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Opinion

Our opinion: Budget proposal is a fantasy

Our Opinion

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s 2026-27 budget would spend about $53.2 billion. The proposed 2026-27 budget, like his initial proposal for the 2025-26 budget, relies on pulling deeply from reserve funding, set aside in past years by lawmakers to ensure the state was ready for future crises and on revenue from activities for which the legislature is still considerable distance from agreeing on regulatory frameworks — recreational marijuana and skills games. The 2025-26 budget, of course, was ultimately more than four months late to passage. State lawmakers already are echoing many of the ...

Readers Speak

Letters To Editor

Site for center? Dear Editor, Wouldn’t the Former Youngsville High School be a better location for the proposed Kinzua Discovery Center? This would be a good utilization and preservation of an existing building and allow funding to go toward staffing and programing instead of 10 million dollars for a new building. It sounds like a good idea and I wish them luck. Gregory Burkett, Warren Minnesota’s mess Dear Editor, Five years ago, one could’ve predicted the chaos in Minneapolis. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and director of Homeland Security ...

Community involvement can boost Warren

Local Commentaries

As a member of Warren Redevelopment Authority, Warren Blighted Property Committee and the Comprehensive Plan task force, I see opportunities everywhere and every day in Warren. Here are my thoughts. Warren, look in the mirror. What do you see? Do you see the historic buildings downtown, the parks that are slowly getting better, and the potential this town has? Or do you see the spaces that still need care and attention? Liberty Street and Pennsylvania Avenue are full of opportunity, but the truth is, real change does not come from a grant, a plan, or a consultant. It comes from ...

Other voices: Real winners in the tariff war

Our Opinion

For decades, politicians have sold tariffs as a tonic for the working class. In reality, one particular group seems to benefit more than any other from trade wars: Washington influence peddlers. The United States collected some $288.5 billion in tariff revenue last year, up from $98.3 billion in 2024, thanks to a barrage of new levies imposed by the Trump administration. These tariffs, designed by elite lawyers in D.C. and implemented with highly technical and specialized language, presented a unique opportunity for lobbyists to charge large corporations exorbitant rates to seek relief ...

Surviving Olympic glories from the past

Local Commentaries

The Olympics have barely begun and I’m almost comatose. Coverage from Milan and Cortina during the afternoon, prime time, and late night have my eyeballs operating in the glued position. Holy biathlon. I’d forgotten how many events are covered. For the first time though, while watching these Olympic Games, I realized that I don’t envy any of the beautiful young athletes anymore. I absolutely, positively cannot imagine attempting any of those death-defying sports. Every surface they challenge is hard. My firm mattress is as far as my imagination can take me. Either they are ...

Our opinion: Putting limits on late agenda items

Our Opinion

State lawmakers are poised to limit what local governments can add to a meeting agenda on the fly. House Bill 2146 recently passed the House of Representatives Local Government Committee and now advances to consideration by the full House of Representatives. The bill is a response to a November state Supreme Court ruling in Coleman v. Parkland School District that the Parkland School District had appropriately used what is known as the majority vote exception when it added a union contract that had been agreed upon by the school district and union to the agenda that night by majority ...