Transfer of presidential power has long been messy
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My grandfather, Harry S. Truman, initiated the protocols for the peaceful transfer of presidential power as we know them today. He invited President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower to send over his Cabinet and staff so they could kick the tires, as it were -- be briefed by their predecessors, attend meetings, try out the office chairs.

Concede and leave, Mr. President
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Following the announcement Saturday that Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States, President Donald Trump ought to concede and leave office with more dignity than he has shown as commander-in-chief.

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Joe Biden described the agonizing wait for the outcome of the presidential election thusly: “Democracy can sometimes be messy.”

Climate change reality now and later
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Last week many people noticed a strange, smokey sky over much of the country, not realizing why it was there. The haze was smoke carried across the U.S. by the jet stream from the giant wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington.

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The sun sets with a muted glow over Niagara Falls, New York, earlier this week, showing the effects of a milky sky caused by diffuse clouds of smoke from the West Coast wildfires traveling across the U.S. on jet stream winds. 

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WESTERN WILDFIRES, EASTERN SUNSET: Sun sets with a muted glow from diffuse clouds of smoke from West Coast wildfires traveling across the U.S. on jet stream winds. 

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Sun sets in Niagara Falls, N. Y., this week with muted glow against milky sky caused by smoky residue from the West Coast wildfires that traveled across the U.S. on jet stream winds. 

Oklahoma football team protests racial injustice
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NORMAN -- Oklahoma University’s football team canceled practice Friday to march lockstep from the stadium to the campus Unity Garden to protest racial injustice and the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Fewer poll workers, fewer voting stations
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If you oppose mail-in voting because President Donald Trump calls it a fraud, prepare to stand in long lines to cast your ballot on Nov. 3 Election Day.

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INDIANAPOLIS – Federal health officials report a disproportionate number of coronavirus deaths occur in the nation’s nursing homes, but the agency tracking their morbidity rates maintains a database riddled with incomplete information and errors.

Oklahoma State purges racist governor’s name
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STILLWATER, Okla. – The governing board of Oklahoma State University Friday ordered the removal of the name of the state’s 9th governor from campus halls because of his racist reputation.

Small cities, towns also need police reform
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Some events have the power of a match set to a mountain of dry wood. The video from Minneapolis, showing a police officer killing George Floyd in broad daylight, his knee pressed hard onto a handcuffed man’s neck as he pleads to live, all 8 1/2 minutes of it — this has been such an event.

Letter to the high school class of 2020
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Let’s not sugarcoat it. Your last semester in high school has gotten demolished by a global pandemic and it is wickedly unfair. Your graduation is now a drive-thru, your prom is imaginary, and instead of spending your last semester of senior year hanging out with your friends and taking a victory lap, you spent it in your bedroom doing classwork over Zoom and making Tik Tok videos.

Alabama police officer killed in standoff
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MOODY, Ala. – A veteran Alabama police officer was shot and killed Tuesday night in a standoff between police and two suspects at the Super 8 motel in this suburban community 22 miles east of Birmingham.

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George Floyd's death at the hands – or rather the knee – of Minneapolis police office Derek Chauvin has sparked protests nationwide, including some looting and destruction of property in my hometown of Dallas. I do not condone senseless violence, but I understand some of the rage and frustration that fuels it.

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With 2020 hindsight, a decade from now, we will want to look back not in anger and anxiety, but in relief and recognition that we struggled past the present precipice and worked for a better world.

Small town Texas editor wins national editorial award
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COLUMBIA, MO  -- Palestine, Texas, Herald-Press Editor Jeffery Gerritt has won the 2020 Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership, the national News Leaders Association announced Monday.

In these dark times, with the fallen market and anxious employees teleworking if they are lucky, or receiving unemployment if they are not, we look out at empty streets and face more weeks of loneliness and isolation.

Mailman to songwriter for the ages
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“I am an old woman, named after my mother… Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery… To believe in this living is just a hard way to go.”

CNHI Texas editor wins national editorial writing award
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Jeffrey Gerritt, editor of the Palestine, Texas, Herald-Press, has won this year’s National Headliner Award for editorial writing, one of the most prestigious honors in American journalism.

GM recalls Indiana workers to produce ventilators
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General Motors announced Friday it is bringing back 1,000 workers at two plants in Indiana to begin making ventilators for critical-care COVID-19 patients struggling to breathe and stay alive.

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GREENTOWN, Ind. -- With their vows read and rings exchanged, Henry and Emily Riffles sealed their first moments of married life with a kiss Saturday, the wedding party and family looking on from proper social distance.

Weinstein tests positive for the coronavirus
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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials connected with the state prison system said Sunday.

Well-known Kentucky political reporter dies
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GLASGOW, Ky. – Ronnie Ellis, an accomplished Kentucky political reporter, died Monday at a hospital in his hometown, two weeks before his scheduled induction into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. He was 68.

Embrace First Amendment freedoms to keep them
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Did the U.S. Supreme Court go too far in its rationale for free speech and press when ruling for the New York Times in a landmark libel case brought by a public official 56 years ago?

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FRANKFORT – A backdoor addition to a revenue bill that changes the way legal notices for local government audits and bids are brought to the public’s attention has caught Kentucky newspapers off guard.

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ALBANY, N.Y.  -- Human remains in New York could be legally turned into compost as an alternative to burial or cremation under legislation introduced in the state legislature.

Older Americans more likely to spread fake news
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On learning Russia had staged a massive disinformation campaign in the 2016 presidential election, schools across the country began adding digital literacy classes to their course offerings.

America has a history of caring socialism
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LOCKPORT, N.Y. -- It happened again this morning. Just after dawn my youngest daughter was whisked away in a yellow bus to spend the day at one of the most socialist institutions on our city: Lockport High School. 

Hip-hop earns place in black history
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For decades, the nation's media have covered, and amplified, the controversies of rap music, from the hype of the East Coast-West Coast rivalry that framed the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. in the 1990s, to last year's murder of Los Angeles rapper and activist Nipsey Hussle.

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