Rear Adm. Yvette M. Davids has an impressive resume. Graduate of the Naval Academy and the Naval War College. First Hispanic woman to command a Navy warship. Commander of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. High-level jobs ashore, including chief of staff of the U.S. Southern Command. And now, the first woman nominated to serve as the academy’s superintendent in its 178-year-history.

Efforts to expand Maryland’s commuter rail service into a regional system took a step forward with the signing of an agreement with officials in Delaware and Virginia. The framework agreement signed earlier this month opens the door to discussion that could lead to expanded service to Newark and northern Virginia.

 

Gov. Wes Moore (D) is a breath of fresh progressive air in Annapolis. And almost all observers agree with his self-appraisal: We had, he’s written, “one of the most productive legislative sessions for any Maryland governor at any time during their tenure.” Yet, he seems to have struggled on one core subject: funding for the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future and particularly our most disadvantaged students.

Community colleges tend to get disrespected — and that was long before the TV comedy series “Community” showed up on NBC a decade ago. The knock, repeated endlessly on the show, is that the college attracts a ragtag, often older bunch of ne’er do wells who couldn’t attend a more prestigious, four-year college. The truth, of course, is that community colleges play a vital, often underestimated role in society.

Let’s take a walk to the water for Earth Day. There’s a trail hidden in Eastport, a charming and expensive Annapolis neighborhood. It’s on Boucher Avenue, which may or may not be named for the Tory rector of St. Anne’s Church who escaped a crowd of angry rebels by holding their leader at pistol-point while galloping away on his horse. Pink flowering trees obscure the entrance. There’s no sign, except for one notifying you that the all-seeing eye of Neighborhood Watch protects this spot.

As TikTok has mushroomed to more than 150 million monthly U.S. users, so have warnings among both state legislators and members of Congress about its potential danger as a tool of the Chinese government. Dozens of states and the federal government this year banned public employees from downloading the popular app on their government devices.

Much attention was paid to the horrific crash on the Baltimore Beltway in Woodlawn last month that killed six highway workers. The clip from surveillance video was viewed repeatedly on the internet and television news. Two vehicles had collided, with one spinning through an opening in concrete safety barriers and rolling over the construction workers, who never had a chance.

Almost a full decade after the Frederick County Board of Commissioners went out of existence, its ghost continues to haunt Winchester Hall, tying the hands of current officials and forcing excessive growth on the county. As in Dickens’ “Christmas Carol,” our problem is not so much the ghost of the past as it is the ghost of the future. Decisions made by those commissioners still require county officials to approve projects that they know the county is unprepared for.

Six roadway workers were killed last month when a driver traveling at high speed collided with another car on the Baltimore Beltway, Interstate 695 (”Where is the rage (and policing) over deaths on Maryland’s roads?” April 19). The force of the crash sent the vehicle barreling into a highway construction zone, causing the vehicle to flip. The video from a nearby Maryland Department of Transportation camera makes it clear no one in the pathway of that car had any chance to survive.

Gov. Wes Moore (D) hit the Washington, D.C., policy circuit Wednesday morning, rubbing shoulders with a national media personality to talk workforce development, then traveling five blocks to discuss climate change with corporate executives and government officials. At both stops, Moore was very much on-message and on-brand as a forward-looking, action-minded policy wonk, preaching the importance of partnerships and strategic thinking at a moment when the state is hoping to take advantage of incoming federal largesse.