opinion

GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- Josie came running into the room, distraught. She couldn’t find her tiara and amulet, or her pixie dust. Whatever would she do? I understood completely. I stopped what I was doing to help my sweet 2-year-old daughter locate these important items. I understood...

The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction when you peruse the files of the Herald. There was the sheriff on snowmobile in 1939. And there are photos and a story showing that nearby Gilby, N.D., began as a city of tents back in 1887, two years before statehood. Sheriff Oscar...

The evidence is overwhelming. Grand Forks City Council members deserve a raise, and a solid raise, at that. The members qualify on all counts. That includes not only the less-persuasive argument of “peer comparison” but also the stronger one of “attracting a good range of...

The Russians invaded the Ukraine, and the New York stock market dropped 200 points. The situation stabilized, and the stock market recovered. That underscores the fact that we are in a world economy, and occurrences on the other side of the globe have a dramatic impact on the...

Gov. Mark Dayton did not give rural Minnesota the broadband money it needs. But he did give it the next best thing: A roadmap for getting the money next time around. In its 2014 report, the Governor’s Task Force on Broadband recommended that Minnesota launch a Broadband...

I would like to say it was a vacation, but all Supermoms know the truth. When traveling with kids there is no such thing. Rather than vacation,...

In the course of my lifetime, I have been to piano lessons, confirmation classes, driver education sessions. I have been to writing seminars. I have taken training on computers. But never — until this past week — had I been to classes for falling. Yep, falling. I still...

In every winter, it seems, we are visited by a hunter from the Far North, a solitary figure wrapped in gray passing over the landscape capturing small prey and moving on. The snowy owl is such a visitor. Likewise, the rough-legged hawk. But this hunter is both more rare and...

You know those problems about which people say, “It’ll take a disaster before anything gets done”? This is one of those problems. And if North Dakota and Minnesota could avoid the disaster — which likely will involve sick or injured North Dakotans and Minnesotans dying...