Our weekend roundup of interesting reads, including a report from the Maryland Association of Counties' annual get-together, black women's pay gap, health care policy choices and more...

Heading for Labor Day, life is quiet for many of us but quite hard for some of our neighbors.

The Progressive Maryland Weekend Reader -- (Actually because of a cyber-hiccup appearing at the beginning of the week, this week) Here’s a collection of interesting reads for progressives from inside and outside Maryland.

Gov. Larry Hogan is doing some twists and turns on withholding money that the Legislature insisted he spend on the state's public education system, while rewarding private schools with taxpayer funds. His claim that he won't play politics with the budget is ringing pretty hollow these days.

How to help victims cope with disasters in Silver Spring, where an apartment blew up with deadly results, and in the slow recovery from flooding in Ellicott City -- plus the slow, stealthy disaster of tipped workers in Montgomery County with a separate minimum wage of $4 an hour. Plus summaries and links for our recent blog posts.

Introducing a weekend reading list, as if you needed another one: good reads, mostly about Maryland, in our PM Weekend Reader.

In a presidential election year constantly labeled the "lesser of two evils" election, Rob Anthony talks us through his thinking on how to decide: Clinton or Trump, Trump or Clinton....

Can an economic program such as Bernie Sanders's make progress in ending racism in US society? Hal Ginsberg turns to the evidence of history to argue that it can.

In Montgomery County, Restaurant Week is supposed to promote the good eats you can get in the county? But who benefits from the crowds flocking to the table? Not the servers and other restaurant workers, whose tipped wage is $4 an hour. Learn how to change this.

We like it sunny, not rainy -- but we need that rain, and we need to use it to replenish our supplies, not pollute it and send it down the river. Liza Field, a guest blogger, makes the case for personal and public water consciousness