What to do when the cupboard is bare

We live in a time and in a nation where the gorge between the poor and the wealthy is getting wider and deeper. And, as Milo Perkins said in the 1930s, we need “to find a way to build a bridge across that chasm.”

One family’s hardship makes clear the need to ban use of toxin-laced sewage sludge as fertilizer

New York state should follow the lead of other states that ban the use of biosolids as fertilizer.

From the editor: The three branches of our government are meant to provide checks and balances

We are pained not just because of rising costs but by what feels like an irrational betrayal. Why would we, as a nation, want to harm an ally at great cost to our own citizens?

Profit shouldn’t take precedence over health and safety

We support initiatives that help close the gap between wealthy companies and struggling consumers.

Plant a tree as an emblem of citizens working together for the common good

“We need all New Yorkers to lend a hand – or shovel! – to reach our goal of planting 25 million trees by 2033,” says the state’s Tree Tracker website, urging residents to record the trees they have planted. It is easy to feel helpless in times when problems like climate change are so enormous. But planting a tree is something any of us can do. Think of it as a start to digging in for the common good. Perhaps we can revitalize democracy so that citizens do their civic duty and in return enjoy benefits that expand opportunity.

Schools must stay the course in meeting the needs of each and every student

by Melissa Hale-Spencer

These are the times when individual states can make a difference in protecting their residents from the dismantling of our rights. So can individual municipalities and individual school districts.

Title IX guidance should be followed to prevent sexual misconduct in schools

One of the most important tools for student safety is communication. Dangers can’t be locked out of schools — no matter how many security cameras or safety vestibules or locks are installed — if the problem is within.

Each of the steps in the Title IX guidance involves communication: clear written policies, discussion of difficult issues; training of not just staff but students and parents; reporting clearly any incidents; communicating well with law-enforcement and child-welfare agencies; and responding to the community and media as well as to students, parents, and staff.

We musn’t bury our heads in the sludge: PFAS should be banned, and biosolids should be filtered

Even if our state did work to protect our farmland, as in Maine and Vermont, we New Yorkers are still drinking milk from other states and eating produce from other states. Cows that graze on land fertilized with biosolids, for example, can have PFAS in their milk. So what is needed is federal regulation.

Denying science will not solve our problems. Fires will rage, droughts will kill, hurricanes will become more frequent and fierce if we deny scientific facts as a hoax.

Misrepresentation flows easily while truth takes effort to discern

“If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm,” Natan Sharansky wrote, “then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society.”