At 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, February 28, 2026, dozens of girls gathered at the “Shajareh Tayyebeh” (The Good Tree) school in the city of Minab in southern Iran. No sooner had they greeted friends and settled into another school day, a missile struck the school, destroying the building and causing the roof to collapse on top of the children …

This past September, as I pulled into the parking lot at a nearby medical practice where I am a patient, a sign in bold black letters caught my eye: “Doctors Wanted.” I’d come for a quick visit with my primary doctor, older than I, who was on the verge of retiring. My husband’s doctor — in the same practice and …

It has been a helluva a year and this morning’s headlines — “Trump Plunges U.S. Into a New Era of Risk in Venezuela” (NY Times), “Rubio Takes on Most Challenging Role Yet: Viceroy of Venezuela” (Washington Post) — do not augur well for what’s to come. The past two weeks, between missing our traditional holiday reunion with our sons and …

Pieter Bruegel, Winter Landscape with Ice-skaters, 1565 Snow has yet to arrive here in the Rogue Valley. Instead, for the past two weeks, heavy fog has created a moody hush, lasting all day and obscuring most everything (maybe that’s a good thing these days). The fog has now given way to rain. No matter the weather, the arrival of the …

A month ago, newspapers from the New York Times and the Guardian to Underscore Native News broadcast a David vs. Goliath story about Indigenous teens conquering the Klamath River on the heels of the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history. “One year after a historic dam removal, teens inspire river restoration worldwide: ‘It turns out you can win,’” the Guardian headline …

I used to think that the question, ”What are you going to be for Halloween?” applied to kids, not grownups, and certainly not parents. In the 1950’s, when I was growing up in New Jersey, Halloween was not a family affair. I couldn’t imagine my mathematician father getting into the action, waddling down Princeton’s main street in an inflatable dinosaur costume or …

Central Oregon and Pacific train loading plywood at Weed, California lumber mill, bound for Roseburg Forest Products in Springfield, Oregon, 2019 Two years ago, I posted a story about my then three-year-old grandson’s passion for trains and how on a Thanksgiving visit to Ashland from Denver, his home, he had patiently sat along the empty train tracks that run through …