Commentary

The brutal killing of Tyre Nichols is yet another example of police violence against Black people, and again raises the familiar question: What will it take to end it? In Maryland, let’s start with the truth. Five years ago, Eastern Shore teenager Anton Black died when police chased, tased, and pinned him facedown for six minutes. Led by then-Chief David Fowler, Maryland medical examiners ruled his death an “accident,” claiming Anton died of “natural” causes due to a heart condition, alleged drug use, and bipolar disorder. Despite video showing officers tasing, tackling and forcibly restraining Anton, the autopsy claimed “no evidence” linked police restraint to his death.

Maryland’s housing shortage has a state House committee taking notice as a veteran in Annapolis called on the Legislature to take action. Topics in the discussion included both renovation and renters. “As a committee and as a Legislature, we need to focus on the No. 1 problem, which is the lack of (housing) supply,” chair of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, Del. Kumar Barve, D-Montgomery, said during the hearing.

It is hardly a secret within America’s newsrooms that our profession has lost much of the public’s trust. Gallup, which has polled “Confidence in Institutions” for decades, found that, as of last summer, just 16% of Americans had either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers — down from 25% a decade earlier and 35% in 2002. For TV news, the latest results were even worse. Only 11% of Americans trust it; 53% don’t. Most of us, in or out of the news media, would surely agree that this is a bad thing. We were a saner country when we could argue from a common set of uncontested facts. But we have a harder time agreeing on why trust in media collapsed and, more crucially, on how it can be restored.

There is a public health crisis being forced upon the transgender community — and lack of access to life-saving health care for transgender Marylanders is one of the biggest barriers we face. Passing the 2023 Trans Health Equity Act (House Bill 283 sponsored by Del. Anne Kaiser with 56 cosponsors and Senate Bill 460 sponsored by Sen. Mary Washington with 12 cosponsors) is a critical step towards correcting this injustice. Maryland’s transgender community, like many transgender communities across the nation, is in a particularly vulnerable place. Widespread discrimination and harassment, victimization, criminalization, and lack of access to resources and care, all leave trans Marylanders with alarmingly high rates of homelessness, joblessness, mental health and substance use challenges, and more.

I had just gotten home from dinner with good friends when I settled in to watch President Biden deliver his State of the Union Address. I should have stuck with the Terp game. It began in a very upbeat, positive, and bipartisan manner.  The President congratulated Kevin McCarthy on being elected Speaker of the House without mentioning that it took nearly a week to earn that gavel. The President turned toward the McCarthy and said, “Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working together.” He also took time to recognize Senator Mitch McConnell as the longest serving Senate leader in history. You could almost hear “Kumbaya” playing in the background.

Silicon Valley used to unify the left and right in admiration. Now, Big Tech still brings the two sides of the political spectrum together — but in outrage. This much was evident in this year’s State of the Union address: The White House sees potential for bipartisan cooperation against technology companies. On Tuesday, President Biden mentioned two policy areas in which he’s seeking reform, and in a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this year he mentioned three: Section 230, antitrust and privacy. This sounds like jargon, more of interest to D.C. lawyers than average internet users. In fact, each area of reform could have profound effects on how people use the web.

Many BGE customers opened their January bill and balked when they saw the “amount due.” Yes, there was a cold snap and your heater used more energy. Yes, natural gas prices are high because of the Ukraine war. Baltimore Gas and Electric is our regulated utility, and their gas price in January was 93¢ a therm. In 2020, BGE’s gas rate was just 41¢ per therm. But for about 225,000 BGE customers the energy rate “gotcha” is that they’ve enrolled with a third-party deregulated energy supplier, rather than BGE’s regulated energy supply.