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Finding purpose in the winter quiet

Editorials

The lights are coming down. The trees that sparkled with life a week ago now sit at the curb, waiting for pickup. The calendar has turned, and with it comes a hush that feels both strange and familiar. After weeks of rushing between stores, gatherings, and obligations, the world seems to exhale. What comes next is something easy to overlook but deeply needed: the winter lull. January has a reputation for being dreary. The decorations are gone; the weather settles in, and daylight feels rationed. But beneath that stillness lies a season with purpose. It’s the pause between the pages, ...

Pennsylvania will again be in spotlight

Editorials

There is something clarifying about opening a fresh calendar. The pages are clean, the boxes empty, the year ahead undefined. It invites planning even as experience reminds us that no year ever unfolds exactly as written. This will be another year when Pennsylvania finds itself under a political spotlight. Presidential elections do that when perennial swing-state status can tip the balance in the Electoral College. Two years later, that focus rarely fades — it simply shifts to the midterms. In the midterms, voters will decide control of Congress, Harrisburg and the governor’s ...

Readers' opinions

Letters to the Editor

Alternative Gift Fair committee thanks all To the Editor: The Alternative Gift Fair Committee of the East Kishacoquillas Presbyterian Church in Reedsville would like to sincerely thank all those who donated so generously to the 2025 gift fair. The Alternative Gift Fair raised money this year for 18 non-profit organizations. Those groups are working both locally and around the world doing things like feeding our neighbors, providing shelter and support to those in crisis, caring for animals and encouraging children to learn, to name just a few of the missions they undertake. They ...

Deregulating broadband will save billions

Editorials

Did economists underestimate the damage of the Biden regulatory barrage? One reason the U.S. economy is outperforming expectations may be that the Trump Administration’s deregulation is offsetting tariff harm. Consider how it has uncorked broadband investment and saved taxpayers billions by slashing the Biden team’s red tape. Congress appropriated $42 billion in the 2021 infrastructure bill for states to expand broadband to “unserved” and rural communities. The spending was unnecessary since satellite services like SpaceX’s Starlink and 5G fixed wireless services were rapidly ...

Ice safety is about more than thickness

Local Columns

Cold weather is here, and with it, the first ice of the season. I have already had anglers asking if the ice on a particular lake is thick enough to venture onto. While it will not be long before your favorite lake has ice that looks thick enough to support ice fishing, that is only one part of the puzzle. When it comes to ice fishing, there is one consideration more important than bait, lure, rod/reel or even whether you should wear your lucky hat. Successful ice fishing comes down to one thing: having safe ice. After all, what good is a full creel if it is lying next to you at the ...

PSU trustees still aren’t talking enough in public

Editorials

Penn State’s Board of Trustees deserves credit for spending more time in public discussion this year than it has in the recent past. After years in which outcomes often were treated as foregone conclusions, more conversation is a welcome change. But more is not the same as enough. The measure of a governing board is not whether discussion increases but whether it is robust, wide-ranging and focused on the decisions that matter most — because fiduciary duty needs more than transparency. It requires discussion. Penn State’s Board of Trustees has 39 members, including the ...