Commentary

Amtrak Joe — President Joe Biden — is set to deliver on a new national moment for passenger rail. Despite some recent fits and starts, the Congress is close passing a transformational $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. The bill represents a historic investment in passenger rail, providing increased federal operating support for commuter railroads, new grant programs to address aging infrastructure and new support for green railroad technologies.

Johns Hopkins University recently extended the record-breaking tenure of its longest-serving president, Ronald J. Daniels. Under Daniels, Johns Hopkins has prospered, buoyed by the landmark $1.8 billion gift from alumnus Mike Bloomberg. As important, under Daniels, the university has hued to high ideals, recognizing its obligation to address equity. Now the question is whether the university, under Daniels’s extended leadership, will live up to those ideals.

Recently, some of Baltimore’s leading transit advocates, along with experts from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, released a study documenting how many of the city’s low-income neighborhoods of color are isolated by lack of transportation options and how that contributes toward social ills, including: an inability to access jobs, nutritious food, quality education, health care and other necessities that more affluent residents take for granted.

Lawmakers in Washington are currently considering doubling the tax on legal, adult sales of cigarettes, and increasing taxes on other adult tobacco products, like dip, by over 1,677%. As a former police captain in the Montgomery County Police Department, I can say without hesitation that increasing taxes on these products will contribute to the already stressed relationship police have with our most vulnerable communities. Maryland’s congressional delegation should oppose this measure.

Amtrak Joe — President Joe Biden — is set to deliver on a new national moment for passenger rail. Despite some recent fits and starts, the Congress is close passing a transformational $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. The bill represents a historic investment in passenger rail, providing increased federal operating support for commuter railroads, new grant programs to address aging infrastructure and new support for green railroad technologies.

We are on the threshold of implementing an impressive, all encompassing, long awaited, education funding, and policy shifting Education Reform Plan. To do so, the governor must appoint a seven-member Accountability and Implementation Board (AIB) for six-year terms which shall, by law, “reflect, to the extent practicable, the geographic, racial, ethnic, cultural, and gender diversity of the State.” The goal of the reform is to prepare our children for what is to come.

The following is the text of Andrea Chamblee’s prepared oral remarks for Tuesday’s sentencing hearing for the Capital Gazette shooter. Chamblee is the widow of John McNamara, who was one of the five Capital Gazette staff members murdered in the news organization’s office on June 28, 2018. Thank you for having us here. I know all our stories will be different even though they have this common thread. I’ve told versions of my story many times, but I haven’t really opened up to talk about what this cruelty has done to me personally.

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing recession have hit older workers especially hard. Today’s economy is simultaneously pushing out millions who were counting on their paychecks to survive, while trapping millions of others in jobs because they can’t afford to retire. These seemingly contradictory trends are part of a grim forecast for aging Americans. Older workers (defined as 55 and up) increasingly fear they won’t have a job well into their 60s. Even if they are still employed, that uncertainty undermines a person’s ability to negotiate their deserved pay and proper conditions, even after a lifetime of work.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unvaccinated Americans are almost five times more likely to contract COVID-19, 10 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19, than the vaccinated. Most of the vaccinated people getting very sick are the elderly or those recently vaccinated who have not yet developed appropriate immunity.

It’s not every day that a city of 32,693 on the lower Eastern Shore gets a chance to help set the standards for police reform in this country, but that’s exactly where Salisbury finds itself this week. On Monday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors announced that the Salisbury Police Department was the only small city in the country to be named a recipient of a 2021 Police Reform and Racial Justice Grant.