Parking has long been an issue at Manhattan High School, so we’re glad the Manhattan City Commission is making some exceptions in its rules to create more spaces.

Taking care of my parents’ house and their affairs, including the mail. Dad’s been gone nearly seven months; mom, three years.

Q: Good afternoon Ned. I’m just curious about the upcoming elections and the coverage that the Mercury provides. It seems to lean pretty far left, and then when it’s pointed out, and only when it’s pointed out, corrections are made, or apologies are handed out. I’m wondering if we are going …

I’m officially a “soccer mom.”

It’s entirely predictable that people are protesting their property appraisals, given that the average home has jumped by 12 percent.

It’s NCAA tournament time, which brings to mind gambling. The office pool, the family bracket contest… it’s become a part of the culture.

One more comment about Donald Trump’s ongoing campaign to disqualify himself from any elective office.

I found one particular concept fascinating in the graduation speech given by Phil Nel at K-State over the weekend. That concept is “unlearning.”

Maybe there’s nothing special about the number 20,000, besides it being a big, round number.

In the event you’re not paying much attention to Russia, let me try to persuade you to give it some consideration for a minute.

It’s the nature of news that we mostly report “bad” things. So we were glad last week to be able to share something positive — or at least, a positive outcome that followed a terrible tragedy.

Two thoughts after a week away:

On Sunday we moved into daylight saving time — or what could, in the future, come to be known simply as “time.”

My intermittent, ongoing gripe-session about social media. This edition: The “you” pivot.

Who’s in charge here?

Joe Rogan, the biggest podcaster in the world, decided to apologize twice recently. I’m glad he did, once. The other is quite complicated.

Fauci was right to call Marshall a moron

Manhattan has long been well-served by citizens willing to dedicate their time and talents as city commissioners. That’s certain to be true after this election, as there’s a solid group of candidates.

School board elections are normally sleepy affairs, often not even contested.

We’ve got to do better, folks.

The help-wanted ad that they’ve put together to bring in the next president at Kansas State University is all well and good. The key now is going to be finding the person who can really drive the place forward.

Jason Hilgers, Manhattan’s deputy city manager, may not be concerned about whether plans for new buildings in the Plaza West development would be at risk for flooding, but we are.

Here we are at the Fourth of July, the most American of holidays, to celebrate the moment we declared our independence from Great Britain.

Here’s a tip of the cap to stepdads, from one of your own.

Last week, I appealed for patience. Now, since The Mercury has obtained and published quite a bit more vital information, it’s time to draw some conclusions about the matter of the Manhattan school board’s approval of a teacher-training program.

Get your forks ready: Today is the beginning of Manhattan’s first-ever Restaurant Week, and we think it sounds pretty neat.

The boys’ track team at Manhattan High won the 6A team championship Thursday, a remarkable accomplishment. It was the team’s second in three seasons — last year’s spring sports season was eliminated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Richard Myers’ tenure as president of Kansas State University wasn’t long, by the standards of that job. But it was certainly eventful, and we in Manhattan are fortunate that he was able to steer the university through those events toward a brighter future.

It is probably not in the cards for Douglas Girod to ever be a very popular chancellor at the University of Kansas. Fate has put him in charge during a time when higher education faces enormous challenges, and the tasks of leadership require him to make some difficult and unpopular decisions.

There’s a lot to like about the concept of a bike trail along the Kansas River, from Junction City to Wamego. There are also some major bumps on the path forward, if you’ll pardon the wordplay.

It’s unnerving, to say the least, when the power company cuts you off. The fact that it had to do so exposes a real problem.

A couple of editorial notes:

Renaming 17th Street to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., is entirely appropriate, maybe more so now than ever. We applaud Manhattan city commissioners, who voted unanimously this week to do so. And we encourage citizens to reflect on the meaning of it.

Next summer, you’ll get to decide whether abortions remain legal in Kansas.

The practical question before the U.S. Congress is likely to come down to whether to convict Donald Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors, after he’s already out of office. The answer to that is, most emphatically, yes.

If there’s a silver lining to the riots in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, it’s this: Democracy won out.

Back when I went to school, this was always the hardest part of the year: The long slog between Christmas break and spring break. In 2021, that’s going to be true for the rest of us, too. Back to that in a minute.

Happy Christmas Eve. Perhaps more than ever, 2020 is the moment for this day to shine.

The next school year will be a lot closer to normal. At least that’s what it’s beginning to look like.

Right off the bat, we should tell you that in this newspaper, we don’t use “Dr.” as a courtesy title for people who’ve earned doctorates that aren’t in the medical (or veterinary or dental) field.

News that the Optimist Club’s tree lot had almost completely run out of trees at the beginning of the week was surprising, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been.

For a small town, Manhattan sure seems be involved in national and worldwide events a lot.

The Riley County Health Department this week decided to dial back the amount of information the public will receive about local COVID-19 outbreaks. They say it’s better for us that way. Because we all know that less knowledge, is better than more, right?

It might have avoided your notice, but there was a revealing flap this past week about an appointment to a local government board. It veered into matters of race and gender, although that all struck us as nonsense. Back to that in a minute.

What is a swim team without a pool? Unlike some sports, in which athletes could make do with an empty lot or a patch of grass (a bare backboard, a limp net), swimmers really do need a proper facility to practice their sport.

The decision to allow indoor sports to proceed this winter in Kansas high schools strikes us a bit of a risk, but a risk probably worth taking.