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Opinion

Our opinion: Lawmaker finds an acceptable compromise

Our Opinion

The state Supreme Court was, in our opinion, correct when it ruled earlier this year that the state’s mandatory life sentence for second-degree murder convictions was unconstitutional. The court found that automatic life terms violate the state constitution's ban on cruel punishments by failing to consider individual culpability after a 2014 incident in which Derek Lee participated in a Pittsburgh robbery with an accomplice. While Lee was upstairs, his accomplice shot and killed a person in the basement. Under Pennsylvania's felony murder rule, Lee was convicted of second-degree ...

American war of independence was no revolution

Local Commentaries

MECOSTA, Mich.—When this columnist was a newspaper reporter, one of the editors was fond of saying we needed to write in a way that would hold people’s attention when the kids were screaming, the dog was barking, and the television was on. Today’s column doesn’t follow that ...

Our opinion: Celebrating 250 years of independence

Our Opinion

Today, we Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Our focus is what the document meant — creation of a new nation, a new set of ideals to form a more perfect union. But what the document itself says about the Founders and about what they intended for us is just as important, in many ways. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness …” That single sentence is familiar to ...

Sunday was full of high notes

Local Commentaries

Sunday was opening day at Chautauqua, and like all Sundays during the 9-week season, admission was free. Ginger, my BFF from New York City, is visiting us this week for the holiday. She joined me Sunday as the interim president of Chautauqua Institution opened its 153rd season just before the ...

Our view: Is U.S. ready to celebrate its 250th?

Our Opinion

Residents around Warren County have plenty to choose from when you consider the plethora of Fourth of July events and fireworks planned for the upcoming weekend. Not only is it a major celebration of summer — but about our great country that turns 250 years old. Even though the spotlight is greater in 2026, this celebration is nothing like 50 years ago when the nation proudly marked 200 years. In 1976, patriotism abounded — even though we were healing from the Vietnam War and a shake-up in the presidency due to the Watergate scandal. In this era, America seems to be at a fork in ...

Our opinion: Legislature dropped the ball on skill games

Our Opinion

So-called skill games in Pennsylvania walk, talk and look like a slot machine. Only in Pennsylvania would a court need to clarify that the machines are, in fact, slot machines in the eyes of state law. Only in Pennsylvania does something that looks like a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck be considered a fish for decades. Now, that the state Supreme Court has finally settled that the duck is, in fact, a duck by ruling skill games are slot machines and must adhere to Pennsylvania’s crime and gambling statutes, the state Legislature must pick up the ball it dropped years ...