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Start the New Year Right: Celebrate safely, so everyone makes it home

The turn of the year is a moment of fresh starts, of toasts and fireworks, of music and laughter ringing into the early hours. In Lewistown and across our region, we look forward to celebrating with the people we care about. But part of welcoming a new year must be the choice to enter it responsibly. Too many families in Pennsylvania and across the country feel the ripple effects of poor decisions on New Year’s Eve. Too many roads are scarred by collisions involving impaired drivers. Too many small towns mourn neighbors taken in crashes that could have been prevented. Lewistown ...

Lower housing prices, not loan standards

Philosopher George Santayana once famously observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Unfortunately, our nation’s collective memory doesn’t seem to even extend back two decades. Last month, Fannie Mae dropped the requirement that borrowers have a minimum credit score of 620. Freddie Mac had made a similar change earlier in the year. A credit score measures a person’s likelihood of paying back a loan. While it isn’t perfect, credit scores are widely used to evaluate risk. This change will make it easier for people with lower credit scores to ...

JD Vance gets America’s creed and heritage right

With America’s 250th birthday as an independent nation coming up in 2026, the big debate on the right this season about what it means to be an American couldn’t be more timely. Vice President JD Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy — the 2024 presidential aspirant who hopes to be elected Ohio governor next year — have both weighed in. The two extremes in the debate are the “creedal nationalists,” who emphasize America as an idea, and those who boast of being “heritage Americans” with lineages in this country stretching back generations or centuries. Aren’t ...

‘You look great’ loses its meaning

I was sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office last week when someone I hadn’t seen for many years came in. When he saw me, he said “Bob! How are you? You look great!” I don’t look great. Since I last saw him, my hair has turned from gray to white, and there’s far less of it. My skin has gone blotchy. The bags under my eyes have gone from brown to blue. And my wattle has become the size of a bullfrog. “You look great, too, George.” I lied. George looked about a hundred years older than I remembered him. Why do we feel compelled to say “You look great” ...

AI a challenge for neighboring state’s wiretap law

Maryland state legislators are grappling with a difficult issue, trying to figure out how to update the state’s wiretap law to accommodate all of the changes created by widespread adoption of new technologies. That’s complicated enough, but at the same time, another issue is lurking behind the wiretap law. It is a dark, frightening presence with new, even more difficult challenges. Its initials are A.I. The Maryland House of Delegates Judiciary Committee recently had a briefing on the wiretapping law, as lawmakers consider amending it when the 2026 session convenes next ...

It’s time for cameras in Pa. courts

Those who follow news reports of criminal cases have likely seen photographs and/or video captured during out-of-state court proceedings and wondered why they don’t see similar scenes from inside Pennsylvania’s courtrooms. The short answer is: Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 112 prohibits cameras in courtrooms. The longer answer begins: Pennsylvania is only one of five states in the nation with very rigid restrictions that need to be updated for the sake of transparency and accountability. During the recent preliminary hearing held in Manhattan for Luigi Mangione, ...