On a recent panel about addiction, one panelist said she wished she had resisted the stigma many had tied to substance use, stating that many of her friends were simply trying to have fun and a society obsessed with “respectability” viewed them as deviant and not worthy of care. After that, another panelist relayed a heartbreaking story of his mother being so deep in the throes of addiction that she would rather leap out of a moving car to pursue drugs than visit her sick daughter in the hospital.

Americans by the tens of millions are traveling by train, by air or, most often, by car, gathering this week for a day of Thanksgiving. It is a tradition even older than the United States, and a day that we Americans treasure highly. Every school child knows the story of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, and how the Pilgrims invited some members of the Wampanoag Indian tribe to a feast in November 1621. The Indians had essentially saved the lives of the Europeans by helping them harvest native plants and hunt for game.

Historians, in writing about the chronicle of Thanksgiving in the United States, usually concentrate on presidential proclamations for the holiday. To be sure, Congress sometimes has a role in delineating special dates, but a national day of thanks in November became identified with chief executives, thanks to George Washington, whose proclamation for a “day of public thanksgiving” in 1789 set the precedent.

Meredith R. Weisel is the Regional Director of ADL Washington, D.C. Meredith is one of the most sought-after voices against extremism in the DMV – and across the country. Meredith is an experienced attorney and government relations professional who has spent decades engaged in public policy and community issues in the Greater Washington area. Weisel discusses the recent Rally for Israel in Washington, DC with her teenage daughter, the war on Israel, global antisemitism, and her first march for human rights for Jews in 1987.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a state law requiring Marylanders to obtain a handgun qualification license before purchasing or receiving a firearm is unconstitutional. “This is a significant ruling for the Second Amendment and every American who cherishes our constitutional freedoms,” said Randy Kozuch, the executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, in a statement.

Employers and unions are getting fed up with the firms they have used for years to help control their spending on prescription drugs—because their costs keep soaring. Footwear retailer Foot Locker dropped UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx drug-benefit manager last year, while a Teamsters fund in Philadelphia recently reupped with its replacement for CVS Health’s Caremark. Among their frustrations: They are being told to cover costlier drugs even when less-expensive options are available.

 

High-speed magnetic levitating trains will whoosh through the Westport community in an underground tunnel as part of a recent legal settlement over property rights on the South Baltimore peninsula. Details of the settlement earlier this month in Baltimore City Circuit Court were kept confidential, but both sides confirmed the tunnel plan to the Baltimore Business Journal.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown on Tuesday suspended a member of the state’s relatively new hate crimes commission for her social media comments on the latest war between Israel and Hamas. Zainab Chaudry, who is the executive director of the Maryland office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is temporarily suspended from her position as a member of the Maryland Commission on Hate Crimes Response and Prevention, the attorney general’s office said.

Shayne Cochran walked the informational displays along the perimeter of a high school cafeteria in Frederick looking for signs of a shorter commute. Cochran, a contractor, leaves his Frederick County home at 4 a.m. to beat the traffic to his office in Gaithersburg. He can be there by 5 a.m. — a commute that beats the 4 hours a day he spent in the car when he was also dropping off and picking up his son at school.

The 12,000-square foot warehouse in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is buzzing on a Monday afternoon, with staff and volunteers at Manna Food Center packing food boxes as cars pull up to distribute donations at local schools. In the center of it all is Jackie DeCarlo, CEO of Manna, who says hunger isn’t just a holiday issue; it’s a year-round problem, and it’s been getting worse.