If it takes a village to raise a child, then, apparently the folks in Alpena are doing pretty well at it. Earlier this month, two 11th Avenue residents noticed small flames at a neighbor’s house and immediately the two sprung into action to warn the residents of the apartment ...

Michigan has made remarkable progress in slowing the spread of the coronavirus, enough so that much of the state — including Northeast Michigan — has been reopened since Memorial Day. But, to protect that progress, we must continue to take precautions — washing our hands, keeping our ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered all of our lives, upending our state economy and budget in the process. But, right now, there is an opportunity to support efforts to provide important relief for people who are struggling and our state budget. You can help make that happen. ...

The COVID-19 outbreak has had an enormous impact on our state, but it was made even worse by several major mistakes by the governor. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer failed to anticipate the effect of her stay-at-home order on the livelihoods of Michigan families, and then failed to ensure that the ...

The Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary turns 20 this year. Lake Huron off the Northeast Michigan coast has been protected since 1981, when the state created the 290-square-mile Thunder Bay Underwater Preserve. In 2000, the federal government created the National Marine Sanctuary, ...

Today’s installment begins with a warm memory, because it takes one back to a high school college English teacher named Ed O’Rourke. He was an Ichabod Crane-type instructor and others ignorantly laughed about him behind his back. But make no mistake, this guy was brilliant and he was on a ...

To a great many of our visitors, tourists, passers-through, and seasonal residents, U.S.-23 South, up from Squaw Bay, is their main gateway into Alpena. The area has taken an economic beating, of late, with the closure of Peebles and the announced closures of Burger King and J.C. Penney in ...

Few would argue that the cat’s got Donald Trump’s tongue. He talks all the time. The president is so full of words that he needs multiple outlets. When his mouth isn’t moving, he’s tweeting. Or, in the annals of the unbeknownst, he’s twitching. Yes, twitching. Give the man credit ...

The Seattle Commune is no more. Declared three weeks ago by radical leftists as CHAZ, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, rechristened CHOP, the Capitol Hill Occupation Protest, the six-block enclave inside Seattle ceased to exist July 1. The cops shut it down. As Marx said, history repeats ...

Students and school districts had to adjust dramatically this spring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition from face-to-face education to remote learning was challenging enough given how quickly it had to be enacted, but, for many districts in rural areas, the transition was made ...

Hate is often bred from misunderstandings or ignorance, a lack of exposure to people, beliefs, ideas — and history — that is different than ours. Quite frankly, that is one of our weaknesses, here in Northeast Michigan. We have much to be proud of here, but we are a mostly homogenous ...

Michigan’s political response to COVID-19 will prove lethal to the most vulnerable of our population — the young and the poor. To her initial credit, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration forced a temporary lockdown on Michigan when COVID-19 first struck. At the time, data from China ...

While returning to school later this summer still seems like a dream — or a nightmare, depending on your perspective — some light was shed on the issue this week by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Whitmer released a plan she and an advisory committee helped formulate titled “Mi Safe ...

“Journalism is an incredibly prevalent career in the comic book world – many of the biggest superheroes tangle with reporters and photographers along the way (whereas few, if any, regularly meet with accountants or used car salesmen).” — Rose Moore, ScreenRant (2016) I was ...

News from the Alpena County Regional Airport was nothing but positive this week. While the airport was the recipient of a hefty federal grant, in our estimation the best news of the week was the fact that SkyWest will continue operating air service out of the airport for another two years. ...

Alpena’s 1912 Fourth of July parade was an all-male affair. Men only “strutted and stared.” Women watched — or not. Being there then to see the surviving soldiers of the Horace E. Parker Post of The Grand Army of The Republic — our civil war veterans — would have been an ...

America’s Founders regarded a free press as so vital to the new nation that they took care to include that right in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Founders spoke glowingly about the press as a pillar of democracy and guarantor of liberty. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, famously ...

Line 5. Have you heard of it? It’s a segment of an Enbridge Inc.’s pipeline running from Alberta, Canada to Sarnia, Canada. Harmless enough, right? Well, not necessarily. You see, it runs right through Michigan, and more concerning is that it lies in the bottom of the Straits of ...

A successful holiday weekend would be one where no one is injured in fireworks displays and we all maintain a safe social distance around us while participating in holiday events. Every year, fireworks-related injuries rise this time of year because of people not following proper safety ...

The concept of boundaries popped up in five separate places in my life recently. The discussion of boundaries came up in three different conversations with friends, then again in a movie I was watching, and then once again in a text message I received from another friend. I think we all know ...