Commentary

The County Council’s Planning, Housing and Parks (PHP) Committee recently declined to fund the Office of the People’s Counsel, which operated between 1999 and 2008 but has remained unfunded since then. County Executive Elrich’s FY23 and FY24 budgets proposed refunding the agency, which represents the public interest (but not parties) in land use proceedings and provides technical assistance to residents.

The Biden administration is experimenting with new border policies, and asylum-seeking families headed to Baltimore are about to serve as its test subjects. This month, the administration began implementing a range of sweeping new policies at the Southern border. The centerpiece of the new approach is an asylum ban that blocks most migrants from accessing asylum if they traveled through a third country without seeking protection there.

There was doubt leading up to Frederick High School’s graduation on Monday about whether Frederick High School senior T.J. Weaver would be allowed to walk across the stage with a Native American stole. For commencement, Weaver requested to wear the stole — which represents his Native American heritage and his Otoe-Missouria tribe — over his robe.

In recent years, across America, we have witnessed substantial consolidation of broadcast and print media. Time after time, hedge funds and other firms have bought up and decimated local news outlets and local newspapers. The result has been layoffs, shuttered newspapers, scaled back operations, diminution of program content, and increased costs for cable subscribers.

Every once in a while, I’ll wistfully watch NBC’s “The Voice” and imagine what might have happened if my two auditions for the talent competition had been successful and I’d become one of those people whose life is changed with the spin of a red chair. And then I stand a few feet away from recent contestant Talia Smith, hear the impossibly gorgeous sounds coming out of her mouth, and understand.

Good morning, Gov. Wes Moore. I hope you enjoy your Saturday at the Preakness Stakes. I don’t know much about a day at the races except that it is a good opportunity to dress up a bit, drink and eat with friends in an unusual setting and lose a little money trying to figure out exactly what an exacta is. Oh, and there are horses.

It is such a simple ceremony: Scoop up a bit of earth with a small shovel and place it in a glass jar. But the symbolism is deep. The soil was collected to remember three shameful crimes in Frederick County’s not-so-distant past — the lynching of three men by mobs in the tumultuous decades after the Civil War.