Commentary

Just about everybody understands that getting off fossil fuels is central to our climate goals. What few people understand, however, is that we won’t be able to do it without fundamentally changing our buildings. Buildings consume an average of about 40 percent of U.S. energy. And in some cities, that number is much higher — upward of 70 percent. Local governments are attempting to address this by passing legislation that would require building owners to reduce emissions from their energy use. Local Law 97 in New York City, for example, requires them to reduce greenhouse emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and by 80 percent by 2050. Those who don’t hit the target could face massive financial penalties.

A new Illinois law allows high schools to teach media literacy to students in all subjects. In case skeptics are tempted to portray this as some kind of underground conspiracy to indoctrinate kids, it’s exactly the opposite. There’s no agenda here other than to arm young people with better tools to distinguish fact from fiction and to be on the lookout for deliberate misinformation. This is an age where computer programs can generate video or alter photographs to make it appear that something concocted digitally actually happened in real life. There are thousands of people out there who have nothing better to do with their lives than to make up stories disguised as actual news.

On a Monday morning this summer, feeling the lazy buzz of Washington heat, I showed up early to an event hosted by the Harvard Institute of Politics at the Republican National Committee. I was a tad early, so I sat in the cooled lobby to wait. The minutes ticked by, yet no one came. This was new. At other Harvard Institute of Politics events this summer, there was always a healthy gathering of interested undergraduates. A lunch with a senior Biden administration official drew 16 students. A trip to the labor secretary’s office got a dozen.

The Baltimore Banner has been reporting on how, right now, in Maryland, children in the state’s care are living in hotel rooms and office buildings. We’re told the problem is a “shortfall of placement options” and the fact that group homes have closed. But this framing ignores the actual problem: Maryland doesn’t have too few foster homes, Maryland has too many foster children. We should be horrified not simply by where children are being housed, but also because they are being unnecessarily removed from their families in the first place. At a fundamental level, the overwhelming majority of cases are nothing like the horror stories in the news. In Maryland, over 62% of the children in the foster system are there due to neglect. 

Hydrocephalus occurs when excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in cavities of the brain. The only known treatment is brain surgery, which often involves implanting a device called a shunt in the head to drain the excess fluid. Unfortunately, shunts are prone to failure over time, thereby requiring surgical replacements. According to the Hydrocephalus Association, over 36,000 shunt surgeries are performed each year, averaging to one every fifteen minutes and making it the most common reason for brain surgery in children.

That is the number of adult Marylanders who the National Student Clearinghouse reports as having “some college, no credential” and who are not currently enrolled. 613,000 is a staggering number – representing 13 percent of all Maryland adults — but one that also represents a significant opportunity for our state, and especially for those Marylanders who began their postsecondary journeys but never completed them. Aside from the lost economic benefits that having a postsecondary credential affords the graduate (estimated, on average, to be worth $1 million), businesses in Maryland increasingly rely on talent who possess some form of education beyond high school.

A paramount principle of journalism is fairness. It’s essential when covering campaigns and elections. We strive to be accurate in describing candidates’ positions and to be thorough in capturing who they are. We don’t take sides in our news coverage. Our job is to gather and present information, to help voters learn what they need to know before they make choices. The Frederick News-Post’s coverage leading up to the July 19 primary took many forms. Our reporters wrote profiles of the four candidates for county executive, the 24 candidates for County Council and the three candidates for sheriff.