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Is failure baked in the cake at Glasgow?

“Colossal Stakes as Leaders Meet to Talk Climate,” ran the headline. “The Last Best Hope,” ran the subhead, which turned out to be a quote from President Joe Biden’s climate czar John Kerry. But these alarmist headings were not atop an editorial. They topped the lead news story in Sunday’s New York Times, the opening line of which set the tone for Glasgow: “The future is on the line.” Somini Sengupta, climate reporter, then laid out the “colossal stakes” of the summit. “As presidents and prime ministers arrive in Glasgow this week for a pivotal climate ...

Ghosts, hauntings and witches, oh my!

It’s that time of year when imaginations run wild, and you swear you hear spine-chilling shrieks, and things going thump and bump in the night! But what if it isn’t your imagination. There are many stories from the Juniata River Valley’s past that makes one wonder what could be lurking behind the shadows. Join me as we look at some of the local, frightful stories that have been passed from generation to generation. Fact, fiction, urban legend, only you can decide. Our first stop is in the Historic Courthouse, on the square in Lewistown, home to our Chamber office. According to ...

Will press be afraid to be free?

In a week, the Supreme Court will decide if it will consider diminishing long-standing protections for the freedom of the press. Here is the backstory. In 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed a jury verdict by an Alabama state court and in doing so changed the law of defamation in such a manner as to enhance substantially and materially the freedom of the press. The case was Times v. Sullivan, in which the police commissioner of Montgomery, Alabama, sued The New York Times for publishing a full-page advertisement that, he argued, ...

Give America a new birth of freedom in Virginia

The joke goes that a slip of the tongue for a politician means that they accidentally said what they actually believe. Now Democrats are trying to clean up the mess created by Virginia Democratic candidate for governor, Terry McAuliffe, when he said in a debate on Sept. 28, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” McAuliffe’s 5-point lead over his opponent, Republican Glenn Youngkin, who has made parental control in education a central issue in his campaign, has disappeared. Big-name Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, are ...

In most of US, police can legally deceive during an interrogation

How many times have you seen these scenarios play out on TV crime dramas? The savvy detective tells a scared kid in the interrogation room that if he will just confess, then the cops can promise leniency. Or the investigator tells the juvenile that his buddy in the other room has spilled his guts. To save himself, the suspect is told, he needs to start talking and confess to his crime. Except the kid in the other room hasn’t actually said anything yet. Now, two states — Illinois and Oregon — have passed laws forbidding police from using deception when dealing with suspects under ...

It’s time to repair our past

What started as a simple conversation in the offices of the chamber of commerce and the visitors bureau about beautifying a patch of ground has turned into an amazing community project revolving around the locally known AME Cemetery. Rhonda Kelley and Jenny Landis called together a diverse group of people who they thought would take on this three-phase project. Along with physical improvements to the gravestones and property, an expanded history was also on the agenda. That’s where I came in. As a history major in college, I’ve used the skills I have learned to research my ...