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Commentary

Youth curfew: Great in concept, not in practice

In response to an uptick in gun violence, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks last week announced a month-long enforcement of a longstanding curfew for children age 16 and younger. Early returns — one weekend’s worth anyway — appeared favorable as the D.C. suburban county reported just two shootings, neither fatal on Saturday and Sunday. As it happens, the move has proven trendy. The District of Columbia had already quietly resumed enforcing that city’s youth curfew as well with at least 16 young people picked up by police for violations since Aug. 1, according to The Washington Post. District officials aren’t claiming they’ve made inroads but recognized that with violent crime and youth arrests up this year, something needed to be done.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
What tragedy becomes banal: Why news consumers experience crisis fatigue

When Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea on Feb. 24, 2022, the images of war were conveyed to dismayed onlookers around the world. Far from the action, many of us became aware of the unprovoked aggression by reading online coverage or watching TV to see explosions and people running from danger and crowding into underground bunkers. Half a year later, the violence continues. But for those who have not been directly affected by the events, this ongoing war and its casualties have been shifting to the periphery of many people’s attention. This turning away makes sense.

taking sinovac covid-19 vaccination injection
Free vaccine doesn’t mean equal access for all

Bivalent vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are arriving in Maryland this month, free for everyone, with the federal government footing the bill through the end of the year — but that’s not enough to ensure equal access this fall. Those who encounter barrier after barrier to get health care, like many in Maryland’s migrant and immigrant communities, won’t get their shots. When COVID vaccines were first released in 2021, numerous barriers jumped up to prevent marginalized and overlooked members of our communities, like asylum-seekers, refugees, newly arrived immigrants, and immigrant food and farmworkers, from accessing the vaccine, even though they were free.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
On the anniversaries of the Star-Spangled Banner and U.S. Constitution, let us recommit to the rule of law

Independence Day festivities are almost always associated with fireworks, picnics, and concerts. Celebrations of the nation’s Constitution in September, meanwhile, are usually more cerebral and muted. Those outside of public colleges and universities, which are mandated to commemorate the occasion, might not even know that the U.S. Constitution was signed on Sept. 17, 1787. An even more overlooked date is Sept. 14, which marks Francis Scott Key’s writing in 1814 of what would become known as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The poem, later set to music, served unofficially as the national anthem long before Congress declared it to be such in 1931.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Peter Jensen: Life lessons to Tom Brady from someone who has been there, done that

I happened to be watching television this past weekend when I stumbled upon a gentleman doing his demanding job near-flawlessly at an advanced age despite the chorus of doubters around him. Yet he found himself in conflict with his disapproving spouse. I instantly recognized the fellow. Why, that was me. The similarity was uncanny. High achiever? Check. Working hard? Of course.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Superbugs need their own moonshot initiative

As two physicians who have devoted our lives to studying cancer, we’re thrilled with President Joe Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative to halve the disease’s death rate within 25 years. But we worry that it won’t achieve that goal unless we act on a related, lesser-known health crisis. For many cancer patients who die from this awful disease, their tumors aren’t solely responsible. In many instances, superbugs sicken these patients, who can’t fight off resistant infections due to weakened immune systems — even with the help of antibiotics.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Mohler: The Canary in the Coal Mine

As we sprint toward November 8, 2022, there will no shortage of analysis or visits to The Front Porch regarding what is about to transpire. That journey begins today. In his book, Why We’re Polarized, Ezra Klein wrote, “We are so locked into our political identities that there is virtually no candidate, no information, no condition, that can force us to change our minds. We will justify almost anything or anyone so long as it helps our side, and the result is politics devoid of guardrails, standards, persuasion, or accountability.” That concludes this visit to The Porch, well not really, but it certainly could. The polarization and tribalism that grips our nation is at a fever pitch and is putting our grand democratic experiment on the ballot this fall.

Opinion: Traffic deaths are up, but where is the urgency to reduce them?

In the first three months of last year, Maryland recorded 110 traffic fatalities. During the same time period this year, there have been 164 such deaths, a nearly 50% increase. And while that first quarter trend was among the worst in the nation, ), it was hardly unique. U.S. road deaths increased by 7% overall from January through March this year continuing a nearly two-year trend to produce the highest 3-month level of traffic fatalities in two decades, according to recently released National Highway Traffic Safety Administration numbers. At what point will those in charge of traffic safety at the state, local and federal level find these numbers alarming? This quarterly result represents 9,560 deaths.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Opinion: 21 years after 9/11, the war has not ended for anyone

Twenty-one years after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan, one can ask whether the United States has yet learned the principal lesson of that shocking, savage day. It is a lesson well-known to military planners, yet hard for a nation with allies on its borders and oceans at its sides to believe bone deep. In the starting and ending of wars, the letting of blood and the waging of battle, the enemy has a vote. The day that has come to be known as 9/11 began a war only for us; for the enemy, the war had been raging for years.

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