The student loan crisis is an epidemic.

The American calendar is filled with days, weeks and months set aside to draw attention to a wide variety of worthy causes and issues. Often there are several such observances going on at once. A great many of these are worthy of respect and deserve note, but the sheer number of them can make it difficult for people to focus on those that are most important.

It is inspiring to see the next generation of adults focusing the world’s attention on the consequences of pollution and society’s general failure as environmental stewards.

The spotted lanternfly is an invasive species that has emerged as a destructive pest in Pennsylvania since its arrival in the southeastern part of the state about five years ago. The insect, described as “a large, colorful planthopper,” is a threat to $18 billion in state agriculture — tree fruit, timber, hops and especially grapes. The lanternfly wreaks havoc by sucking “the sap from valuable trees and vines, weakening them,” The Associated Press reported in a Sept. 26 article that appeared on LancasterOnline.

Local news starts with us. Newspapers have been the foundation of real news for over 300 years. While the delivery of the product has transitioned from black ink on newsprint, to the internet, to smartphone applications and social media outlets, no other industry is as firmly rooted in the foundation of our nation, or our communities, as the free press.

Friction over people parking in bike lanes to attend weekend worship services while cyclists struggle to safely navigate the same streets is a good reminder of the unprecedented, competing, and growing demands on Center City’s constrained and finite transportation infrastructure. And like other street fights, this one can’t be resolved in a vacuum. It’s also a good reminder of the need for wider-ranging conversations — among constituencies, the City Council, and the Philadelphia Parking Authority — to make a good-faith cooperative effort to tackle the many mobility challenges in the heart of Philadelphia, where fiscal and geographical limitations force us to make the most of what we’ve already got.

It says something about the insidious power of social media and smartphones that they have infiltrated even the lives of some Amish teens and young adults.

The Puerto Rican community in our state breathed one collective sigh of relief after Hurricane Dorian took a turn and spared the island another catastrophe.

“An East Hempfield Township man who was charged last year for his part in a fentanyl-laced heroin bust that involved $50,000 worth of the drug” has been sentenced to six to 30 years in prison, LancasterOnline staff reported Aug. 13. Meanwhile, authorities stated that “a Lancaster County Drug Task Force bust of a Manheim man resulted in the seizure of 220 bags of fentanyl,” LancasterOnline reported Aug. 23. Finally, The Associated Press reported recently that law enforcement officials in Virginia took down a multistate drug ring that was in possession of “enough cheap fentanyl from China to kill 14 million people.” Let’s start with a fentanyl primer, as many of us must educate ourselves on this drug and its immense dangers.

Another day, another bogus lawsuit.

Pennsylvania lawmakers still are trying to think of ways to undo the Legislature’s shortsightedness and narrow-mindedness when they passed a law in October 2017 to abandon what was then the commonwealth’s archaic, overly restrictive fireworks rules.

The media’s latest hot take is that Republicans — in particular the dastardly Senator Mitch McConnell — are blocking bipartisan legislation to protect the nation’s elections. Reality, as usual, is more complicated. Consider the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act, or the Safe Act, which the Democratic House passed in June.

Rattlesnakes are only poisonous if you think they are.

The way we produce, consume and discard food is no longer sustainable. That much is clear from the newly released UN climate change report which warns that we must rethink how we produce our food — and quickly — to avoid the most devastating impacts of global food production, including massive deforestation, staggering biodiversity loss and accelerating climate change.

The mishandling and misuse of consumer data has become one of the defining issues of the digital age. And so recent actions against the credit bureau Equifax and the social media giant Facebook were seen as a significant opportunity to set a course toward more meaningful accountability, security and privacy.

Coal isn’t coming back

Standing against the camps

Allegations of sexual abuse

There was little for anyone to be proud of in the Pennsylvania statehouse last Wednesday: Not Republican senators, whose attempts to bully though a benefits-cutting measure were crass, craven and cruel; not Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who let the proceedings run off the rails; and especially not Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, whose efforts to shout down a fellow lawmaker were as churlish and childish a display as are likely to be found among elected officials.

Welcome to the wacky world of Pennsylvania’s plastic-bag politics.

Charges of hypocrisy rarely hit their intended targets — mainly because hypocrites are blind to their own role in irony or injustice.

The original GI Bill nearly died in Congress because some lawmakers thought it didn’t make sense to send millions of World War II veterans to college.

Raise a glass to the longest economic expansion in modern American history.