A deadly fish virus has been found for the first time in southern Lake Michigan and an inland Ohio reservoir, spurring fears of major fish kills and the virus's possible migration to the Mississippi River. ...more

July 20, 2008

Our governor is staged to sign orders to execute five who are on death row. If he were to sign five each day, five days per week, in only about 17 weeks the backlog could be eliminated. There is a down side to this, however. There is perhaps one chance in a thousand that an innocent person would be executed. Absolutely nothing done by human beings is perfect, only degrees of perfection. ...more

July 17, 2008

This has been a sad few weeks for residents of our nation's Heartland as flooding has caused the failure of numerous levees along the Mississippi River creating untold damage, destruction and loss of life. Many residents no doubt also have received some additional bad news - the destruction of their home by flooding is not covered by their standard homeowners insurance policy. ...more

July 13, 2008

The Mississippi River pushed relentlessly past dozens of levees this month. Towns were submerged, their buildings tiny islands in murky water. Ducks paddled on ponds that had once been farmland. Some flooding was inevitable, given the force of the swollen Mississippi. But a poorly managed flood-defense system did not help. ...more

July 6, 2008

The Mississippi River climbed toward its high-water mark Monday at St. Louis and was expected to crest over the next couple of days at points downriver, but the worst of the flood of 2008 appeared to be over. ...more

July 1, 2008

First the National Guard soldiers stacked the Pin Oak levee with sandbags, raising it by as much as 4 feet. ...more

June 29, 2008

A heroic effort by hundreds of townspeople, volunteers and National Guardsmen to hold back the Mississippi River failed Friday - undone by a burrowing muskrat. ...more

June 28, 2008

With a few days to go before the last stretch of the bloated Mississippi River reaches its crest, people toiled around the clock Monday to reinforce levees already strained and saturated from the pressure of the rising water. ...more

June 24, 2008

The faithful gathered for church services Sunday in towns hard-hit by flooding along the Mississippi River, and many found comfort in word that the swollen waterway had apparently started to hit its high point. ...more

June 23, 2008

Tourist spots are up and running, but plenty of work remains before the Big Easy can loosen Katrina's grasp. ...more

June 21, 2008