An enduring light to a community

SWAMPSCOTT, Mass. – “No star fades faster than that of a high-school athlete,” the author John Grisham wrote in his 2006 book “The Innocent Man.” Today’s column is about a high school athlete whose star never faded – and whose star is casting a gentle light over the community he electrified as a football halfback, basketball guard and baseball shortstop for the Swampscott High Big Blue more than a half-century ago.

Devastating wildfires, flooding and winter storms were among the 23 extreme weather and climate-related disasters in the US which cost more than a billion dollars last year – at an estimated total loss of $115billion. The last three years have shattered previous records for such events. Last Wednesday, scientists said that we are closer than ever to the point after which global heating cannot be stopped.

We can do better for our country

When Black leaders proceeded from Selma to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1965 to demonstrate for voting rights, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched beside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “I felt my legs were praying,” he said.

Olympics help quell sports shortage

Usually this time of year it becomes a sports wasteland of sorts with football wrapped up and the wait for baseball to fire back up.

We’re finally traveling back to the moon

For more than a half-century, the moon has orbited the Earth without a close human witness, its pitted, rocky surface unexplored, its far side unexamined, its mysteries left fallow.

Who won this round of culture war?

After the Puerto Rican superstar rocked the halftime show at the Super Bowl, Donald Trump derided his performance as “absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!”

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