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On immigration, citizenship, listen to George Washington

As news reports proliferate of multimillion-dollar — and possibly billion-dollar — fraudulent diversions of government funds involving Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community, it may be time at one year’s end and the next one’s beginning to take a longer look at America’s experience with immigration, and to seek the guidance of the first and one of its two greatest presidents. The Founding Fathers were aware that their new nation was gifted with vast acreage, but only 4 million people were counted in the first decennial Census in 1790. The Constitution’s first words, ...

Re-visiting recent past is guide to better future

“What’s past is prologue” wrote William Shakespeare in “The Tempest,” a thought profound enough to be engraved on the National Archives building in Washington. As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, a blip on history’s ledger compared to many other nations, we would do well to re-visit even the recent past as a guide to what can provide us a better future. That’s because even though technology changes, other things do not. At the end of each year, I enjoy exploring the events of a century ago, a period in which my parents and grandparents lived. When ...

In 2026, let’s do better than in 2025

All in all, 2025 was a terrible year. Not because of the usual fraud, corruption and run-of-the-mill stories, such as Somali scams, political scandals or even street crime. No, it was a terrible year not just because of what happened, but what happened in response. It was a year of loss, with entertainment and sporting greats — including Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Val Kilmer, Hulk Hogan, George Foreman and Gene Hackman passing away. These losses were compounded by the tragic murder of Rob Reiner (and his wife Michele) in their home, and — of course — the assassination of ...

Economist’s experience is wake-up call for Americans

Peter Navarro, who spent four months in federal prison for a contempt of Congress order over the Jan. 6 investigations and now serves as senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, said in an interview about his newest book, “I Went to Prison So You Won’t Have To: A Love and Lawfare Story in Trump Land,” that despite being convicted and jailed, he never broke. It is a sentiment he still carries with him today. The book is a vivid tale; he unpacks how he was a victim of a weaponized justice system while detailing his experiences in what he calls a flawed minimum-security ...

It’s nice to set family goals together

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I do set goals. I take time to reflect on the previous year to look at what I’d like to build upon, what I’d like to scrap and what could use a tweaking in the new year. My husband does something similar. This year, instead of just setting individual goals I thought we could make family goals, too. It felt like another way to bring us together instead of operating in individual silos, each of us firing off in different directions. I wanted to see where our goals overlapped and prioritize those as family goals we all worked on together. ...

How artificial intelligence undermines education

If you want to develop human intelligence, you can’t let students rely on artificial intelligence. Generative AI will transform the world, even if no one is quite sure what the end product will look like. These are artificial intelligence programs that create new content based on prompts or questions submitted by a user. You can imagine the problems this has created for schools and teachers. Programs like ChatGPT can solve a student’s hardest math problem and spit out papers in seconds. Some in the education establishment believe the best path forward is to teach students ...