So free and, in general, prosperous are we Americans that we sometimes take our blessings as a nation for granted. We should not. They are based on something of a miracle — our Constitution. Each year on Sept. 17, we celebrate Constitution Day. It is both a time for us to marvel ...

Elliot Walker Sr. is a city resident who lives in the neighborhood around Flanigan Park. He knows what he is seeing and would like it to change. "Everybody's morale is down. Everyone talks and no one wants to walk," he said following a recent meeting with Mayor Gabriel J. Campana. "We need ...

The tragic devastation brought by Hurricane Irma serves as a sobering reminder of just what havoc a flood can bring. It also points to the necessity of adequate flood protection and flood insurance. And that's as much a municipal responsibility as it is a homeowner responsibility. The flood ...

U.S. Rep. Tom Marino, a Cogan House Republican who represents much of our region, will apparently be leading the nation’s anti-drug effort after all. The Trump administration announced recently it has tapped Marino to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy. This is actually a ...

The prospect of losing local police coverage drew a lot of concern from Porter Township residents, who turned up at the latest supervisors’ meeting. It turns out Porter Township supervisors were not looking to withdraw the township from the Tiadaghton Valley Regional Police ...

Texans and Floridians hurt by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are on the minds of millions of their neighbors throughout the United States. But let’s not forget about our other fellow Americans in the U.S. Virgin Islands? If anything, devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma in the USVI is worse ...

Brace yourself for another round of propaganda aimed at Israel. Expect to hear new allegations our only reliable ally in the Middle East is attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for no good reason. Except that there will be a reason — self-defense. Yehiyeh Sinwar, the new leader of ...

We have lost track of how many times we have asked in this space that the state budget be examined line item by line item before its size and the taxes needed to support it are increased. Faced with a $2.2 billion budget gap for the belated 2017-18 budget, the Republican majority in the state ...

Diane Glenwright retired as CEO of the YWCA of Northcentral Pennsylvania last week after 16 years. But she really did not leave. The programs and services she guided from birth to sustainability on behalf of women in this region remain. The building she transformed from deterioration to a ...

With the roar of the motorcycles, we remember. As the flags blow stiff in the wind behind the cycles, we remember. And onlookers to the 17th 9/11 Memorial Coalition ride waved their flags back. As the sun set gently on Monday, the ride forced us all to remember what we should never ...

The transportation portfolio of the region got a big boost on two fronts recently. A new carrier, Fullington, took over out-of-town bus service that Susquehanna Trailways recently dropped. The company also will take over operations at the bus terminal on Church Street. Fullington's takeover ...

Diplomats sometimes engage in hyperbole to make their points. But what Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said last Monday may be the literal truth. Haley spoke during an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. It was called after it was confirmed that North Korea ...

It is not your father’s Montoursville Area High School anymore. When the new school year dawned, administrators, teachers, children and parents walked into a much different Montoursville Area High School. After years of planning and often contentious debate, a sharply renovated ...

President Donald Trump is right to be concerned about what is happening in Venezuela. He is wrong to consider use of U.S. military force to correct the situation. Venezuela appears to be on the brink of chaos as a result of action taken by that country’s leftist president, Nicolas Maduro. ...

When it comes to being a business and industry prospect, Lycoming County had its closeup on the closing weekend of the Little League World Series. The Williamsport-Lycoming Chamber of Commerce, along with officials from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, hosted site ...

Call it tough love. The city of Williamsport can fine a property owner as much as $1,000 per building code violation. Those violations range from broken windows to holes in the roof, siding that is falling off, porch or structural deficiencies, electrical dangers and other safety ...

We can think of no reasonable security measure that would have prevented the shooting Monday of Jefferson County, Ohio, Common Pleas Court Judge Joseph Bruzzese Jr. The judge, who is expected to recover from his wounds, was ambushed as he was walking from his car to the county ...

On this Labor Day, unemployment is at a 16-year low, according to the most recent labor statistics. So there is that positive to reflect as many of us enjoy a holiday respite and celebrate what we do for a living. The lower unemployment number can be read many ways, particularly depending ...

It doesn’t take a lot of bigoted people to stain a nation. That much we learned from the recent tragedy in Charlottesville. But a crowd of any size that has peace-building and unity in mind can turn the momentum in the other direction. That was evident at Brandon Park, where a crowd of ...

It doesn’t take a lot of bigoted people to stain a nation. That much we learned from the recent tragedy in Charlottesville. But a crowd of any size that has peace-building and unity in mind can turn the momentum in the other direction. That was evident at Brandon Park, where a crowd of ...