Commentary

For decades, overdoses and other substance use-related harms have ravaged our city. Like communities big and small across the country, Baltimore has been hit hard, but the situation has worsened in recent years as the drug supply continues to change. Today, fentanyl and adulterants like xylazine are unavoidable in the street drug supply. Overdose rates and the incidence of serious wounds have soared.

As communities across the globe continue to face extreme heat, intense storms and other extreme weather, it is clear that there is no time to waste in making serious and enduring investments to combat the climate crisis. Thanks to President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are tackling climate change head-on while sparking job growth and ensuring that every community shares in the economic opportunities of this new era.

I spotted the last seahawk of 2024, talons briefly clutching the tips of a tree above as my dogs, oblivious, sniffed the ground below. For many, fall arrives with the equinox at 8:43 a.m. Sunday. It’s when the hours of night and day balance and pumpkin spice overwhelms. For me, the shift begins when osprey cries are replaced in the sky above my home along the Chesapeake Bay by barking Canada geese. It means change is coming.

Journalists are not perfect. We are not omniscient. We make mistakes. But those who labor in our field, whether in Annapolis or Baltimore or foreign war zones, believe in the value of seeking out the truth and sharing it with others despite the risks involved. May that always be so.

Maryland patients, particularly those living with chronic health conditions, need consistent access to medications that manage symptoms and enable them to live healthy and fulfilling lives. Patients often have to navigate a complicated health system where multiple health system middlemen impact that access, and what patients pay at the pharmacy.

As the Maryland Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB) examines high medication costs across the health system, board members must ensure that Maryland patients are ultimately the ones benefiting from any efforts to lower health care costs and realized savings.

The political landscape has indeed reached an unprecedented low-water mark, stained by a grotesque degradation of discourse that would have been unimaginable in more civilized times. Both the media and the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have engaged in an incendiary rhetorical warfare that not only degrades the standards of political exchange but is, frankly, counterproductive to the health of the nation.

It has been a challenging enough season for Ocean City without the latest debacle — a wave of medical waste including hypodermic needles washing up on the beach. If it’s any comfort to Maryland’s Atlantic coastal residents (and it’s probably not), they were not the only victims. Officials were forced to close beaches to swimming from Delaware to Virginia. The danger is simply too great that someone will be injured by a needle of unknown origin.

The Frederick Board of Aldermen, at long last, is ready to vote on charter changes recommended by the committee appointed in 2022. A vote is scheduled for Thursday, although it’s unclear if the board is guaranteed to address every recommendation that day or hold off on some for later. After meeting and discussing the charter for a year, the Charter Review Committee last December recommended 19 changes.