Each party had ample opportunity in 2023 to smarten up. Neither did.

Books have long provided what sociologists call third places — that is, hangouts that are neither work or home. Both bookstores and libraries fill the bill. These third places provide company and a sense of community. If you think that an hour of quiet reading isn’t a big draw, consider: One New York bar charges a $10 admission fee per reading session and has 270 people on its waiting list.

Deliberate ignorance and false teaching about events here and in the Middle East and China, along with the refusal of American media to pay serious attention to the connection between foreign donations and university policies and teaching, plays into the hands of those who do not wish America well.

U.S. coasts are vulnerable to proxy attack using 21st-century unmanned air and sea vehicles launched a hundred miles offshore. The U.S. has 12,480 miles of coastline — equivalent to about half the Earth’s circumference at the Equator.

Let’s not level neighborhoods in the interests of massive projects.

Today’s apprenticeship programs are not my father’s apprenticeships. They involve learning new technologies and skills, are in very high-demand fields and are no longer only for high school students. In fact, the average age of a Maine apprentice is 29.

I have seen process determining policy time and again, for better and for worse. And not only in government.

Not only are those at loggerheads over Israel and Hamas taking the temperature to extreme levels, they won’t even agree on how to argue. Is, for example, “from the river to the sea” fair comment?

Moms for Liberty was really a front for Donald Trump, so it all fits in. Members posing in photos with Proud Boys was something of a giveaway. The true mission of this “parental rights group” was to scoop up cheap votes from parents genuinely concerned about their children’s moral upbringing.

The Children’s Scholarship Fund has been helping especially low-income parents have a choice and children a chance to have a better education and a better life.