Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson decided last week that he would try to clarify to the pope what the Bible says on immigration. This was in response to Pope Leo XIV and U.S. Catholic Bishops’…

More than a year after the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, the economic aftershocks of the disaster still permeate the lives of the people who survived it.  Fewer than a dozen homes in some of the…

Even if the administration has temporarily backed off threats to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell protests in Minnesota, the idea will come up again.  That’s partly because the power — which would allow the…

I wore my Timberlands last week. They’ve always been one size too big. When I was in Washington, D.C., in 2014, they were part of the uniform for my AmeriCorps program, City Year, an AmeriCorps…

It was the most consequential camping trip in American history: In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, asked the naturalist John Muir to guide him into the wilderness of California’s Yosemite Valley.  After three days…

It was good to have Derek Schmidt in Iola last week. Thanks go to County Commissioner John Brocker for inviting Schmidt to visit the town’s industries and businesses for the better part of the day.…

This week, President Trump called on his party to nationalize American elections, an unconstitutional move that he said would be justified because of the danger of noncitizens casting ballots. “These people were brought to our…

President Trump has his hands full in Venezuela while also pondering military action in Iran, but the Ukraine war is grinding on and Vladimir Putin wants the world to think he can’t be defeated.  A…

President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policy collides smack into economic reality somewhere in the middle of the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit to Windsor, Canada’s southernmost major city.  That 1.4-mile suspension bridge handles more than a…

In light of recent turmoil, it can be hard to believe that a year ago, many Americans, arguably a majority, approved of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and promise for a new era of mass…