How can Baltimore’s faith community help people without housing? That was the theme of a new forum, “Voices of the Unsheltered & Homeless Community,” held Saturday morning in Northeast Baltimore. The meeting was the first of what will be monthly meetings every second Saturday, said Christina Flowers, an advocate for Baltimore’s homeless population and the forum’s organizer. “What we are doing today is starting a community initiative where we’re working with our interfaith community and some of our clergies to come up with some strategies and ideas to really help our unsheltered, homeless community,” Flowers said.

For years, electric vehicles posed something of a chicken-and-egg problem. Mass adoption, seen as critical to cutting the largest single source of U.S. carbon emissions, couldn’t happen until the infrastructure to allow drivers to recharge wherever they were heading was in place. And those charging stations weren’t coming until more drivers switched to plug-in electric vehicles. That’s one of the reasons why growth in electric vehicle sales was sluggish for much of the past decade, industry experts say. Times are changing, however. The commercials for electric versions of their best-selling trucks blanketing airwaves show major U.S. automakers like Ford and Chevrolet are jumping with both feet into the EV market, vying with the likes of start-ups like Rivian for a share of the lucrative pickup market. And far from offering a single electric model here or there, many automakers plan to go mostly electric over the next two decades.

It was deep into the third hour of a dry meeting on budgets and ethics policies when the president of the Columbia Association directed a stark question to the board that just 18 months ago hired her for one of the most prominent leadership positions in Howard County. “I actually had a question for the chair,” said Lakey Boyd, a 49-year-old planning and community-building professional in a relaxed drawl that has become increasingly familiar as she has made herself known throughout Columbia. “I have been informed by one of [Columbia Association]’s vice presidents that he was asked if he would be willing to serve as interim president of CA, with some sense of urgency.” Boyd wanted information about why a member of her executive team had just been asked if he would be willing to replace her. And she wasn’t the only one seeking answers.

Three gents, who care deeply about the place, are taking us on a hike today, into the woodlands of Oregon Ridge Park in Baltimore County. They want us to see what they consider a problem in the hilltop forest: Not enough oaks, too many deer; not enough birds, too many thorns. Now, you say, that’s fine, and it might even be interesting. But don’t we have much bigger problems? Of course. The big picture — I mean, the really big picture — is that the planet is in trouble, and we, that is, the 8 billion of us who inhabit Earth, are not doing enough to slow climate change. The three main greenhouse gasses (methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide) have hit record levels in the atmosphere, according to the United Nations, and that’s more bad news.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown won the race for Maryland attorney general, becoming the first Black person elected to the office. The Associated Press called the race for Brown at 11:09 p.m., after the congressman maintained a sizable lead over Republican Michael Peroutka in the hours after polls closed. Brown will succeed the state’s current chief legal officer, Brian Frosh, a Democrat who served two terms as attorney general and did not run for reelection. His victory comes on a historic night for the state, which elected its first Black governor in Democrat Wes Moore.

Telemedicine has emerged as one of the several crucial innovations coming out the coronavirus pandemic, making it easier for many people to access health care. But as the crisis phase of the pandemic comes to an end, these gains could be rolled back. Policymakers should try to preserve them. Before the pandemic, virtual medical visits were somewhat of a novelty. Telemedicine was mainly envisioned as a service for patients living in remote areas who couldn’t travel to see a specialist physician. That changed with stay-at-home orders. In March 2020, the federal government gave providers broad — but temporary — flexibility to deliver health-care services by two-way video and telephone.

Baltimore Del. Brooke Lierman made history Tuesday night, becoming the first woman elected as state comptroller and to an independent state government office in Maryland. “It’s been 20 years since the one and only time Democrats nominated a woman for one of our three statewide offices and I’d like to give a shout out to that woman, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend — as well as all the women who’ve run and whose shoulders I stand on: from Eleanor Carey to Valerie Ervin to Heather Mizeur and Kelly Schulz,” Lierman said to a packed hotel ballroom in Baltimore. “We represent more than 51% of the population here in this state and tonight I’m humbled that for the first time in our state’s 200-plus year history, we have finally elected a woman to one of our top three offices.”

On Friday, we honor our nation’s veterans, a practice that goes back more than a hundred years to the end of the first world war. Politicians from Baltimore to Honolulu will make rousing speeches, as generations of politicians have done before them. As a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m grateful that they value our service, but I think we can do better than empty rhetoric. When the U.S. government ended the draft in 1973 and adopted the all-volunteer force military model, it effectively segregated the armed forces from the rest of the country. Today, veterans account for only 7% of the U.S. adult population, meaning most Americans probably don’t know anyone with military experience.