Last week, Whitman County was hit with three different fires at almost the same time. With the high winds and low humidity, we were primed for a disaster. Unfortunately, the disaster was one o…

I’m writing this as I’m looking out the window at the worst smoke and fire haze I’ve seen here. I’m thinking that we not only should be fighting existing fires, but we should be planning for h…

San Francisco residents will vote on a measure in November to allow teenagers as young as 16 to vote in local elections.

Every generation of middle-aged homeowners believes the world is going to hell, but the current generation can make a strong case that it’s actually true. Forest fires of Biblically destructiv…

Ty Rewolinski doesn’t look like a loser. Or a sucker.

I am a big fan of absentee voting. During my 20 years in the Navy, I always voted absentee for my home state. This meant applying to the Florida Secretary of State’s office and verifying my re…

On the chance that you haven’t penciled it into your calendar yet – the next United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity will be held in October in the city of Kunming, China. If for no …

Here’s a pop quiz. Which of these rash acts is the stupidest? a) Frying your hand in cooking oil; b) Breaking your thumb with a hammer; c) Swimming laps in a polluted river; d) Volunteering to…

Am I in Hell, or just L.A.? The other day it was 121 degrees here.

The students are back at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. Our COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing, and my bet will be that with the increased testing that’s been ordered, w…

In American law, criminal negligence is conduct in which a person ignores a known or obvious risk, or disregards the lives and safety of others.

Can you remember casting your first presidential election ballot?

The coronavirus is revealing in stark ways whom our healthcare system is protecting and whom it is not.

Joe Biden’s seven point national average lead over President Trump is holding fairly steady. But with his margins in several key battleground states — Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wi…

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of working with a young veterinary student who harkened from the Midwest. He was in my lab for a training program for vet students where my job was to pro…

Before I decided to tackle this topic, I had a moment’s hesitation. Is the fact that Nancy Pelosi decided to get her hair done really an issue of national importance?

It was a good year, 2007. That year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore for “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge ab…

Mark DeOpsomer of Bozeman, Mont., is a backpacker with lots of miles on his soles. For almost four decades he’s gone to the remotest corners of the northern Rockies.

Of all the pieces of trivial knowledge I wish I did not know, high on that list is the fact that mouse nests reek like acrid, pungent honey.

It’s no secret that in recent weeks Pullman has been hit by huge numbers of cases of COVID-19. In fact, it only took one weekend for Pullman to more than double the number of confirmed cases i…

Many of today’s college students are at least 3,400 years behind ancient Jews and some philosophers in discovering that wearing masks and social distancing are effective in controlling pandemics.

For months we felt fortunate in Whitman County. COVID-19 cases locally were extremely low and the county, unlike most in the state, moved comparatively quickly to Phase 3 in Gov. Jay Inslee’s …

I am really quite disgusted with that element of returning students and other people in general who believe that their parties and personal freedoms are more important than the lives and heath…

Let us bow our heads and pray for the soul of Jerry Falwell Jr. who, in his struggle with Satan, fell from God’s grace last week. The erstwhile president of Liberty University resigned after h…

On Aug. 28, the Daily News published a column by C. Barney Waldrop in which he supported the idea that our country should rely on secure in-person voting. He claims that mail-in ballots are mo…

In my previous two op-eds, I agreed with the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics that children should be back in live classes. This is a noncontroversial position in Europe, where leade…

Our zoning procedures in Pullman need revising. Last week I experienced a strange and backward public hearing in which the planning commission was vetting a developer’s application for a zone …

Residing in the sumptuous geography of the Pacific Northwest, both feet planted in these fertile Palouse hills affectionately deemed the “Tuscany of America,” I am inclined towards the peacefu…

First of all, those maskless South Lawn cultists who soaked up Donald Trump’s serial lies with a dearth of social distancing should be required to wear badges identifying themselves as MAGA Su…

One of the more favorable parts of surfing through this pandemic has been a couple of the professional friendships I’ve made. Since no longer I have to compete face-to-face, I’m pretty happy t…

An open letter to University of Idaho president Scott Green and UI Dean of Students Blaine Eckles ...

In the early 1990s, I was a deputy prosecuting attorney for Whitman County. One of the interesting tasks of my position was to be a member of a panel certifying absentee ballots. The other rep…