Breaking News

Local Columns

Ask a Trooper

Question: My husband and I are wondering if it is true that emergency vehicles can change a light from red to green, if they need to proceed through an intersection. Is this true, or is it just a myth that people now believe to be true? Also, if this is true, how is the light triggered? Is it triggered by the flashing lights of the emergency vehicle or is it triggered through some other method? Thank you for your column! We read it every time and we appreciate the helpful and accurate information. Answer: Emergency vehicles can change traffic lights using a system called Opticom. The ...

You can help save a life by asking the question

Saving lives may sound like the job of first responders or emergency room clinicians. Yet saving a life from suicide can begin with a caring conversation. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, and the courage you show when you talk to someone who’s struggling might be lifesaving to a friend or family member. Many people think about suicide; in fact around 12.8 million people report having seriously thought about suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Close to 50,000 people die by suicide in the U.S. every year. Professionals in behavioral ...

What we learn from history

What was your favorite class in school? It doesn’t matter what level of education you’ve achieved — it’s the class that sticks with you that’s important. Yes, we’ve all had to go through some uninteresting, frustrating or boring classes, but if you still remember them, doesn’t that mean you have learned something from that bit of history? I sat through multiple math classes and English classes, but the subject that always piqued my interest was history. Oh, I sat through many boring history classes, and I got tired of regurgitating dates and events for those history ...

The marks we’ve made

On this morning’s walk in the pre-dawn darkness, I looked up to catch sight of a line of stars I had never seen before, and while I’m not an avid astronomer, I knew upon my first glance these were something out of the ordinary. Streaming in an evenly spaced queue to the east of Orion’s belt, I paused and looked at them harder, remembering one of my favorite quotes about the wild world: “Nature doesn’t often work in straight lines.” It took a couple of seconds (as I had only consumed about half of the day’s first tumbler of coffee) to realize the line of stars were the ...

Salsa time

“Your everlasting summer you can see it fading fast / So you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last.” — Steely Dan, “Reeling in the Years”, 1972 My wife and I have been doing a bit of salsa recently. I mean the sauce, not the dance. Her new titanium knee is much better than her original one, but not to the point where she’s ready to sashay to the beat of a peppery Latin tune. Turning our homegrown tomatoes, peppers and onions into salsa is a way to preserve a smidgen of summertime. In my imagination, we’ll open a jar of salsa on a subzero winter day, ...

Is there trouble ahead for farmers?

I’ve had conversations with farmers this summer that include, “This is the best crop I’ve ever seen.” Then we quickly remind each other that nothing is in the bin yet. Farmers can never appear to be exuberant. Restraint must be shown. Being a farmer means you are an odd mix of hopefulness yet filled with dread. You plant a crop or buy some feeder cattle. In either case, you’ve gone long in the market. You hope for the best. All the while, you’re aware of a hundred things that can go wrong. While there is time for harmful weather, pestilence, disease, terrorism, ...