Will we see youngsters on baseball diamonds this summer? It’s possible. Little League International recently posted protocols designed to get kids playing again while keeping youths and coaches safe from the COVID-19 threat. No handshakes, high-fives or fist bumps, according to the ...
Pennsylvania voters registered as Democrats and Republicans will head to the polls — or their mailboxes — for next week’s primary election. But there are problems that could make this year’s elections even more of a debacle than the hanging chad controversy of the 2000 U.S. ...
Be careful out there. Just because Lycoming County’s district attorney has decided he will not prosecute businesses that choose to defy state closure orders does not mean we’ve won the battle against COVID-19 and it’s safe to venture out like we did last summer. Far from it. The ...
June 5 is National Gun Violence Awareness Day, which is marked by the Wear Orange campaign. Orange is the color that Hadiya Pendleton’s friends wore in her honor when she was shot and killed in Chicago at the age of 15 in January 2013. After her death, they asked us to stand up, speak out and ...
While we Americans were paying tribute to our fallen heroes during Memorial Day weekend, observant Muslims here and abroad were marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Even in Afghanistan, there was a pause in hostilities between government and Taliban forces. It came as U.S. and ...
Unanimity over how much power intelligence agencies should have to pry into Americans’ personal affairs has disappeared with reports during the past few years of unconstitutional invasions of privacy. Victims of that have ranged from high-ranking government officials down to millions of other ...
During the American Revolution, an estimated 4,435 soldiers died in battle fighting for freedom from England between 1775 and 1783, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. A few short decades later, another 2,260 U.S. soldiers died fighting in the War of 1812, which lasted until ...
The proverbial canary has been released into the coalmine. That’s how the phase yellow reopening should be viewed in our region as well as other places nationwide where state governments are easing orders (and others are defiantly breaking) that have confined people largely to their homes. ...
This week brought a glimmer of positive news from some of our local school boards, including Williamsport Area, Montgomery and Muncy. Though things could change between now and final passage of school budgets by June 30, at least two districts so far have decided to try to hold the line and ...
Hospital personnel such as nurses and doctors, ambulance crews and other full-time health care professionals are viewed by many Americans as the front-line heroines and heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent episode reminds us that first responders such as police officers and firefighters ...
On a day that Gov. Tom Wolf called counties “cowardly” for planning to defy his lockdown orders, his administration demonstrated exactly why Pennsylvanians have doubts about his administration’s leadership. In a recent briefing, Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine was asked about ...
Nearly every American has suffered financially from the COVID-19 epidemic. At least 36 million of us were laid off from our workplaces. Even those still on the job have seen their retirement savings decimated. But a few people — those who had some forewarning of the economic havoc to come ...
As the coronavirus epidemic hit full stride, Americans learned to our dismay that the nation lacked adequate supplies of COVID-19 test kits, personal protective gear such as face masks, medical ventilators and other necessities for dealing with a massive health care emergency. To their ...
The administration of Gov. Tom Wolf has, to a large extent, ignored the press and the state Legislature throughout the COVID-19 Disaster Declaration as information was requested on what criteria, data and processes were being used in its decision-making and policy formation. This is just ...
As we gradually reopen in the new normal world of COVID-19, there will be much to sort out. Continued adherence to safety rules that we have learned in the past two months is of paramount importance now as our society boldly walks out of isolation and slowly gets back to business. And it is ...
During three and one-half years, Americans converted a peacetime economy to become the arsenal of democracy and win World War II. The “greatest generation” accomplished that because it had to be done, for the good of all humankind. Now we as a nation face another challenge, of far less ...
August will produce a silence that will echo around the world. There will be no youngsters arriving on airplanes from distant lands. There will be no dreams to chase on baseball diamonds in a few short months. Nobody will become champion of a 2020 Little League World Series. The ...
Hundreds of thousands of hogs raised by farmers to provide Americans with ham, bacon and other meat products will not make it to the slaughterhouse unless ways are found to cure a nasty side-effect of COVID-19. It is that a number of meat processing plants have been shut down because of the ...
You may think you are reading the final Sunday edition of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, and to a degree, you are correct. This is the final Sunday in which a multiple-section edition of this newspaper, complete with circulars and coupons, arrives on the doorstep of subscribers. But this is ...
We all need a bit of a psychological pick-me-up. The tough fight against COVID-19 is taking its toll on us emotionally. Coronavirus blues, meet the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Just in time to give our spirits a boost, NASA is planning to send a new group of astronauts into ...