The new student member of the Baltimore County school board, Roah Hassan, called during Tuesday night’s meeting for an end to division among the body’s members. Hassan, a rising senior at Perry Hall High School, was sworn in earlier this month. She used her first board meeting to express her thoughts on the needs of a school system that has over 111,000 students, and what she thinks the board could be doing to meet them. “We are a house divided,” Hassan, who is 16 years old, said Tuesday. “I have seen this board, and I have seen the tension and dysfunction that it entails. I have seen division in a space where we cannot afford to be divided.”

Voters in the July 19 Maryland primary election will choose Democratic and Republican nominees for governor, all hoping to succeed term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in November. Here is where several candidates stand on several key issues. Ten Democrats will appear on the ballot: former Prince George’s County executive Rushern L. Baker III, who suspended his campaign last month; former government worker and nonprofit executive Jon Baron; State Comptroller Peter Franchot; former Maryland attorney general Doug Gansler; Ralph W. Jaffe, a retired teacher; Ashwani Jain, a local program director for the National Kidney Foundation; former U.S. education secretary John B. King Jr.; author and former nonprofit chief Wes Moore; former Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez; and Jerome M. Segal, a philosopher and activist.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” So says Hamlet to his school chum after a chilling encounter with a ghost. The line went through my mind as I looked at the first image released by NASA from the James Webb Space Telescope, the marvel of engineering and audacity recently parked and unfolded in an orbit roughly 1 million miles from home. Operating so far away gives the Webb super sensitivity to infrared light that cannot be seen by the human eye.

The U.S. House panel investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results described Tuesday how the president explicitly called on his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, for a “wild” protest — resulting in an insurrection. Trump exerted extraordinary influence over the mob, who marched to the Capitol on his orders and undertook the violent attack, testimony showed. Many dispersed only when Trump asked them to do so, hours after mayhem broke out.

Before the 2020 elections, conventional wisdom, including among Maryland candidates, was that “Asian Americans do not vote.” In fact, half of Asian American registered voters polled nationally in September 2020 reported that neither major political party contacted them. What a mistake. In 2020, the Asian American vote surged because we took our own communities to the ballot box. From individual efforts like award-winning author R.O. Kwon’s nationwide phone banking events to concerted voter drives by newer organizations like Georgia’s Asian American Advocacy Fund, Asian and Pacific Islander voters increased by over 47% compared to 2016’s turnout. It’s a significant jump compared to all other voters, whose turnout increased by 12%. And this jump in voters was beyond the margin of victory in key races.

A grant program aimed at increasing access to high-speed internet is already reaping benefits, according to Gov. Larry Hogan. Hogan made the pronouncement Friday during a news conference in Harford County to promote $127 million in initial state grants aimed at expanding broadband. Those grants will go to 21 of the state’s 24 major political subdivisions including rural areas on the Eastern Shore and western panhandle as well as urban areas such as Baltimore. “Our goal is to ensure universal broadband to every single person in every single corner of the state of Maryland,” Hogan said during the first of a 10-stop day trip to Harford County.