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Make plans to celebrate nation’s 250th birthday in ND

Editorials

2025 is coming to an end and soon will be a year to look back on. Whether it was a good year or not, it is for you to decide. Now we can look ahead to 2026, a year that will mark the 250th birthday or U.S. Semiquincentennial of our nation. This major national celebration will culminate on July 4, 2026, marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed and 250 years of American independence. Events and other activities are being planned across the country, including right here in North Dakota. Celebrations and other activities, including for schools and ...

How artificial intelligence undermines education

National Columnists

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 ...

Great writers take us to many places

National Columnists

After Christmas is over, and the sunrises start getting earlier and the sunsets later in the Northern Hemisphere, there are still two months of scarce daylight and lowering skies ahead. Here’s a suggestion for how to fill the gloomy hours with uplift: read. Read some great books, returning perhaps to those you ploughed through on school assignments so many years ago. Discover one of the pleasures of aging — how serious books turn out to be more interesting and enriching than what you remember from dutifully ploughing through them years ago. Sit in a comfortable chair, turn off ...

Great Britain leads in its own self destruction

National Columnists

For centuries, Great Britain stood as one of the West’s crown jewels, a bastion of Judeo-Christian civilization, free speech and rule of law. One small, proud island in Western Europe defeated tyrants, ended slavery and stood firm against the flood of Nazism that swamped the continent and threatened to envelop the entire world. “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,” Winston Churchill famously declared on behalf of the British people and yes, ...

I’m spiritually learning through my writing

National Columnists

As 2025 comes to an end, I want to thank my readers who have emailed me throughout the year with encouraging and kind words. I truly appreciate the thoughtfulness put into every message. Due to my teaching and grading load, I am not able to respond to every email, but I am deeply moved that people would take the time to write me. I’m also grateful to those who shared their dissenting opinions. I think we can all agree that we need more civil and polite discussions in online spaces. Three recent columns that particularly resonated with readers were my Thanksgiving commentary on ...

Tax credit delivers meaningful relief

Local Columnists

What a difference a year – and a bold policy change – makes. Across North Dakota, property tax statements are arriving in mailboxes ahead of a Dec. 26 deadline for counties to mail them to homeowners. And while it’s not a Christmas miracle, it’s certainly a welcome change to see property tax bills going down significantly, thanks to a major relief and reform package we approved with the Legislature last spring. In 2024, North Dakota’s $500 Primary Residence Credit left about 16,000 households, or 10% of those eligible for the credit, owing no residual property tax. ...