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Shortage of medicine needs probe

Young, healthy people are not likely to devote much attention to news reports about shortages of medicines. However, that changes as illnesses and other conditions creep into their lives — a fact of life as people age. Therefore, the news that the Federal Trade Commission is launching a probe of companies that help buy and distribute the bulk of medicines sold to U.S. hospitals will not attract much healthy Americans’ attention in the months ahead. Not so regarding Americans who lately or in the not-so-distant past have dealt with the uncertainties and stress associated with ...

Every election should be contested

According to a Post-Gazette report by Ford Turner, 83 of a sampled 98 incumbents running for reelection to the state’s House of Representatives are running unopposed in the primary. In almost all those cases, would-be candidates see no use in giving up time, energy and political capital to lose an election they are fated to lose. It’s a rational decision for people considering a run for office. It’s a bad phenomenon for democratic politics in our state. In Allegheny County, for example, 14 of the incumbent state representatives kept their seats in the 2022 elections. In the ...

Americans should pay attention to politics

It’s a presidential election year, and most political junkies are following every gyration of the upcoming rematch between President Biden and former President Trump. But a reality that political obsessives may be missing is how little attention many of their countrymen are paying to the day-to-day drama that unfolds in Washington, D.C., in state capitals and on the campaign trail. A poll recently released by Gallup found that only 32% of Americans pay close attention to politics. This is actually an improvement over the 1980s and 1990s, when the number was below 30%. The poll ...

Speaker at banquet shares important traits to model

“I often think about what makes someone a good leader. You hear words like empathy, compassion, that they are good communicators; they are passionate about what they do. To me, all those things make a person a leader.” Tina Cook, coordinator of fire training at Harrisburg Area Community College and a firefighter for over 20 years, recently spoke to the Old Lycoming Township Volunteer Fire Co.’s annual banquet, sharing her thoughts on leadership. While we agree with much of what she said, we are tempted to take it a bit further: Empathy, good communications skills, passion for ...

Data on uterine cancer raising concerns

Women across America have been delivered a wake-up call regarding uterine cancer, but it probably will take at least several years to ascertain how well they have paid attention. Hopefully, women of the Southern Alleghenies region will be among those eventually delivering the message that they have responded correctly. According to a report in the Feb. 13 Wall Street Journal, the disease will kill an estimated 13,250 women in the United States this year, on its way, the American Cancer Society says, to surpass ovarian cancer and become the deadliest gynecologic cancer. The cancer ...

Efforts to simplify federal student aid keep falling short

The federal government had supposedly made it much easier to apply for college financial aid. Except there was a glitch and students could not access the new online tool they needed. Applications were delayed by months and the numbers of students seeking aid plunged. That’s the scene in 2024. No, wait, that was 2017. Actually, it’s both. It seems as though each time the dreaded Free Application for Federal Student Aid is made easier, it (temporarily) gets a lot worse. Never has the problem been bigger than this year, when colleges have been forced to put off their application ...