Breaking News

Editorials

Tying one on — with a scarf, that is

I am a scarf person, but I am married to a non-scarf person. Conversely, my husband is a hat person, and I am not a hat person. He says scarves are itchy and make him look like he has no chin. I say hats ruin my hair and make my head look like Charlie Brown’s. So whenever it gets cold out, he tells me to put on a hat, I tell him to put on a scarf, and we both ignore each other. It’s truly amazing we’ve stayed married for as long as we have. We’d been going through this routine for many, many years, and then, suddenly, one day my husband had a major wardrobe ...

The common faith of Elise Stefanik and Erika Kirk

Rep. Elise Stefanik, Republican candidate running to unseat New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, announced she is pulling out of the race and will not seek reelection for her congressional seat, in which she is now serving her sixth term. It’s been a rough couple years for Stefanik. After President Donald Trump’s reelection, she was named to be the new U.S. ambassador to the U.N. However, this never happened because she returned to the House to alleviate the thin Republican majority to get the One Big Beautiful Bill passed. Last month she announced her bid for the ...

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” ...