Editorial cartoon for Thursday, June 17

Editorial cartoon for Wednesday, June 16

As the pandemic retreats, we’re left wondering what we lived through

Here’s the stuff I stopped caring about during COVID : My children’s grades, the condition of my house, any form of clothing, games of chance, the future of culture. It was as though somebody had stepped on the damper pedal of the world.

How artists are capturing our return to ‘normal’

Emily Flake, a Brooklyn-based cartoonist, is a keen observer of quirky little social behaviors — including how we are adapting. She recalls an art event she was at this month. “A friend breathed right into my drink and I drank it anyway,” she says.

How the gas tax could help pay for a $1 trillion infrastructure proposal

A bipartisan group, composed of moderate Republicans and Democrats, is assembling a package to fund roads, bridges, pipes and Internet connections, people familiar with their negotiations told The Washington Post.

What the Biden administration’s ‘mission accomplished’ narrative on Afghanistan gets wrong

The president had no good choice on Afghanistan, and he inherited a bad deal from his predecessor. But in announcing an unconditional withdrawal, he made the situation worse by throwing out the minimal conditions U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had negotiated under the Trump administration.

China could pay if nations come to believe the virus leaked from a lab

Because of a successful propaganda campaign, many people in China already buy into the theory that the pandemic started anywhere but their country. “I suspect that in small cities and the countryside, 90 percent of people believe the U.S. is the origin point of the pandemic,” a Chinese scholar told me last year.

Dress code change has roots in Bates College mentoring program

Lewiston Middle School students were working with Bates College student mentors on racial equity issues.

Lewiston Middle School students push to allow hoods, hats in school

Some administrators agree the reason for the ban — to be able to identify students better — is no longer valid.

Video: Sun Media Group press operations move; newspaper group to remain in downtown Lewiston

The press, a Goss Urbanite, is between 40 and 45 years old. Papers will be printed in a Masthead Maine facility in South Portland that has newer presses.