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A much needed recharge

“Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong,” – John Denver I had just pulled out of the drive-through line and grabbed my container of French fries out of the paper bag. I hit the highway like a man possessed, and by that, I mean I felt like I was breaking down inside, ...

From Drone to Door

There's a new delivery system in town. Well ... maybe not in your town. In some places, drones are now allowed to deliver small packages, groceries and takeout. Companies like Wing and Zipline bring people hot meals in under 10 minutes. I had to watch it to believe it. You can see it in my ...

Almanac for Aug. 13, 2026

Today is Thursday, Aug. 13, the 225th day of 2026. There are 140 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 13, 1961, on what would become known as Barbed Wire Sunday, East Germany sealed the border between Berlin's eastern and western sectors before building a wall that would divide the city for the next 28 years. Also on this date: In 1521, Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortez captured Tenochtitlan (teh-natch-teet-LAHN'), present-day Mexico City, from the Aztecs. In 1792, French revolutionaries arrested and imprisoned King Louis XVI; he would be executed by guillotine the ...

Don’t malign the U.S. economy

The United States of America may be the greatest place for functionally illiterate people to live in all of human history. An eye-popping column in the Financial Times the other day noted how people in the U.S. with very low literacy make about as much per hour as the average worker in the ...

Summertime political reruns

When I was younger, so much younger than today (credit The Beatles for that lyric from “Help”), television networks would rerun programs that had originally been broadcast the previous fall and spring. A few still do, like “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” but those are syndicated ...

Almanac for Aug. 12, 2026

Today in History: August 12, Charlottesville car attack By The Associated Press undefined Today is Wednesday, Aug. 12, the 224th day of 2026. There are 141 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 12, 2017, a driver sped into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally in the Virginia college town of Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring more than a dozen others. (The attacker, James Alex Fields, was sentenced to life in prison on 29 federal hate crime charges, and life plus 419 years on state charges.) Also on this ...