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The latest from Rick Hutzell
Hutzell: Plastic pollution is choking the Chesapeake Bay. Now there’s hope.
COLUMN | Where there are people, there is plastic. People are crap. You can hold cleanup days from now until forever, and it won’t stop plastic from flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. To do that, you have to think big.
Hutzell: Stephen Miller’s trans persecution is here. Parents face hard questions.
COLUMN | What if this isn’t about parents’ rights and school bureaucrats? What if the lawsuit and threats to cut off school funding over pronouns and names are about seizing control of schools from local communities? Parents should be asking a lot of tough questions.
Hutzell: This data could keep more Maryland teenagers from killing each other
COLUMN | Jen Pauliukonis is collecting data on gun violence in the state as no one has before.
Hutzell: I went to the Smithsonian to catch up on woke history. Outrage was free.
COLUMN | The White House warned that I should be on the lookout for “anti-white,” “illegal alien” and “transgender” activism while walking through the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. I looked, but all I found was the real lesson of studying history.
Hutzell: The speed limit is about to drop on a dangerous Annapolis road. Get your tickets now.
COLUMN | Anne Arundel County is lowering the speed limit on Forest Drive in Annapolis from 40 to 35 mph on Monday, the first big step in a $10 million plan to make this dysfunctional back door to Maryland’s state capital safer.
Hutzell: Constitutional challenge could defang an emboldened government watchdog
COLUMN | If a judge sides with Donna Liberto's constitutional argument, it could have a chilling effect on the Anne Arundel County auditor's ability to pursue fraud, waste and abuse.
Hutzell: Does President Trump have cyclosporiasis? ’Cause he was spewing some weird BS.
COLUMN | This is another summer we will remember for a continuation of politics that makes you sick to your stomach. Still, it may be the first with cucumbers as a risky proposition. Did the president address our national exploding diarrhea? No, he had another kind of poo on his mind.
Hutzell: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ has nothing on Annapolis’ Homer obsession
COLUMN | However big the song of Odysseus’ journey home 3,000 years ago will look on — really big — screens in Christopher Nolan’s IMAX adaptation this weekend, it has a home in Annapolis.
Hutzell: Republicans want to beat the odds in deep-blue Maryland counties. Good luck.
COLUMN | To win in Maryland's most Democratic counties, Republicans will try to distance themselves from toxic parts of the national and state party. It’s not always easy.
Hutzell: Maryland’s constitution is a can of worms. Let’s open it.
COLUMN | As long as Democrats are opening the can of worms that is Maryland’s foundational legal document, why not examine all the worms and see if we can’t do better?
Hutzell: Annapolis is a music town. An expanding Kent Island club will shake it up.
COLUMN | Cult Classic Brewing is putting the finishing touches on a new stage with room for 400 in the audience. If bringing national and regional acts to a small waterfront town sounds familiar, it should. That’s the Rams Head On Stage brand.
Hutzell: While Maryland idles on Waymo, I went for a driverless ride in San Francisco
No matter how prepared you are for the experience, seeing the wheel of a Waymo turn this way and that without the touch of human hands is disquieting.
Hutzell: I was a Buycentennial kid. This semiquincentennial is so much worse.
COLUMN | The 200th celebration of Independence Day was so over-the-top with stunts, kitsch and merch that wags and academics dubbed it the Buycentennial. So I look at this year’s 250th semiquincentennial and can’t help but judge it, well, worse.
Hutzell: The best, worst and just plain weird of Maryland’s weak primary
COLUMN | Maryland 2026 primary election is almost in the books, so it’s time to recognize the -ests among the results — best, worst and weirdest.
Hutzell: Eight years after the Annapolis newsroom shooting, a return to 888 Bestgate
COLUMN | For eight years, I’ve avoided getting too close to 888 Bestgate, where five friends were murdered on June 28, 2018. It's the dark point on my landscape of regret, and it just smacked me in the face.
Hutzell: Summer starts today. Welcome to storm season on the Chesapeake Bay.
COLUMN | The solstice arrived at 4:24 a.m. Sunday. That’s the start of astronomical summer. It’s when you think about thunderstorms and their even more dangerous cousins, tornadoes and derechos.
Hutzell: Everybody hates Gavin! Then why can’t Anne Arundel stop talking about him?
COLUMN | Six months after putting the mayor’s office behind him, Gavin Buckley is on the ballot again this month. For many, it’s a referendum on his two terms as mayor.
Hutzell: By the numbers, a Maryland primary election index
COLUMN | Elections involve a lot of numbers. There are numbers now, however, that can give us some clues. Consider these while you wait.
Hutzell: Who do you trust to find the truth about Wes Moore’s story?
COLUMN | Armstrong Williams says truth is self-evident. Comparing The Sun's coverage of Wes Moore's military record with reporting by The Banner's Lee O. Sanderlin suggests it's far more complicated.
Hutzell: At 68, I swam across Spa Creek in Annapolis. The best part was the company.
COLUMN | How do you make a busy waterway livable, swimmable? For almost 20 years, the Spa Creek Conservancy has been working to do that.
