Replying to emails, researching policies, responding to constituent’s calls — some Hampton Roads’ city council members say they’re overwhelmed by the responsibilities of the job and could use a little help.

In Virginia Beach and Newport News, council members are looking into hiring assistants — though details about how much to pay them and what their duties will entail are still being hashed out.

Newport News Councilman John Eley III noted the challenges of balancing a full-time job with regular meetings with citizens and attending multiple city events each week. He said even after returning home late at night, he often spends more than an hour reading and responding to emails and texts.

“Sometimes it gets challenging trying to respond to 120 emails when it’s not your full-time job,” Eley said in an interview. “My goal when I was elected was to make sure I’m able to answer as many citizens’ concerns and just be able to help too.”

At a meeting last month, Newport News Vice Mayor Curtis Bethany suggested adding money to the city’s upcoming budget to hire “constituent service representatives.” They would act as part-time assistants for each of the six council members, excluding the mayor.

Read more in the Sunday Main News section

Preston Singletary strolled along a river of glass running through his exhibition at the Chrysler Museum of Art.

With a touch of imagination, the river’s light and dark shades of blue flowed smoothly. Projected stars glittered on the walls, and recorded voices of Native American storytellers, at low volume, wove yarns.

A faraway wolf howled. A white raven squawked.

“It’s come together well,” Singletary said.

The 60-year-old master glassblower wore a necklace with a glass grizzly bear claw, an emblem of his Native American ancestry, while inspecting his show, “Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight.” It opened this month after its time at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

Read more in the Sunday Break section

Around 1772, Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved teenager in Boston, sat down to write a poem called “On Being Brought From Africa to America,” which began with praise for the “mercy” that brought her from “my Pagan land” into Christian redemption.

The poem — once called “the most reviled poem in African American literature” — has been hard for many to take, including the generations of Black poets who have claimed Wheatley as a foremother. So when historian David Waldstreicher used to teach it to undergraduates, he would read it in two different voices.

“One was an exaggerated, beseeching voice — ‘Oh, thank God I escaped Africa!’” he recalled recently. The other was “ironic and challenging” — and, in his view, true to the subversive, anti-slavery thinking behind Wheatley’s decorous neoclassical couplets.

“By the end of class,” Waldstreicher said, “I got them to see there was a lot more going on.”

Wheatley, celebrated as the first African American to publish a book of poetry, has long inspired a steady stream of scholarship, creative remixes and tributes. (Norfolk State University has a building named in her honor.)

Read more in the Sunday Break section

Meridian Group, a Virginia Beach-based marketing and communications firm, merged with one of the region’s oldest advertising agencies, Norfolk-based WB Marketing.

Together, the two established firms possess more than 100 years of experience offering full-service traditional and digital advertising, marketing and public relations throughout Hampton Roads and beyond.

The firms operate under the umbrella of Five Hill Capital, a private investment firm and parent company of WB Marketing. They will maintain their current Norfolk and Virginia Beach offices.

Read more in the Sunday Work & Money section

Mike Elias made it clear this winter: The Orioles are no longer a rebuilding club.

“I believe that our rebuild is behind us,” the team’s executive vice president and general manager said in early February.

Elias added that the “focus” of the organization is now more on putting the big league club in a position to make the playoffs than on the development of its farm system.

At the same time, though, the Orioles’ future success is still heavily dependent on how the current crop of prospects in the minors perform. Some of them will arrive at Camden Yards in the future to join the likes of Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. Others, however, could be used as trade chips for Elias to acquire a star at the deadline. Either way, the players in Norfolk, Bowie, Aberdeen and beyond are still important.

When looking at the farm system, there are plenty of names to get excited about. As the worst team in the majors from 2018 to 2021, the Orioles picked in the top five of the draft for four straight years and accumulated a stockpile of talent as part of their rebuild.

Now, for the first time since Baseball America began ranking minor league systems in 1984, the Orioles are on top as the best farm in baseball with eight players inside the top 100 and several others worth following.

Here are the 10 most interesting Orioles prospects to follow throughout the minor leagues in 2023.

Read more in the Sunday Sports section

Note To Readers:  A reminder that Parade magazine is now only found along with your e-edition of either The Virginian-Pilot or Daily Press each Sunday morning.  Print copies of Parade magazine ceased after the November 13th issue.