Commentary

Friday’s announcement by Gov. Wes Moore that Maryland is moving to stockpile mifepristone, the abortion pill that is now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, was a welcome development given the uncertainties over access. Other states have made similar moves in recent days — including New York, California, Massachusetts and Washington — and we expect more to follow, at least in areas where women’s reproductive rights are still valued.

As the first state to require service learning to graduate — a 75-hour volunteering mandate adopted in 1992 — Maryland has long had a reputation as a place that prepared young people well for civic life. Yet as the state gears up to implement the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, civics is strangely missing. Yes, the Blueprint invests $3.8 billion in education over 10 years, and promises new programs to eradicate achievement gaps and improve outcomes.

Drivers are the heart of Lyft. Right now, they are showing us the future of our business — and it’s electric. On our platform, we saw trips in electric vehicles increase by over 90% last year, outpacing even the rapid growth of electric vehicle adoption across the U.S. and in Maryland. Drivers with Lyft see a huge opportunity in going electric: it’s greener, the technology is new (and fun), and, perhaps most importantly, they save money on gas and maintenance costs.

In 2020, Montgomery County adopted Question C, expanding the County Council from nine seats to 11. In Montgomery County, seven council members (five before 2020) are elected by district and four are elected at-large. Question C was competing with Question D, which would’ve instituted nine districts and no at-large seats.

The Maryland General Assembly concluded its work this week in a session that dealt with important, weighty matters, as well as more mundane concerns, as it always does. Newly elected Gov. Wes Moore had a successful first session, getting almost his entire agenda approved, as would be expected when a Democratic governor has an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature with which to work.

Baltimore doesn’t have celebrity home tours like in Los Angeles — and even if we did, it would be bad because they’re creepy stalker bait. But between the movies and TV shows filmed on location, the city’s professional athletes and just random folks hanging out here, we’ve got a lot of stories of just running into celebrities. Sometimes literally.

Baltimore’s first big cultural moment was arguably 209 years ago, when a local lawyer, trapped on a ship in the middle of a battle, wrote a poem about his relief at knowing the American flag still waved over Fort McHenry. It was similar to a lot of the artistic splashes the city would make in the next few centuries: dramatic, concerned with race, identity, and sense of place, and more than a little messy.

Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning film, “Born on the Fourth of July,” about Vietnam veteran-turned-war-protestor Ron Kovic, appeared on Netflix last week. I hadn’t seen it since its release in 1989, when its star, Tom Cruise, was 27 years old, so I gave it another look. It’s a hard film to watch, but opens innocently enough: The 10-year-old Kovic and his buddies playing soldiers, armed with toy machine guns, in a wooded area of small-town Long Island in 1956.