In New Hampshire, high school seniors spent some of the year raising the $8,000 it would take for a class trip to the Adirondacks of New York, part of the perk of being a high school senior.
Then they found out their principal, Courtney Vashaw, has cancer. Read more →
For several decades, planning for death has been part of the health care regimen in La Crosse, not much different than having blood pressure checked. Read more →
The Associated Press stylebook, the bible of newswriting, is announcing several changes and additions this week at a convention of copy editors. Most of them are of little consequence; you can now write BLT on first reference in a news story, for example. But the AP’s directive on suicide is another matter altogether. In its Read more →
We have limitless admiration today for the family of Clay Shephard, whose obituary in the Raleigh News and Observer this week was an honest assessment of his death. He died from a drug overdose.
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Today’s Story Corps segment from NPR provides that unusual blend of sweetness and horror.
Horror over the way we treat people we profess to love. Sweetness from the strangers who take our place. Read more →
You know the type. You reach out your hand, grab the one extended to you and give it a firm shake, only to be met with the limp fish version.
Now a study suggests you’re shaking hands with a dead man walking.
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The reality is it’s not OK to show people online you’re not OK. The missing discussion is how are we to change that fact? Read more →
Julio Salazar has struggled with depression for most of his life but it was only a few years ago that he sought help. This week he’s running across Minnesota to raise awareness of mental illness and the availability of that help. Read more →
If you pay any attention at all to the ongoing debate over whether women should be getting mammograms (and, if so, when) , there’s a pretty fair chance you’re confused. This week, NPR reported that several politicians are again pushing to override guidance from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that six years ago said Read more →
Since December, nine people between 12 and 24 have taken their own lives. Many more have tried, but failed.
There are only six mental health counselors on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, which is the size of Rhode Island and Delaware. Read more →
Sports talk radio host Jeff Dubay has been alternately an inspiration and a reminder of the insidiousness of drug use in his recovery from a cocaine addiction that cost him his career and his freedom years ago. Read more →
There are only a few weeks left in the Minnesota legislative session, and this would be a good time to ask a question: Is eliminating health care for working Minnesotans worth shutting down state government? Read more →
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating today. Nothing makes you feel older than hearing of the infirmities and deaths of sports heroes from a younger time. Read more →
The Minnesota Court of Appeals Monday tossed out a lawsuit from a former doctor at the St. Peter psychiatric hospital who argued that an MPR investigation on the treatment of patients there was based on state data that should’ve been private. Read more →
If Paige Lazorenko, 17, of West Fargo, can’t go to her prom, the prom will come to her.
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Bob Collins