The latest from Rick Hutzell
Hutzell: Andy Harris helped make Americans sick this summer
COLUMN | As chair of a key appropriations subcommittee, U.S. Rep. Andy Harris helped delay a rule that would have traced the source of cyclospora in food that made people sick in 49 states over the summer.
Hutzell: ICE deported a Naval Academy midshipman’s mother. We need families like theirs.
COLUMN | This nation will need Midshipman David Garcia and others like him — immigrants and their families torn apart by President Donald Trump’s cruel immigration purge — once the madness of this moment ends.
Hutzell: 25 years after 9/11, is America safe from terrorism?
COLUMN | In the chaos of America on the 25th anniversary of those attacks, I can’t help but ask if 9/11 could happen again. Are we safe?
Hutzell: Carol’s Western Wear returns for one final Maryland cowboy roundup
COLUMN | Carol’s Western Wear was the place to outfit yourself for a square dance or riding the beltway range in your suburban pickup truck. Now, seven years after it closed, there’s a final auction set.
Hutzell: Annapolis restaurants keep changing — and keep on breaking local hearts
COLUMN | Places like 49 West in Annapolis are shared living spaces where ordinary people spend significant hours away from home and work. When they change, even if the new owners say they’ll keep it the same, it breaks your heart.
Hutzell: ‘The Hogan Court’ is Maryland’s last hope in redistricting fight
COLUMN | If Maryland loses its redistricting lawsuit appeal this week, you can almost hear the explanation already — it was “The Hogan Court’s” fault. That would be wrong.
Hutzell: Just how Maryland are you? Here are 50 of our state’s essentials.
COLUMN | Maryland is filled with people, places and foods unique to this quirky little state. It takes years to add them to your essential checklist, but the process is what makes life here special.
Hutzell: Hunting for Maryland’s worst summer power outages in 2026
COLUMN | Maryland power outages spike every summer, and utilities know which parts of their systems are most vulnerable. Finding the worst-hit areas is harder.
Hutzell: Oversight Project is the real story in the Maryland redistricting lawsuit
COLUMN | The Oversight Project brings its “maximum warfare” on election laws to Annapolis, where attorney Samuel Dewey’s team will fight to block a Maryland redistricting referendum.
Hutzell: Wes Moore’s governing travel schedule: Oh, the places he’ll go
COLUMN | As Dr. Seuss and the governor’s office constantly remind me, Wes Moore has places to go.
Hutzell: Maryland food trucks launch onto the Chesapeake Bay this summer
COLUMN | Food trucks are going where few have dared before — out on the Chesapeake Bay. In boat-loving Maryland, this had to happen eventually.
Hutzell: Baltimore has a poop-in-the-pool problem. And pee in the stadium, too
COLUMN | I promise, I won’t be juvenile about this. Baltimore has a serial pooper on the loose. It’s a serious serial problem, and it’s a journalist’s duty to expose the truth. Ha ha. Duty.
Hutzell: How not to pick a Maryland blue crab, and my search for the right way
COLUMN | Everyone in Maryland knows how to pick a Chesapeake Bay crab, right? There is a method to it, a shared technique. Well, what if we’ve been doing it wrong all along?
Hutzell: Banner Book Club explores Revolutionary mystery in ‘Chesapeake Bound’
COLUMN | Annapolis author Tom Guay will discuss "Chesapeake Bound" at The Banner Book Club, exploring research, characters and the Easter eggs hidden in his historical fiction novel.
Hutzell: Eastern Shore secession? Go on now, go, walk out the door.
COLUMN | The prospect of Mardelva is the latest in a line of oft-repeated threats to secede from Maryland. They grow loudest when the Eastern Shore fails to get its way in Annapolis.
Hutzell: Andy Harris and the Maryland redistricting vote loom over Annapolis
COLUMN | Oh, Andy. What is Maryland to do with you? To hear Republicans in Annapolis tell it, you’re the damsel in distress, a starlet in the clutches of a King Kong gerrymander unleashed by Democrats.
Hutzell: $400M later, Live! Maryland grants face pressure to change
COLUMN | There’s growing acknowledgment that change is coming for the millions of dollars handed out in grants funded by Live! Casino taxes every year. After 14 years, there’s interest in sharing the wealth.
Hutzell: In Jamie Raskin’s Democracy Summer, busloads of teens aim to flip Congress
COLUMN | A sea of gray-haired picketers angry about the state of the nation has been asking: Where are all the young people? I found 80 of them recently in Easton, Maryland — high schoolers lining up to flip Congress in November.
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.
