Commentary

Sustainability smacks you the instant you pull into the IKEA parking lot in College Park. Most spaces are tucked under elevated solar panels, a national initiative started in Maryland three years ago to help the Swedish furniture giant generate all its own electricity. Walk past the U.S., Maryland and Swedish flags and into the mammoth blue-and-yellow building, and the first of many brightly colored, chipper displays makes clear that saving the planet is at stake with every purchase — “5 ways to step into a more sustainable day — every day.”

We made some noise about it in 2016. During her campaign for president, Hillary Clinton’s gender was much discussed — by her opponent, who accused her of “constantly playing the woman card.” By pundits wondering whether the nation was ready to elect a woman. By the candidate herself, who touted her own nomination as “a milestone in our nation’s march toward a more perfect union.”

Since 2013, every county in Maryland has been permitted to legislate and fund a public financing program that enables candidates to run for executive and council offices on the strength of their ideas and not on the depth of their donors’ pockets, with small contributions from everyday citizens matched with county tax dollars.

It’s surely no exaggeration to point out that the stakes are high in the dispute between the International Longshoremen’s Association and shippers and port operators that resulted in an ILA strike at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, including Baltimore, that began at midnight Monday. Dockworkers want higher pay. That’s understandable. The U.S. Maritime Alliance wants to keep down the cost of loading load and unloading ships.

Like most Americans, I’ve questioned how issues at the southern border affect crime and the quality of life for the citizens in my county and in other states far from the border. How can what’s happening in McAllen, Texas, affect the lives of Americans in Westminster, Maryland, more than 1,700 miles away? But after almost 36 years in law enforcement, I’ve gained a different perspective than most when it comes to border security and how it affects crime, including the public health crisis of heroin and fentanyl addiction.

Last year, the United States marked a half-century since the advent of an all-volunteer military in 1973 — but unhappily, in one crucial respect. Of the five services, only one, the Marine Corps, met its 2023 recruiting goal. For the largest branch, the Army, it was the second such shortfall in as many years. For reasons such as the obesity epidemic and the post-pandemic mental health crisis, only about 23 percent of all Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 meet the Army’s physical, moral and educational standards.