I went to prison 31 years ago for serious violent crime committed when I was 16-years-old. During my incarceration, I followed the rules, avoided trouble and participated in nearly every workshop, course and program that was offered, with titles like “Alternatives to Violence,” “Thinking for a Change,” and “Stress Management.”

Kevin Bethea got the entrepreneurship bug his sophomore year in high school after learning business skills through a nonprofit in Cherry Hill, the RICH Program, or Restoring Inner City Hope. Taking what they taught him, Bethea conducted a survey of his peers about their favorite snacks. He bought Doritos, Takis rolled tortilla chips and honeybuns that he then sold at school. It was his first business.

In politics, money talks. And no one knows this better than the politicians running for elected office. It takes a lot of cash to pay for all those campaign ads, from TV commercials to pop-ups on social media, and the fastest way to raise the needed funds is to ask those who have a major stake in decision-making — from big business and labor unions to government contractors — to write the checks.

The news that Frederick County has a new flag likely provoked a few questions among residents, including “Why?” and “Why that one?” Some might have wondered: “Frederick County has a flag?” The winning design for the county flag was done by Marc DeOcampo, a registered architect who is the city of Frederick’s director of strategic planning.

 

What’s in a name? When a fire or other disaster strikes, do we turn desperately for rescue only to firemen, or do we welcome help from any and all firefighters? Right now, the name of our state’s firefighter’s association is Maryland State Firemen’s Association. Fortunately, the MSFA has the opportunity to modify its name at its June convention.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule in the next month on watershed cases that could alter the future of college admissions and the fate of Democratic President Joe Biden’s signature plan to forgive student loans. Decisions are expected in June or early July before the court takes a summer recess. Legal experts believe affirmative action is at risk after the high court’s conservative majority expressed serious doubts about the necessity of the practice during oral arguments this fall.

Some House Republicans, angered by the indictment of former President Donald Trump, are threatening to withhold funding for the FBI and put the brakes on plans for the agency to move out of D.C. Conservative lawmakers are upset by the FBI’s role in searches for classified documents at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home.

 

Though they only make up a fraction of cars and trucks on the road now, many projections — from Wall Street firms, trade groups and automakers themselves — predict an imminent surge in electric vehicles over the next decade. S&P Global estimates that the nearly 2 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads today will grow to more than 28 million by 2030, when they’ll comprise 40% of all new cars and trucks sold.

 

Among the small-town government business of passing a $4.6 million annual budget, requesting that a broken bank window be boarded up and seeking news on an 8-foot python spotted on the loose two weeks ago — unfortunately, no updates — a monumental change happened this week in this Caroline County town near the Delaware state line.

More than 11,600 older and disabled Marylanders with Medicaid have been waiting as long as a year for help at home. Some are being hospitalized, institutionalized or even dying in the interim. These medically vulnerable residents — who need help with tasks such as bathing, dressing, cooking, cleaning and errands — are among a massive backlog of applicants for in-home care through Medicaid, the state-administered public health insurance program for low-income people.