To the editor: The city of Lawrence and city commissioners have had their heads in the sand for the last 60 years. Lawrence is known in the hobo and professional homeless world as the place to go for free food,donations and a place to live. We need to start checking backgrounds and help ...

To the editor: I, too, notice the recent repeat tragedy of mistaken use of lethal firearms by police rather than their intended use of only a Taser. It is not only a tragedy for the deceased and their families but also for the officers involved and for police in their respective departments ...

To the editor: I appreciate the articles on homelessness. But providing shelter for 90 days or 180 days is so out of touch with the life of homeless people. For homeless people, each day is a crisis — a few days with a friend, then a place in a tent, which gets stolen, losing a phone and ...

To the editor: Why have conservatives become so mean-spirited, angry and anti-anything often only because the “other side” supports it? “Cancel culture,” victimization, untruths and “what aboutism” have become their mantras and weapons. GOP lawmakers in Kansas and Missouri are ...

To the editor: No less a figure than the chancellor tells us that KU’s new athletic director is “a rising star.” And those of us who follow KU sports know how “rising stars” come down to Earth: with a golden parachute. ’Round and ’round and ’round we go. Let’s hope this new ...

To the editor: I thought the recent article on the growing homeless problem in Lawrence was very well written (“As camps spring up, leaders to discuss ways to tackle homelessness,” April 4 Journal-World). I applaud the efforts of various city and county officials in assisting the homeless ...

To the editor: Even though the United States has a new administration with bold plans to address climate change, Congress must play a role in approving legislation. Such legislation must have bipartisan support to accomplish meaningful change. The Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a national ...

To the editor: I wanted to take a minute to weigh in on the proposed contraction of Kennedy Elementary School. I lived on the east side of town when my kids started elementary school. They both attended Kennedy and thoroughly loved the school. One thing I’d like to focus on is the ...

To the editor: As a parent of two Prairie Park students, I find the proposed closure of Kennedy very alarming. Prairie Park may not be at full capacity, but the introduction of a large number of students (70-plus), who will understandably be upset with moving schools, is not only unfair, but ...

To the editor: The idea, the concept, that KU does not know expenditures on a month to month basis is absurd. As a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and a principle investigator on multiple research projects at KU, I was required to report monthly expenditures to my ...

To the editor: Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health and the many volunteers who help people get vaccinated for COVID at the county fairgrounds deserve high praise. The well-organized system efficiently vaccinates as many as 2,000 people in their cars in one day, using multiple lines to speed ...

To the editor: I was driving east on Sixth Street recently and looked over and saw the old train engine/coal car. As a kid, I remember playing on that train engine, when my family would come to visit my older sisters, who were attending KU. Back then, kids could climb into and onto the train, ...

To the editor: In an opinion piece published on March 31, Leonard Krishtalka justifiably criticized the residents of a place he called “Bonkersville” for canceling “rational thought, accumulated knowledge and empirical truth.” Unfortunately, his study of pernicious ideas did not go ...

To the editor: There’s no better example of irony than Kansas Republican legislators voting for a civics mandate for high schoolers and at the same time pushing through a voter suppression bill aimed at people of color and the poor. This merits a shout-out for refreshing our memories on the ...

To the editor: I am a resident of rural Douglas County. We live on a small farm and do not use chemicals to suppress weeds. In our fields, we manage weeds by mowing, burning and digging out small infestations. In the flower and vegetable gardens, we employ cover crops and mulch. Cancer ...

To the editor: It seems that our civics-minded legislators are being lazy by specifying the U.S. citizenship test for Kansas high-school graduation. How many of those 100 questions relate specifically to Kansas government? Some test questions that could come up randomly include, “How many ...

To the editor: The Douglas County Health Department deserves to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I went through the COVID vaccination process recently and felt like I was attacking the beaches at Normandy. It was a masterful application of queue theory and went off like clockwork. ...

To the editor: If we don’t talk about why it matters, why would we care about the problem itself? Addressing climate change begins by actually talking about it. It begins with why climate change matters to us. We should care because it already affects everything at the top of our priority ...

To the editor: When will Republicans realize that their party has been stolen from them and quit voting for those who simply call themselves Republicans? The Republican National Committee has insulted old-school Republicans, in my opinion, which prompts the question: Has the Democratic ...

To the editor: Regarding the Kansas Legislature’s move to prevent local ordinances from limiting fossil fuel use in future building projects, Sen. Mike Thompson said Lawrence’s opposition to the bill mainly was for “ideological reasons.” It seems pretty clear that the planet is not ...