Commentary

High school students across the nation are increasingly questioning the value of college. In a Gallup poll, just 36% of Americans have a “great deal” or quite a “lot of confidence” in higher education. The perceived value of a college degree is at an all-time low. Individuals see their peers weighed down by student loan debt exceeding an average of $30,000.

Landfills stink. Worse, they emit hazardous air pollutants, precursors to ozone and particulate matter, and methane — a super-potent greenhouse gas with about 80 times the near-term warming power of carbon dioxide. Methane is generated in huge amounts when organic waste decomposes in the landfill. In fact, landfills are the third largest source of human-driven methane in the United States, with annual emissions equivalent to driving 66 million gasoline-powered cars or operating 79 coal-fired power plants for one year.

The job of any big city mayor might be split into two distinct skill sets. The first is political — giving speeches and working crowds, strengthening your base of supporters while reaching out to build coalitions with members of the City Council, business and community leaders, and your state and regional counterparts. The other is administrative. This part of the job is not unlike serving as a chief executive officer of a company with thousands of employees.

The most obvious strategy for addressing the escalating violence and crime in our city and nation is to eliminate the easy access to guns. But this action, although supported to some extent by a majority in the U.S., seems politically unattainable, despite the almost daily carnage experienced by victims, families and communities. This carnage features plenty of bullets, but no magic bullet exists to mitigate the pervasiveness of violence and gun culture that subverts every fiber of our humanity. We are faced with only tough choices.

The writer of a lengthy cover story in the New York Times Magazine earlier this year on Randi Weingarten, head of the national American Federation of Teachers union, described his months of interviews “about the convulsions in American education. ” The author’s big takeaways: “it’s no longer possible to separate education from politics, and public schools are more vulnerable than they’ve ever been.”

In 2009, I began working toward a dream to create software with a soul to improve lives. I started Fearless with $6,000 in my mom’s basement. At Fearless, we believe good tech isn’t enough – good people are needed to drive impact. We work with organizations such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to help people access health care. We worked with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture to create the first digital platform to tell the African American story.

In a marble-lined courtroom in the grand old courthouse on North Calvert Street, a Baltimore Circuit Court jury hears a story that makes the list of the most tragic in the city’s modern history.It’s about a middle-aged man — a husband, father of three, an engineer with a degree from the city’s most prestigious university — shot to death after swinging a baseball bat at a group of young squeegee workers last summer.