Friday, March 29, 2024 | Baltimore, MD
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Commentary

The border comes to Baltimore

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.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
FCPS made right call in respecting graduate’s heritage

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.

 

white and blue van on road during daytime
Dan Rodricks: Attention, bad guys — leave our postal carriers alone

One day soon, I should receive from the U.S. Postal Service the annual count of dog attacks inflicted on the nation’s hardworking, all-weather letter carriers. The number for the previous year comes out every spring, along with the perennial request that Americans be “responsible dog owners” by keeping their pets away from the men and women who deliver 162 million pieces of first-class mail each day.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Tom Perez: We Cannot Allow Wall Street to Undermine Regulatory Bodies Like the FCC

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.

Meet someone who made it on ‘The Voice,’ and someone who didn’t get close. (Me.)

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.

Fifth graders in their classroom at school
Baltimore County’s new schools superintendent must be bold

It’s no surprise that the decision to name Myriam Yarbrough the next superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools drew a standing ovation at Tuesday’s school board meeting. This was a vote for stability, experience and sound judgment after so much turnover at the top — Yarbrough will be the fourth person named to the post in six years — as well as disenchantment with some of the outsiders who previously filled that role.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
The Preakness reminds us that Maryland needs a state song. No, not that one.

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.

Remembrance helps us face Frederick County’s shameful past

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.

Dan Rodricks: 50 years ago, Secretariat won the Preakness with a bold move

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.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Anirban Basu: Despite best intentions, Prince George’s County housing policy moving in wrong direction

By now, all are aware of the ravaging impacts of inflation. Many are also aware that housing costs have played a large role in rapidly driving up the cost of living. Since the start of the pandemic, the U.S. Consumer Price Index has expanded nearly 16% in a nation that aspires to 2% inflation per annum. The median price of a home in Prince George’s County has also raced higher, from $316,500 in February 2020 to $415,000 more recently, an increase exceeding 31%.

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