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Social justice

    The Arundel Center in downtown Annapolis houses county government offices.
    Anne Arundel County has passed a sweeping anti-discrimination law. What will it mean?
    A new Anne Arundel County law will expand the Human Relations Commission’s powers from addressing discrimination complaints in housing to include noncounty employment and public accommodations.
    Photo collage of silhouette of young girl with ponytail and backpack next to bright orange stuffed toy rabbit. The background shows on the left a photo of the border wall between the USA and Mexico, and on the right a grayscale photo of a judge in a courtroom.
    What life is like for children navigating Baltimore’s immigration court
    For the last decade, children have been traveling to the U.S. southwest border in record numbers, with more than 33,000 unaccompanied children arriving in Maryland since October 2014.
    President Joe Biden speaks in front of the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, flagged by Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller and Gov. Wes Moore.
    Commentary: Biden right to focus on union labor for Key Bridge rebuild
    Having unionized workers rebuild the Key Bridge would ensure that workplace standards are upheld, livable wages are paid, and the workforce reflects the makeup of the Baltimore region, William R. Davis, a council representative for the Eastern Atlantic States Carpenters, says.
    Percy Moran's 1905 painting of Francis Scott Key and John S. Skinner as they watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry took a good deal of creative license.
    St. John’s College is reckoning with its racist past. That includes Francis Scott Key.
    St. John’s College in Annapolis will look at its most complicated graduate as part of a wider reckoning with its history of racism.
    Shanta Trivedi (L) is an assistant professor and faculty director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Aubrey Edwards-Luce (R) is the center’s executive director.
    Commentary: Ivan Bates’ cruel threat to charge parents when children arrested
    An idea floated by Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates to bring criminal charges against parents whose children have been arrested is cruel and misguided, say the faculty director and the executive director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore School of Law.
    Lillian Bocquin is a Bloomberg Fellow with the Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
    Letters: City leaders disregard conditions leading to juvenile crime
    Youth development programs are among the resources needed to address the social and economic causes of juvenile crime, says Lillian Bocquin, a fellow with the Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
    Awadagin Pratt will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra on Friday and Saturday.
    A renowned Black pianist will perform in Annapolis. Is it a milestone?
    Annapolis is a city with a racist past. There’s just no nice way to say that. The arts, well, they are no different. The question is, what has changed?
    The Francis Scott Key Bridge on April 5, 2024.
    Key Bridge name should change, civil rights groups say
    The Caucus of African American Leaders unanimously voted to ask that two bridges in the state, including the Francis Scott Key Bridge, be renamed.
    Jawone Nicholson, seated with his family, as trial counsel Cary Hansel and Tiana Boardman stand behind him.
    Jury awards $250K verdict against Baltimore Police officer who pulled gun on teens
    A federal jury in Baltimore returned a $250,000 verdict against an off-duty Baltimore Police Department officer who in 2017 pulled a gun on two 16-year-old boys as they waited for transportation to an after-school program in their Columbia neighborhood.
    Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after it was struck by a large container ship early March 26.
    Commentary: Dear America, don’t leave Baltimore behind this time
    As Baltimore recovers from the Key Bridge collapse, America must not forget that the city has been an essential part of its history and progress, says Eric S. Singer, a historian and an authority on the structural, political and cultural history of the city.
    Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott attends a news conference in Dundalk after a cargo ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge early Tuesday, collapsing the bridge into the Patapsco River.
    How racist, anti-immigrant disinformation added to the Key Bridge tragedy
    Baltimore has become the latest target of a national far-right campaign spreading thinly veiled racism after a catastrophic event.
    Maynor Suazo, one of the six construction workers who died while working on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, had two children.
    Commentary: Immigrant workers like those on the Key Bridge take care of us
    The loss of workers in the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse serves as a reminder of the essential role immigrant workers play in our community and of our obligation to protect them, say the leaders of immigrant rights groups United We Dream and CASA.
    Sarah Spall looks over a stone wall at Burnside Bridge at the Antietam National Battlefield, where Gen. Robert E. Lee ended his first invasion of the North in September 1862 in Antietam, Md. The battle claimed more than 23,000 men killed, wounded, and missing in one single day, September 17,1862, and led to Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
    Commentary: Antietam Battlefield need not honor Robert E. Lee
    Removal of the Robert E. Lee statue from the Antietam Battlefield is appropriate when the totality of his life is considered, a writer who examines Civil War History says.
    Steven Messmer is an attorney who works to resolve “tangled titles” that can block property transfers.
    Commentary: When the largest asset of low-income Marylanders is held hostage
    Tax debt and other property-related bills can block home title transfers that would be beneficial to low-income Marylanders, says an attorney who works to resolve these “tangled titles.”
    Photo collage of water meter cut in half by warning message that says "Pardon our Progress."
    Commentary: Unpaid water bills could again cost Baltimoreans their homes
    Legislation would put renters at risk by removing safeguards that protect non-owner-occupied properties from city tax sale foreclosures for unpaid water debt, an economic justice advocate and a public water advocate say.
    Charles H. Hickey Jr. School, run by the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services.
    13 more sue state, alleging sexual abuse as children while wards of the Maryland agencies
    Identified only by their initials, 11 women, one man, and one person who identified as non-binary, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the state of Maryland and three of its agencies, claiming they were sexually abused as children while residents at the Good Shepherd Services treatment center before the facility was closed in 2017.
    Crownsville State Hospital in Crownsville, Maryland. The photo, dated Jan. 15, 1932, pictures patients, nurses and the doctor.
    ‘Madness’: Q&A with Antonia Hylton about her book on Maryland’s ‘Jim Crow Asylum’
    NBC News Correspondent Antonia Hylton speaks with journalist and broadcaster Gwendolyn Glenn about Hylton’s book, "Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum," which explores the history of Maryland’s Crownsville Hospital.
    (left) Del. Marlon Amprey represents District 40 in Baltimore. (right) Erik Nielson is a professor at the University of Richmond and the author of “Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America.”
    Commentary: Protect rap lyrics, other creative expression from prosecution
    Maryland must be one of the places that will protect artistic expression, including rap music lyrics, from being used by prosecutors in criminal cases, say a state lawmaker and an author who has written about those prosecution methods.
    Baltimore’s young people find a lack of educational and other resources that can help them transition to adulthood, Julia Baez, the CEO of Baltimore's Promise, says.
    Commentary: Much-needed assistance lacking once children get older
    Baltimore’s young people older than 16 often find a lack of educational and other resources aimed at helping them transition to adulthood, Julia Baez, the CEO of Baltimore’s Promise, says.
    (l) Nancy Gertner is a retired U.S. district judge for the District of Massachusetts. (r) Andre M. Davis is a retired U.S. circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
    Commentary: Juvenile sentencing bill is about politics, not reducing crime
    Efforts in Maryland to roll back juvenile justice reform are politically motivated and won't reduce crime, two retired federal judges say.
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