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Monument to journalists a vital reminder

David Dreier The Baltimore Sun This week marks the first anniversary of the deadliest assault against journalists in U.S. history. On June 28, 2018, a gunman opened fire at the offices of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., killing five and injuring two. We will always remember Rob Hiaasen, Wendi Winters, Gerald Fischman, John McNamara and Rebecca Smith, as well as the brave women and men who survived the attack and immediately went back to work serving their community. These deaths are not isolated incidents. Every year, hundreds of journalists are attacked, imprisoned ...

New York Times’ Sulzberger is right (and wrong)

I never thought I would write this, but the publisher of The New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger, is right. Sulzberger wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in response to President Trump’s claim that his newspaper committed “treason” by publishing a story about U.S. efforts to compromise Russia’s power grid should Moscow again try to meddle in U.S. elections. The Times says it consulted National Security officials who raised no objections to its publication. It is one thing for the president to criticize sloppy, inaccurate and biased reporting by the media, including The ...

‘At least there was some civility’

Critics of Joe Biden are falling over themselves in a rush to castigate the former vice president — and current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination — for his latest so-called “gaffe.” Some of them are even Democrats. His sin: He waxed nostalgic, as many of us old men do, at a New York fundraiser last week about a time when the opposing parties went after each other tooth and nail, as Washington politicians do, but unlike with today’s polarized slugfests and gridlock, they also managed to find areas of compromise and pass serious legislation. He might ...

Developments in floodplains proving costly

BY HARRIET FESTING In early June, Diane Mueller fled her flooded home near St. Louis, for the second time in two years. She hopes it won’t happen again. When she saw the water bubbling up through grates in the floor, it was time to go. She and her husband got the pets into the truck and headed for dry land. Now they sit on the floor of an unfurnished rental house, contemplating next steps. Floods have always been a fact of life in our great river valleys, but the problem is getting worse, thanks to a climate that brings much heavier rains. And flooding is exacerbated by ...

Stonewall still playing out 50 years later

Leonard Pitts is on vacation. his column will resume on July 8. In late June of 1969, the New York Police Department raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar in Manhattan where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people would congregate. On the night of the raid, patrons fought back and days of riots ensued. Although resistance to the policing of queer lives started long before Stonewall, the riots are widely considered the catalyst for the modern day LGBTQ rights movement. As we commemorate their 50th anniversary, the struggle against state violence and for queer liberation ...

Congress must protect Title X health care program

BY JESSICA McCOLLEY As a maternal-child physician, I provide care to some of our state’s most vulnerable populations. Large portions of this area’s people live on the lower end of the income scale, and many do not have health insurance. These populations live in a rural part of the state where medical options are limited and sometimes unavailable. These are characteristics of communities that can be found throughout West Virginia and the country. They are often forgotten about when we talk about health care access. Low-income people living in rural America continue to struggle ...