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Let the countdown begin for America’s 250th

Those annoying countdown clocks the cable TV networks use to let us know how much time remains before a presidential address or something else regarded as worthy of our attention might be useful as America begins the countdown to the 250th anniversary of the publication of the Declaration of Independence. A question that would be helpful for discussion during our increasingly divided times might be: “What does it mean to be an American”? Is it defined in the lyric of the Lee Greenwood song “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free”? That doesn’t fully ...

Readers’ opinions

Why are local gas prices so high? To the Editor: Recently, I drove through Orbisonia and Shade Gap, Huntingdon County. I saw gas prices at $3.29 a gallon. Also recently, I drove through McClure, Selinsgrove and Danville on my way to the Poconos. I consistently saw gas prices at $3.19 and $3.29 a gallon. I actually purchased gas in the Poconos for $3.01 a gallon. On the way home I purchased gas in Lamar, Clinton County, for $3.15 a gallon. As I drive past local gas sources in the Burnham and Reedsville areas, I continue to see $3.59 a gallon and $3.49 a gallon. I ask for ...

Community effort lights up the night

Lewistown always wakes with the sound of birds and the flow of the Juniata, but the last Sunday in June brings a different anticipation. The air in the morning after the fireworks is charged, as if the night’s thunder and color still hangs over the rooftops. It’s the echo in the chest, the memory of those sky-bursts over the river, that gets people talking in the checkout line and lingers in photos on phones and social feeds. Or maybe it’s what the fireworks stand for — the one hour when a small town stops, looks up, and remembers it is part of something larger than ...

Court rules correctly on firearms purchases

We appreciate that a federal judge has correctly struck down an effort in California to sidestep the Second Amendment by placing undue limitations on how many firearms law-abiding Americans can purchase in a month. The judge noted Supreme Court precedent clearly protects the right to purchase the firearms that the Second Amendment acknowledges Americans have the right to own and bear. “When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct,” the Supreme Court decision upon which the ruling is based, as ...

Impact fee just part of gas industry’s success

$6.9 million. Lycoming County and its municipalities are yet again benefitting from the natural gas impact fee. This year’s $6.9 million disbursement brings the total, since the fee was enacted, to about $134.5 million. The projects on which that money has and will be spent would otherwise require county and municipal governments to dip into tax revenue — whether by diverting it from other necessary expenses or by raising taxes — or postpone or reject some of the projects altogether — projects that help improve the quality of life in our region. Our position on the ...

Work on derailment needs to continue

An Associated Press article about the Feb. 3, 2023, Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, said the accident prompted a national reckoning with rail safety and calls for reform, although proposals for new industry rules stalled in Congress. Unfortunately, though, with each new development related to the 2023 accident, that well-intentioned reckoning still underway seems farther from completion than it was just days before. A new development provided ample testimony to that. A specialized plane equipped with advanced sensors that the government deploys to ...