The Guardian

Gun-smuggling case puts spotlight on library straddling US-Canada border

A cross-border meeting place for divided families was the site of a plot to bring dozens of firearms from Vermont to Quebec
The Haskell Free Library and Opera House straddles the US/Canada border on February 28, 2017, in Stanstead, Quebec and Derby Line, Vermont. The library has two different entrances and two different addresses. / AFP / Don EMMERT / Getty Images

It was built deliberately to straddle the frontier between the two countries – a symbol of cooperation and friendship between Canada and the US.

More than a century later, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House continues to allow residents of both countries to mingle without having to cross a border.

But a court case this week has cast the cross-border institution into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons after it

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