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Check for restrictions, be careful if burning

With the snow mostly gone and longer sunny days drying everything out, spring fire season has arrived — that dangerous period before enough new greenery grows to make the brown grasses and bare branches less vulnerable to a stray spark or ember. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reminds the public to check fire danger and burn permit restrictions before conducting outdoor burning activities, as recent storms have increased the amount of debris on the landscape across much of Wisconsin. Even with recent heavy rainfalls and severe weather, Wisconsin last week had 50 ...

City serious about cleaning up Cliffs Dow

There used to be a somewhat grim aphorism about the old Cliffs-Dow site along Lakeshore Boulevard in the city of Marquette: The place is so toxic with old industrial pollution that even the crows pack lunches when they fly over it. Overstated? Perhaps. But clearly, decades of charcoal manufacture through hardwood distillation and God only knows what else has left much of the soil there foul and unusable. Just how foul and unusable? It appears, after years of discussion, a process will unfold this construction season to find out. Using an EPA grant, the city will oversee an ...

Trump promised a ceasefire, civilians in Lebanon need real peace

The 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon that Donald Trump announced ... is desperately needed. It must also be regarded with immense caution. Iran and mediator Pakistan believed that Lebanon was covered by last week’s US-Israel-Iran ceasefire, before Israel unleashed 100 strikes in 10 minutes – killing hundreds and wounding many more on “Black Wednesday”. Lebanon was pulled into this crisis by Mr Trump’s illegal war on Tehran, and should not have been excluded from his truce. The US president, desperately seeking an exit to the broader conflict, is now reining in Mr Netanyahu. But only ...

National Drug Take Back Day on Saturday

The Michigan State Police is once again taking part in a national initiative that encourages residents to properly dispose of expired, unused and unwanted prescription pills. All of MSP’s 31 posts will participate in National Prescription Drug Take Back Day from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. This is one of two annual events held in partnership with the Drug Enforcement Administration and other police agencies, MSP advises in a news release. Nearly 650 pounds of pills were collected during the last Drug Take Back Day in October. “By taking a few minutes to clear out expired or unused ...

Food insecurity IS hunger

The late, great stand up artist George Carlin got it exactly right some years ago when he held forth on society's tendency to restructure verbal phraseology to make it easier on the ear, to render it less offensive, more comfortable. He famously offered several examples of this, including what happens to combat veterans after the fighting stops. In World War I, he said, the condition was called shell shock. Short, direct, it almost sounds like the guns themselves, he said. Since then, shell shock has evolved into something called post traumatic stress disorder. All of the pain, trauma, ...

State should step up on compulsive gambling

With the state of Michigan, according to its own records, raking in a veritable mountain of cash each year from legalized online gambling, it is not at all clear why Lansing isn't doing more to provide resources to deal with the inevitable result of all that betting: Compulsive gambling. According to a recent story from the authoritative Bridge Michigan that was reprinted by The Mining Journal, Michigan received a failing grade from an advocacy group for its efforts to protect gamblers. The state pulled in $624.6 million off online gambling last year, including $27.1 million in taxes ...