Editorial: Ransomware attacks are crippling cities, schools and hospitals. Congress can help.
March 31, 2021 -

The coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on the economy, but members of at least one profession are making out better than ever: cybercriminals. The average ransom paid by hacked organizations nearly tripled last year over the previous year; the highest reported ransom paid, $10 million, also was double the previous year’s high. Worse, many of the victims are those most essential to keeping communities safe, healthy and in good working order: state and local governments, schools and hospitals. Ransomware attacks use malicious software to lock a target out of its files — until the target pays to regain access to its own computers.

Read More: Washington Post
Lane: Here’s some hope for supporters of criminal justice reform
March 31, 2021 -

How many more months in prison do federal courts give Black drug offenders as opposed to comparable White offenders? The correct answer, through fiscal 2018, is: zero. The racial disparity in federal drug-crime sentencing, adjusted for severity of the offense and offender characteristics such as criminal history, shrank from 47 months in 2009 to nothing in 2018, according to a new research paper by sociologist Michael Light of the University of Wisconsin. For federal crimes of all types, there is still a Black-White discrepancy, but it, too, has shrunk, from 34 months in 2009 to less than six months in 2018.

Read More: Washington Post
Brown, Nethercut & Torres: Maryland lawmakers not doing enough to help working families this General Assembly session
March 31, 2021 -

With little time remaining in the Maryland General Assembly session, it’s useful — and discouraging — to look back at the working families policy agenda that nearly 50 organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of Marylanders, proposed at the beginning of the pandemic to help essential workers and those most affected by the shutdown. At the time, we called for a special legislative session to address Marylanders’ urgent needs related to housing, worker protections, health care and much more. Nearly one year later, our elected leaders have made some progress, but too many of these needs remain unmet and too many Marylanders are still struggling.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Our Say: Windstorms are a reminder of life on the Chesapeake Bay
March 31, 2021 -

In the South of France, the cold, northwesterly wind that blows seasonally into the Gulf of Lion is called the Mistral. On the other side of the globe, Aussies know the summer wind that brings hot air from the outback to the coast is called the Brickfielder. And way out in the Northwest, the annual Chinook carries warmed air down the Rocky Mountains into the cool Pacific valleys. But on the Chesapeake Bay, winds of the sort that roared through over the weekend are just called wind, which is a shame. Surely there must be a name for this kind of remarkable phenomenon.

Read More: Capital Gazette
Daniels: GOP steps up voter suppression efforts, it’s time to fight back
March 31, 2021 -

A high level of voter engagement during the last election, spurred by the ability to vote early or via absentee mail-in ballots and drop boxes, has renewed GOP efforts to ensure that only certain people have access to the ballot box. Dozens of states with Republican legislatures are using the disingenuous concerns of “voter fraud” and “ballot security” to consider restricting the voting methods that helped millions of voters cast ballots during the pandemic.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Zurawik: Biden is right about autocracy and democracy at war as the big story that connects all others
March 31, 2021 -

I have never considered President Joe Biden a thinker of big ideas. Former President Barack Obama, sure. Mr. Biden, not so much. But in his news conference last week, Mr. Biden said something that I have been thinking about since. And the more I chew on it as I try to sort through all the major stories vying for the media and the public’s attention this week, the keener an insight Mr. Biden’s words seem to offer.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Editorial: Hogan top COVID adviser Redfield tosses viral kindling on anti-Asian fires
March 31, 2021 -

Last week, CNN aired an interview during which former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield said that COVID-19 “most likely” originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. This was unfortunate for a number of reasons, one of which being that it’s probably untrue. Most leading experts have dismissed the theory of accidental infection of a lab worker (deliberate release by the Chinese government is strictly the province of QANon conspiracy theorists) as doubtful, including the World Health Organization.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Burdensome requirements restrict teacher pool in Maryland
March 30, 2021 -

I have more than three years of full-time math teaching experience in two different school districts. Every year I have been in the classroom I’ve received a rating of either effective or highly effective. Additionally, I prefer to teach in Title 1 schools, which are traditionally harder to staff. It is my aim to teach in Baltimore City next school year and do my best to serve the Charm City community, but when I applied to Baltimore City Public Schools I was told I did not meet the requirements.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Frank DeFilippo: There’s Nothing Grand About a Grand Jury Investigation
March 30, 2021 -

Google is everybody’s rap sheet. Grand juries usually launch with a paper trail and people wearing badges riffling through swatches of newspaper clippings, or, these days, printouts from news sites. Those stacks of paper are a form of autobiography. They tell who a person is, what the person does, where the person’s been, and, if the proctoscopic analysis is thorough, where the pot of gold is buried.

Read More: Maryland Matters
Editorial: Baltimore County Council oversteps its role with schools
March 29, 2021 -

The Baltimore County Council is expected to offer some level of financial oversight of the county’s school system, its superintendent and governing board, particularly as budget time approaches. Asking questions, debating spending requests, even having conversations about sensitive issues like school redistricting or renovation priorities, all are part of the normal back and forth. But recently, the council dispatched a letter to the school system that should raise some hackles. It was not typical of the customary give and take. It was certainly cordial enough (there was no name-calling or direct threats). But where it went astray was in attempting to set COVID-19-related educational policy for Baltimore County Public Schools.

Read More: Baltimore Sun