Medicare helps seniors take opioids wisely

Medicare wants to help you use prescription pain medications safely. Prescription opioid medications such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine and codeine can help treat pain after surgery or after an injury but they carry serious risks, like addiction, an overdose and death.

Boyfriend should be put on shelf until he matures

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, “Mason,” and I have been dating for eight months, and it has been going well. However, there is one thing standing in our way – his mom and sisters. Mason is the only boy. His parents divorced when he was young. His mom never remarried, but his father did.

Smoking drastically increases risk of bladder cancer

Dear Doctor: What is the link between smoking and bladder cancer? My urologist says smoking is one of the main causes, but until I got diagnosed with bladder cancer earlier this year, I had never heard about that connection.

Aunt wants relationship with brother’s kids

DEAR HARRIETTE: I have a 6-year-old nephew and 2-year-old niece who live far away from me. This makes it difficult to establish that traditional relationship that aunts have with their siblings’ children.

Friend refuses to help plan dinner she’s not invited to

DEAR ABBY: My best friend of 40 years has asked me to fly to her son’s wedding in a few months, arrive early to help with everything and not be included in the rehearsal dinner.

Cold and flu: different viruses with similar symptoms

Dear Doctor: When my husband and I both got sick last month, he was diagnosed with a cold and I was diagnosed with the flu. What’s the difference? Dear Reader: Both a cold and the flu are respiratory illnesses caused by a virus. The difference between the two is the type of virus that is involved.

Employee questions making corrections

DEAR HARRIETTE: I completed a project for work, checked it multiple times and turned it in. I was feeling pretty confident about my work, too. Then I did one last review and noticed a grammatical error.

More study needed on school project

CLINTON DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL We are glad school leaders are working to solve the classroom needs for the Clinton Public Schools. By planning now, construction on the next phase could be underway when the current bond note is paid off in five years – and that is good.

How fiction started Trump Russia probe

Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is over, but the reverberations of the Trump-Russia affair live on. One such after-effect is the reluctance of some important figures in the 2016 campaign to speak out, for fear of continued legal entanglements.

The frustration of dealing with the telephone company

THE VILLAGE IDIOT The worst telephone connection you will ever have in your entire life is when you call your telephone company with a problem. The call is scratchy, you can't understand the person on the other end of the line, and when they transfer you to a supervisor, they drop the call.