to finish the work," Timpson says. "That’s what the work is about. That’s what Tater was about. You can’t give up.’”
- While Republican leaders and his conservative supporters defend the twice-impeached Trump and call for his pardon from possible crimes, away from Washington the federal justice system still functions as Americans expect, with indictments of all varieties — from bank robberies to bank fraud — handed down daily across the land, and all politics aside.
- The December death of a 44-year-old forensic psychiatrist and mother of two children prompts a pause to ponder the heavy losses the nation has experienced in the pandemic, diminishing our society in immeasurable but discernible ways.
- The Modells understood the family name would remain forever.
- Two psychotherapists talk about the mentality of the most extreme Trump supporters like those who attacked the Capitol.
- Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland's only Republican in Congress, is extremely conservative and a little strange, and this week he earned a new descriptor -- accessory to sedition.
- Feeling personal loss from a death in the family or some degree of the big chill as this very long, awful year comes to a close, our memories comfort us.
- Here's one example of what officers do to help save lives of the city's many shooting victims.
- One grassroots organization, Masks4Masses, distributed more than 15,000 masks to vulnerable people in Baltimore.
- One of those Nobody Asked Me But columns: Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, Andy Harris, the McGrath Inquiry, TV reporters in the snow, charitable acts during the pandemic.
- We speak of COVID-19 patients having underlying conditions that make them extra vulnerable to the disease. The nation had plenty of pre-existing problems before the virus arrived.
- The rare failure of an Unger inmate in Maryland affirms this columnist's opinion that we need to put corrections back in corrections, reform our parole system and keep juveniles out of adult prisons for good.
- Rep. Kweisi Mfume shepherded to approval in the House of Representatives a bill that had been introduced by his predecessor and friend, the late Elijah Cummings, to honor the life of Henrietta Lacks and to do something about a serious problem — the lack of racial diversity in the clinical trials of cancer research.
- With restaurants in Baltimore and Anne Arundel closing for indoor and outdoor dining, their loyal customers should step up and order takeout. Dr. Anthony Fauci calls it a "neighborly obligation."
- Starting with those elected in 2016, new members of the Baltimore City Council made the recent term the most productive in memory, and that bodes well for the future.
- Former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, who died Sunday at the age of 87, served Maryland in Congress with unfailing integrity, quiet diligence and stubborn modesty -- traits that we could use in more senators today.
- Brandon Scott takes the oath of office as mayor of Baltimore on Tuesday. He knows what the big challenges are -- violent crime and the pandemic. But, with all that, there’s even more a mayor has to do — or at least think about.
- Maryland Republican congressman, Andy Harris, continues to support President Trump's claims of 2020 election fraud.
- An appreciation of the Rev. Richard Lawrence, who, as pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church in downtown Baltimore, balanced charity and practicality with regard to the homeless adults who sought a place to sleep in the park by his church.
- While you’re waiting out the pandemic at home, here are 15 more questions to test your knowledge of Baltimore and Maryland — a little history, a little trivia, some sports, a dash of politics — and, as in earlier editions, we made all the questions multiple choice.
- If someone buys a Christmas house, typically adorned with decorations and lights, are they obligated to keep the tradition going?
- Thanksgiving asks us to conduct an annual inventory and be grateful for the simple things in life, and I’m guessing that’s collectively truer this year than all others.
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All is not lost, fellow Americans. Most of us can still discern facts from foolishness. | COMMENTARY
Watching the once-admired Rudy Giuliani make ridiculous claims to help his client, President Trump, overturn an election he lost, an American can feel lost. But there’s no reason to. Most of us can still tell fact from foolishness. - Friday column: 40-year-old Bernard Gough gets $1 million to settle a lawsuit in one of the most disturbing cases related to the Baltimore Police Department's disbanded Gun Trace Task Force.
- A former prison chaplain, Chester France, persists in lining up investors for Lifting Labels, a nonprofit social enterprise to put ex-offenders to work in Baltimore making robes for clergy, choirs and judges and academic regalia.
- One of the social consequences of the pandemic is that it might have revived the very human longing to gather -- something that had waned even before the digital age, and something we'll miss big-time this Thanksgiving.
- Trump's claims of election fraud is an insult to voters but, more so, to the elections officials around the country who, with diligence and hard work, maintain the electoral system's integrity.
- In the midst of the worst health crisis in 100 years, wealthy Republicans want the Supreme Court to deprive 30 million Americans of health insurance.