Christmas Kindness 2025

To the Editor:As I took my seat in the Gladwin High School cafetorium, I watched in awe as the members of the Gladwin Area Community Band filed onto the stage.

The tariffs aren’t helping

Ronald Reagan famously said that the most frightening words in the English language are: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Measles vaccination as a public health investment, not an expense

As of this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded more than 1,700 measles cases, the most in three decades. These cases stemmed from 45 reported outbreaks, a sharp increase from just 16 in 2024.

Social Security increase ... not much

An informal poll of friends and neighbors got me a range of responses, from grimaces to laughs to snarls.

Involuntary discharge for vax refusal?

If you stood your ground and did what you thought was right in refusing the COVID vaccine, you might have thought your veterans benefits were lost forever when you were involuntarily discharged. There’s been a change.It’s been a long five years.

The GOP can’t punt on health care

The debate over affordability is now truly and fully joined. After the off-year elections, Democrats are coalescing around a costof- living message that makes more sense than their anti-Trump obsessions (not that we aren’t going to hear a lot about those).

Support and celebrate small businesses this holiday season

This holiday season, will you shop at one of the 33.2 million small businesses that make up 99 percent of all businesses in the U.S?Up and down rural main streets in rural America, shopkeepers are readying their stores for the season.

Yes, Ozempic for all

Americans are going to get a little healthier.

Be it resolved? From ceremonial to political, a look at Michigan lawmakers’ resolutions

LANSINGFrom a proposed cigar bar at Detroit Metropolitan Airport to the ill-fated S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, from presidential impeachment to Michigan’s automobile heritage, lawmakers have been opining, congratulating, commemorating, posturing, praising, chiding and deriding – all in the form of...

No veteran should go hungry

According to U.S. government data and recent policy studies, nearly 25 percent of America’s veterans live either below the federal poverty level or paycheck to paycheck, with little margin for unexpected expenses.To get by, many adopt emergency-level budgets.