Jul 24, 2015 4 min read

Editorial voices from newspapers around the country:

Such is the skill of the scientists and engineers who work for NASA that, after a journey of more than nine years and 3 billion miles, the New Horizons probe arrived July 14 at its close encounter with Pluto 72 seconds ahead of schedule.

Surely, the people who made this deep-space mission possible and who are managing it today deserve a round of applause. The rest of us can take a moment to bask in the glow of national pride. We may have to hitch rides with the Russians to the International Space Station but nobody – nobody – can match our skill with unmanned planetary probes.

New Horizons will continue on to the Kuiper belt, a ring of icy and rocky debris outside the orbit of Neptune left over from the formation of the solar system. After investigating any Kuiper belt objects it encounters, New Horizons will eventually join Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in the vast emptiness of interstellar space.

But there’s more value to New Horizons than the collection of scientific data and intriguing pictures. The skill and ingenuity required to execute such a mission are important to maintain. They have value outside the realm of planetary exploration.

About 2,000 members of the American military have four legs, not two. These dogs, often used for sniffing out roadside bombs, serve with courage on the battlefield and have saved countless human lives.

When their tour of duty is done, they deserve a chance to find a family and fetch a Frisbee on the soil of the nation they helped defend. Fortunately, legislation that will ensure that this happens has been introduced in Congress.

U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen, a four-term Republican from the Twin Cities’ western suburbs, has teamed up with Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, to introduce the Military Working Dog Retirement Act of 2015. This conscientious legislation would ensure that no canine comrade is left behind when these animals cannot serve due to injury or because their skills are no longer needed. The military would transport the dogs home, where they would be offered for adoption. The bill also would help smooth the dogs’ military handlers’ path to adopting them.

Currently, these dogs are offered for adoption overseas, despite a long list of families stateside who want to give them a home. These dogs’ handlers also sometimes personally pay to bring dogs home, which may be cost-prohibitive on a service member’s pay.

Honoring these dogs’ service reflects positively on American values. The animals’ presence may also help their handlers adjust to civilian life and combat post-traumatic stress disorder. The measure is sensible, conscientious and compassionate, and it will benefit both humans and canines. It merits lawmakers’ and the public’s swift support.

There are many challenges confronting downtown areas in cities nationwide, and Dubuque is no exception. Despite progress on various fronts, problems remain more plentiful than answers. There is no single solution that will make everything right.

With that in mind, it’s commendable that the City of Dubuque is embarking on an initiative that has the potential for positives on several levels.

The City Council has signed off on a program to give city police officers and firefighters financial incentives – primarily no-interest, forgivable loans – to buy, rehabilitate and live in homes downtown. The program is fashioned after a federal Good Neighbor Next Door Initiative.

If the program works as designed, the downtown will have more fixed-up homes, the city will have an employment recruiting tool, public-safety employees will have more incentive to accept or keep jobs here, and downtown will be home to more folks with stable, well-paying employment.