Opinion

Isle Royale park structures protected under new alliance

The federal government, an entity many people wouldn’t necessarily consider the best for the purposes of planning, seems to be out front in establishing an organization to advance coordinated protection and improvement of Isle Royale National Park’s historic structures. The Isle Royale Heritage Alliance will be responsible for about 90 cabins, 19 fishery buildings and four lighthouses. The alliance will be powered by volunteers, with coordination by the National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation, the designated nonprofit park partner for Lake Superior’s five national ...

Time to check trees for invasive beetle

Residents in the region need only look at what likely is a dead ash tree — perhaps already a stump — in their yard or neighborhood to know the devastation that can be done by an invasive species. Since first being discovered in the U.S. in 2002 in Michigan, the emerald ash borer has all ...

Editorial cartoon for Aug. 12, 2026

Judge again bars Trump administration order that aims to limit mail voting

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday ruled against President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and directly involve the U.S. Postal Service in election operations in a way that would limit mail voting. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani had ...

Summertime political reruns

When I was younger, so much younger than today (credit The Beatles for that lyric from “Help”), television networks would rerun programs that had originally been broadcast the previous fall and spring. A few still do, like “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” but those are syndicated ...

Almanac for Aug. 12, 2026

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 12, the 224th day of 2026. There are 141 days left in the year. Today in history: In 2017, a driver sped into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally in the Virginia college town of Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring more than a dozen others. (The attacker, James Alex Fields, was sentenced to life in prison on 29 federal hate crime charges, and life plus 419 years on state charges.) Also on this date: In 1867, President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him as he defied Congress by suspending ...