If last week’s announcement that Russian and Iranian operatives are using technology once again to influence U.S. politics came as a surprise, you clearly have not been paying attention. That makes you preferred prey, by the way. We were warned in advance of the 2016 election of how the ...

It’s good news that Gov. Doug Burgum signed an executive order to enable county auditors to begin processing ballots five days ahead of the general election. Existing state law allows local election boards to process absentee and mail ballots only on the day before and the day of Election ...

Most studies have shown that wearing a face mask is one of the best ways we currently have available to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. The Minot City Council recognized this and expressed strong support for masks when they voted 5-2 to approve a mask mandate for the city. Masks ...

Overwhelmingly, we Americans are not bigots. It grates on us to be accused of tolerating “systemic” racism. Then we read or hear about situations such as one last year at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Here, in case you missed it, is part of The Associated Press report on ...

Monopolistic control over how information is disseminated is a bigger problem for Americans now than were such domination of the oil, steel and automobile industries a century or so ago. The problem was on glaringly bright display last week. A story reported initially by the New York Post ...

We’ve been urged to “follow the science” so many times during the past six months that we suspect many people are growing sick of the advice. Besides, what if the scientists aren’t following the science? Some of them are not. Americans became justifiably suspicious of the World ...

We Americans, collectively, were not ready for the coronavirus epidemic. We ought to be ready for the recovery. It will begin when a vaccine against COVID-19 becomes available. Though a timeline for that is uncertain, it appears safe, effective vaccines will be available early next year. ...

It is doubtful the late Sen. Everett Dirksen, R-Ill., would have foreseen a time when a bit of sarcasm attributed to him would become obsolete. Sometime during the 1960s, it is said, Dirksen warned against apathy regarding the national debt by commenting, “A billion here and a billion ...

Unless the Nov. 3 presidential election is decided decisively, one way or the other, there is a distinct possibility of civil unrest in some of the nation’s cities. Both federal law enforcement officials and their counterparts in some states recognize that and are taking steps to be prepared ...

If the authorities are correct in their allegations against a group accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the 13 men ought to be viewed with a mixture of horror, disgust. Real Americans do not attempt to change either society or government by force. Those who do so, ...

Among the very worst evils in our world is sexual abuse of children. But many of the predators engaged in it have an enemy powerful enough to strike fear in them. Operating far enough under the radar that we doubt many people have heard of it, an organization in Boca Raton, Florida, has a ...

When will we have an effective, safe, vaccine against COVID-19? That depends. Federal public health officials who are in the know and without any political agendas have said deliveries of vaccine can be expected sometime in January. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services predicts a ...

Well, so much for questions about whether enormous mistakes may occur in handling presidential election ballots. One already has. It was reported last week that nearly 50,000 — 50,000! ­— voters in Franklin County, Ohio, received incorrect mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election. The ...

It has been seven months since Americans began locking down against COVID-19. Many have attempted to get back to “normal” by donning masks, washing hands more frequently and taking a step or two backwards sometime, to maintain social distancing. But many others have remained cloistered at ...

By the end of September 2019, 30 U.S. law enforcement personnel had been killed while on duty. Thirty-seven have been killed this year. Non-fatal injuries have soared, too. It is not being inaccurate to note that many, probably most, police officers, sheriff’s deputies and other law ...

Were the COVID-19 virus to be a creature capable of thought, it would be easy now to accuse it of engaging in a plot aimed at American democracy. The most devious, evil schemer based in Moscow or Beijing could not come up with a more perfect storm leading up to the Nov. 3 election. With ...

Knowing how many people live where in the United States is more than a matter of satisfying curiosity or writing books on demographics and geography. The Census conducted every decade has enormous ramifications. How about $1.5 trillion in federal funding is doled out to localities and states, ...

Many sectors of the U.S. economy continue a slow but steady recovery from the COVID-19 slowdown. By the end of September, the unemployment rate had dropped to 7.9%, down from 8.4% in August. But as we and many others have warned, some businesses — and millions of their employees — ...

Becky Dewitz, director of Minot’s Roosevelt Park Zoo, will be moving on to a new job as chief executive officer of the Great Plains Zoo and Delbridge Museum of Natural History in Sioux Falls, S.D. The announcement of her new job and subsequent departure was made this past week. Dewitz’s ...

Talk for months about how inefficiency and lax security in the U.S. Postal Service may affect the upcoming presidential election has had an unfortunate side-effect: It has distracted attention from the agency’s very real, deeply rooted dilemma. Any private company suffering as badly as the ...