Commentary

As a relatively new Baltimore resident and a dedicated cyclist, I read your story regarding bike trails in western Baltimore with interest and after reading, decided to ride out and see the area for myself. That made for an interesting morning. The ride from my apartment in Federal Hill to Druid Hill Park is not a very bicycle-friendly ride, but traffic was light, so no problems.

Maryland is facing an unprecedented energy challenge. Our state’s growing dependence on aging infrastructure, coupled with rising demand from new industries like data centers and electric vehicles, has put enormous pressure on our power grid. As we grapple with these realities, the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP) has been proposed as a stopgap solution to shore up our grid’s reliability.

It’s good news that in May, the National College Athletic Association and its power conferences agreed to pay college athletes over the next decade an estimated $2.8 billion from the megabucks that football and basketball teams generate. Athletes can give it the old college try while making a helluva lot of money.

As Gov. Wes Moore said in a recent op-ed of his own, jump-starting our economy is the key to unlocking Maryland’s promise and making sure no one is left behind. As chairman of Sparrows Point Alliance, a grassroots organization built to support the revitalization of Sparrows Point, I could not agree more. But unlocking the promise of Maryland will take more than just words; it takes real-world projects that create high-quality jobs, significant investment, and life-changing opportunities for our communities.

Harry Huntley wants you to know he’s not the mayor’s man. Despite being labeled an “insider” in a local news headline about candidates for an Annapolis City Council vacancy, he says he’s not that, either. “I don’t know how the heck I’m the insider,” he said during an interview Thursday morning. “I wasn’t terribly incensed about it, but it didn’t seem particularly accurate to me.”

Instead of warring over whether their microphones will be muted while the other is speaking during the upcoming presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump should be worried that they could essentially be muted for millions of Americans who don’t hear well during the live Sept. 10 broadcast.

We watched closely as Gov. Wes Moore spoke during a prime-time slot on the third night of the Democratic National Convention, wondering if he’d use one of the biggest stages in politics to make his rising star burn brighter or turn the spotlight toward Maryland. He did a little of both, serving as a loyal surrogate to Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.