“For most nations, the role of the legislative branch in foreign policy is limited to providing a rubber-stamp on the policies of the executive. The United States is different,” said two U.S. senators in the preface of a Senate report. One of those senators, Joe Biden, is now the U.S. president. After referencing the U.S. Constitution, the senators’ preface continues: “It is an arrangement that gives the Senate, and the Committee on Foreign Relations in particular, an essential role in the formulation of foreign policy.”

Maggie Rogers fans at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, got a surprise when Maryland Gov. Wes Moore hopped on stage at the singer’s hometown concert Sunday evening. “Listen, I got an announcement to make,” Moore said to cheering crowds at the concert. Lauding her work as a representative of the state, her moves to register voters and her advocacy for reproductive health, Moore shouted a declaration for the state.

 

Police are investigating threatening symbols scrawled on a lawn sign in Laurel for U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks, according to her campaign. A crosshairs was drawn on the forehead of the image of Alsobrooks on a campaign sign in the 13000 block of Laurel-Bowie Road, according to a photo posted on X by Shomari Stone, an anchor and reporter for FOX5 in Washington. “KKK” was written on the sign in black.

Longtime Prince George’s County Council Member Jamel “Mel” Franklin (D) resigned Friday, according to a statement released that evening. No reason was given for the resignation. County Council Administrator Jennifer A. Jenkins said in the statement that Franklin’s “presence will be greatly missed.” Franklin began his service on the all-Democratic council in 2010. In his first two terms, through 2018, he represented parts of southern Prince George’s known as “South County.”

 

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore will issue a mass pardon of more than 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday morning, one of the nation’s most sweeping acts of clemency involving a drug now in widespread recreational use. The pardons will forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people in what the Democratic governor said is a step to heal decades of social and economic injustice that disproportionately harms Black and Brown people.

In 1970s Brooklyn, New York, elementary school students had an hour’s break for lunch. This reporter and her sister sometimes walked the ten minutes home, had lunch there, then walked back to school with time to spare. On one such afternoon, our father was home, having taken the day off from his teaching job to do some work on another project. As we were walking back to school, we heard him calling us, turned, and were surprised to see him running to catch up with us.

So, what does it all mean, now that the last ballots have been tallied in Baltimore’s primary and we have a chance to savor a bit of post-election spring before the runup to the November elections? First, the numbers show that a whole lot of people don’t mind that a relatively few of us make the decisions about who the mayor will be (Brandon Scott for a second term), who the City Council president will be (Zeke Cohen) and who other members of the City Council and of the U.S. Congress will be.

When it comes to gun violence, Baltimore appears like the wild west, except the wild west’s violent reputation was created by Hollywood. Baltimore’s violence is real and although the Mayor claims it is declining, it’s still too high for comfort and safety. In fact, the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement calls gun violence the primary barrier to sustainably addressing Baltimore’s most pressing inequities, joblessness, homelessness, poor education and health. No doubt this is correct.

As B&O Railroad Museum’s “Royal Blue” train traveled down the first mile of commercial railroad track laid in the U.S., drag queens sashayed down the aisles. Music pumped from speakers placed atop the luggage racks, and the air was full of dollar bills — tips waiting to be accepted by performers. When the 40-minute-long journey was over, people crowded under the museum’s outdoor pavilion to escape the rain and dance. (Photo: Kylie Cooper/The Baltimore Banner)

 

Inside one of the trailers at Lamont Elementary School, two classes of multilingual learners were practicing comparing and contrasting. Separated only by a divider, a small group of third graders discussed tornadoes and hurricanes; for the second graders, it was polar bears and pandas. The sound carried across the room, but the kids, many of them immigrants to Prince George’s County from countries such as El Salvador and Mexico, stayed focused. (Photo: Kylie Cooper/The Baltimore Banner)