Commentary

It was 50 years ago, on May 19, 1973, when Secretariat, one of the greatest racehorses of all time, won the Preakness on his way to the Triple Crown. Bill Nack, one of the greatest racing writers of all time, chronicled Big Red’s journey into thoroughbred legend. The horse lived 19 years; lame from a painful degenerative disease, he was euthanized on Oct. 4, 1989, at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky. Nack, who wept that day for Secretariat, died in 2018 at age 77 at his home in Washington.

Amy Morgan is a family therapist who works primarily with couples going through a rough patch. I called her to talk about Daniel Snyder. I explained that after 24 years — after zero Super Bowl appearances, after congressional and NFL investigations, after earning the near-universal enmity of fans — Snyder finally did the right thing and said he would sell Washington’s NFL team. So why didn’t I feel any better about it?

Midshipman Gabe Neale, commander of this year's Herndon Monument climb at the Naval Academy, poses in front of it before plebes began ascending it on May 17, 2023.  Midshipman Claire Pelletier-Heblock predicted the time that the 17th Company would need to scale the Herndon Monument on Wednesday morning, a bold statement. “Two hours,” she said.

On Feb. 3, the only sound echoing farther than the thundering crash of the derailment of a 1.7-mile-long Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio was the subsequent outcry from politicians. Make no mistake, this was a disaster with explosions and fire (some of it deliberately set as a controlled burn to reduce the scale of the toxic spill). Despite the enormous turnout of emergency personnel and first-responders, elected officials from Ohio Gov.

Montgomery County faces a public education staffing crisis. A staff and faculty shortage combined with record-setting enrollment has more than overburdened our support staff, faculty, administrators, and nurses. Shortchanging education spending is only exasperating the situation, particularly as Montgomery County is now spending less on education per student than it did over a decade ago.

When Wes Moore first ran to be Maryland’s 63rd governor, his pitch came down to this: “No matter where you start in life,” he would often tell his audience, “you deserve an equal opportunity to succeed.” In signing into law legislation to restrict who can carry firearms and where they can be carried, as he is expected to do this afternoon, and to make it easier for individuals convicted of a crime to have their records expunged once they meet certain criteria, Governor Moore has made his most serious effort to date to provide that opportunity.

Human rights tops Ben Cardin’s list of accomplishments as a senator — specifically, his sponsorship of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, a law imposing economic sanctions on bad actors in Russia and around the world. There are other items on Cardin’s list: Subsidies for small business; federal funds for the Chesapeake Bay; improving ways for Americans to save for retirement; addressing health disparities.