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Rounding Third: Big time sports on big screen

Local Commentaries

The Masters Golf Tournament this year was a doozy. For us golf junkies, the Big Kahuna of the season’s contests was incredibly exciting, especially for Rory McIlroy fans. I joined that fan club about 17 years ago when he was a new name on the PGA Tour. Rory (he lets me call him by his first name) is an up-from-childhood player like Tiger Woods. His dad bought him plastic clubs at age two and he never stopped swinging. I didn’t realize until recently that he was an only child born to working-class parents. Both of them worked second jobs, hardly seeing each other, so their boy ...

Our opinion: Fiscal sanity rests with state Senate

Our Opinion

The state House of Representatives’ passage of a one-house budget means fiscal sanity now rests in the hands of the state Senate. House members passed a budget that is nearly identical to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s $53.3 billion budget proposal in a largely party line vote. Five Republicans voted with Democrats. House passage of a budget doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. It should come as no shock to anyone that Democrats would support their governor’s budget. Let’s give House Democrats a little bit of credit for not approving even more spending than Shapiro proposed ...

Our opinion: Small steps add up on Earth Day

Our Opinion

For more than half a century, the United States has been celebrating Earth Day. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, it was in the spring of 1970, Sen. Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day as a way to force legal and regulatory mechanisms to protect our natural world. Today, our environment is consistently at the center of attention when it comes to the use of water, recycling and energy. As part of Earth Day, which is celebrated Wednesday, the EPA recommends ways residents can lower their carbon footprint. Those include: bike or walk; carpool or take public transportation; ...

Our opinion: Hold firm on state spending

Our Opinion

About 10 weeks ago, Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled his 2026-27 state budget proposal. The budget is due June 30 — about 11 weeks away. As close to the mid-point as we are, we hope our lawmakers are making substantive progress on deciding what the state budget should look like. We can reiterate what we said about 10 weeks ago — Shapiro’s proposal spends too much money. Our state is facing real, long-term challenges to how we fund public education. Courts have determined the disparities between school districts and property values are great enough that Pennsylvania is not truly ...

Our opinion: Census data still disappointing

Our Opinion

We’re not surprised by estimates showing Warren County’s population has fallen. People leaving, or those who remain not having enough children to keep population levels high, is the new normal not just for Warren County or other rural Pennsylvania counties but rural counties in New York state as well. What’s surprising is the pace of population decline. Warren County’s population has decreased an estimated 4% from 2020 to 2025, placing it among the counties with the steepest declines in the state. The figures reflect a broader regional pattern, with nearby rural counties such ...

Leadership runs dry in Tidioute water crisis

Local Commentaries

On March 18, the community of Tidioute was issued a boil water notice. As of the writing of this letter — four weeks later we are still under a boil water notice with seemingly no end in sight. Since the start of this water debacle we have received no official statement from our Mayor Henry Brown and nothing but boil water verbiage from Council and Southwest Warren County Municipal Authority President Steve Morrison. Last year when we had our last water emergency residents were provided with potable water and kept abreast of what was being done to fix the situation. This time, ...