No one who regularly shops for groceries has failed to notice the sharply rising prices of basic commodities including milk, bread and eggs, and how food costs have outpaced the overall inflation rate, which was bad to start with. costs have outpaced the overall inflation rate, which was bad to start with. Yet this month, the enhanced Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP benefits (more generically known as food stamps) provided by the federal government as part of the overall COVID-19 emergency response were allowed to expire.

The COVID-19 pandemic shrank the restaurant industry, and many still don’t have enough workers as more Marylanders return to dine in person. According to the National Restaurant Association’s new State of the Restaurant Industry report, many restaurant owners are looking to grow their business as conditions get closer to normal, but they face a big challenge.

 

Every year during budget season, the various departments and agencies that get county funding present their requests to the Washington County Commissioners. In the midst of that fairly routine process, however, county officials got a sobering assessment Tuesday of difficulties facing some of both Washington County’s youngest and oldest residents.

 

Kari Snyder really didn’t want to spend $62,000 on this vacant rowhouse. She was on vacation last summer in a beach town and was supposed to be eating dinner with her family when a middleman called her. The boarded-up house in Southeast Baltimore was on the verge of collapsing, and he had the contract to sell it. Snyder couldn’t stomach another investor swooping in, buying the home, and sitting on it.

Academic achievement data reported to the state by Montgomery County Public Schools shows that middle school math proficiency dropped by nearly half since the last pre-pandemic state report, with Black students, Hispanic/Latine students and students with disabilities scoring the lowest. On Thursday, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) released its first statewide school report card since the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Many politicians, activists and academics have long characterized the criminal justice system as biased against Black and Brown people, with the catchall term “Brown” usually referring to Hispanics. But the latest data shows that Hispanics’ experience of criminal justice and law enforcement is becoming increasingly similar to that of Whites, not Blacks. This little-noticed trend has major implications for the future of criminal justice reform.

As right-wing censors in several states wage their foolish war against teaching the full scope of American history — racism and all — here comes “To Kill A Mockingbird,” the Aaron Sorkin play based on the Harper Lee novel that people have tried (and mostly failed) to ban from public schools since the book’s publication in 1960.

“I think the most upsetting thing to me was The Baltimore Sun calling me a racist because I said this came from a Wuhan lab.” Those words came out of the mouth of Dr. Robert Redfield, the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, toward the end of a three-hour hearing conducted Wednesday morning by the select House subcommittee investigating the origins of the COVID-19 virus.

Maryland, for years, has been at the forefront of environmental stewardship. That is the direct result of engaged stakeholders from every industry and the product of thoughtful, measured approaches to the state’s energy policies. Recently, however, some groups are pushing very hard towards a sole source energy policy — electricity.

 

After Baltimore residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of the city having control of its police department last November, debate swirled early this year around the timeline of formalizing the city’s authority. Advocates came out in force against a proposed delay — and appear to have gotten their way. Now, there’s a new wrinkle emerging, pitting the police commissioner and Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration against those same advocates and some of the Baltimore City Council.