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Thomas E. Perez, the former Maryland labor secretary nominated to lead the U.S. Department of Labor, faced pointed questions at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday about whether politics influenced his decisions as the top civil rights attorney in the U.S. Justice Department. But the 51-year-old Takoma Park man, nominated last month by President Barack Obama, focused his testimony largely on the economy, faced questions on only a fraction of concerns Republicans have raised in recent weeks, and made no obvious missteps during the two-hour hearing.

For weeks the media has feasted on a Jada Pinkett Smith comment that implied she and her husband Will enjoy an open marriage. So she took to Facebook this week to put an end to the feeding frenzy. Or maybe to throw out another bone. "Open marriage?" she wrote.  "Let me first say this, there are far more important things to talk about in regards to what is happening in the world than whether I have an open marriage or not. " True that. But, hey, no harm in chatting about it, just a little, all the same.

ESPN analyst Quint Kessenich participated in a Q&A on Monday . The former Johns Hopkins All-American goalkeeper, who can be followed on Twitter via @QKessenich, also addressed a few questions about No. 6 Maryland, No. 8 Loyola, No. 13 Johns Hopkins, Towson and UMBC: How concerned should Maryland be with an offense that has averaged just 8.0 goals in its last four contests? They've been coasting. Only eight against Carolina, nine against Virginia, 11 against Navy and then only four against Johns Hopkins.

The Baltimore Police Department is asking the city for $285,000 to hire a Massachusetts-based consultant — the highest of five bidders — to recommend how the department should be run. But a city councilman is questioning the need for a consultant. And he says he's concerned that the department is bypassing lower bidders for a company with ties to former Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, an ally of Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts. "In these tough economic times, we have to think about saving taxpayer dollars," said Councilman Brandon Scott, who has called for a hearing on the contract.

Bill Burwell wants to see more Maryland firms competing globally. "We want to enable Maryland firms to win in overseas markets," said Burwell, director of the U.S. Commercial Service in Baltimore, the Commerce Department's trade promotion arm and part of the International Trade Administration. Baltimore's U.S. Export Assistance Center, which Burwell has headed since 2004, works to help companies launch or increase sales in global markets. Over the past two years, the center has counseled and provided other services to about 350 Maryland businesses, most of them small or medium-sized employers.

I don't know how to answer Michael Hanchard's questions, but I understand why he asks them: "If we were a middle-aged white couple, rather than a black couple, and if the group of people who surrounded us were black or Latino, rather than white, would the attackers have been treated with impunity? "Would police officers have told a middle-aged white couple there was no way to determine whether they had been … assaulted?" Before you go thinking that Michael Hanchard is a black man who plays the race card first and asks questions later, consider that the 53-year-old professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins University waited a year to speak about this.

A 2013 Maryland General Assembly bill bearing the name of a Howard County teenager who killed herself last year is expected to be signed into law, but it stands on shaky constitutional ground, an official of the Maryland ACLU said. The "Misuse of Interactive Computer Service" bill is also known simply as Grace's Law, named for Grace McComas, the 15-year-old Glenelg High School student who committed suicide on Easter Sunday last year after months of being harassed on social media sites.

An off-duty Harford County sheriff's deputy fired his service weapon at a man who he said became combative and then fled after the man rear-ended the deputy's vehicle, the Sheriff's Office said Monday night. The altercation led to a chase that ended with the man crashing his vehicle and then being arrested after a foot chase. A little before 5 p.m., an off-duty deputy assigned to the sheriff's office Violent Crimes Task Force, had just ended his shift and was headed home, according to Eddie Hopkins, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.

Helping companies save money on postage can bring in the big bucks. Baltimore-based Three Dog Logistics picks up mail from clients with high volumes, "commingles" it with other client mail going to the same ZIP code and delivers it closer to the end destination to qualify for a U.S. Postal Service discount. The company made the Inc. 5000 list of fast-growing private companies last year - again - because revenue grew nearly 150 percent from 2008 to 2011, to about $12 million. "We've been on the Inc. 5000 for three years in a row," said John Kennedy, the company's CEO. "And we actually might make the Inc. again this year.