This week, world events have emphasized the importance of American readiness to keep our country safe and stand with our allies across the globe. The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is another reminder many regions of the world do not enjoy the freedom and stability we do in the United States. It also underscores the need for decisive U.S. leadership as Assad’s rogue allies, such as Russia and Iran, may grow increasingly desperate.

On Thanksgiving of all days, I stepped on my scale, and nothing happened. No numbers flashed, and I was left standing there wondering just exactly how much turkey I could get away with eating later that day before I tipped the thing past an acceptable point.

One afternoon this summer, after getting home from work, I got a phone call. On that afternoon, in my corner of the county, a local landowner was going to release some quail into the wild, and they wanted to know if I would be interested in getting some photographs of the event.

My family has always loved to travel. Whether it was camping trips, a road trip to the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, or a drive to the Black Hills to see relatives, we could put some miles on the family car.

Years ago, on the back page of the Omaha World Herald’s living section—once a daily mainstay of the state’s largest newspaper—there was an article about a growing trend in the news media. The story chronicled how, more and more—and this was around ten years ago—news organizations were leaning on weather-related stories to fill their airtime and column inches.

We’ve all had our fill of political news. So, I thought that, this week, we’d delve into a topic that’s equally as timely— pheasant hunting.

Everyone has a “wish list”—things they’d like to get done, things they’d like to see happen, things they wish would come true. But the Nebraska Republican Party recently put together the mother of all wish lists.

I am not sure were, exactly, it fell in the world of child labor laws, but back when I roamed the halls at Palmer Public Schools, there was a rite of passage for elementary- school students that was unlike any other.

From time to time, there are moments in life where I find myself staring off into space and thinking “What am I doing here?” That was the case earlier this month when I traveled to the south-central Nebraska berg of Bladen to cover the opening round of the six-man football playoffs. I love high school football, but it had been a minute since I had taken in a six-man football game.