Cooperstown, a hamlet in southeastern New York, sits where the Susquehanna River begins, amid farms and rolling hills. It also is the promised land of professional baseball players, home to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Mike Mussina grew up and still lives in Montoursville, part ...

Fifty years ago today, the world watched alongside us, the United States of America, as man set foot on the moon and planted the stars and stripes. It was momentous; generations of previous decades may have laughed at the notion of flying through space, scoffed even, and the idea would have ...

The numbers alone can speak for themselves. Lycoming County received $10.5 million from the Natural Gas Impact Tax for 2018. North central Pennsylvania received $50.6 million. The state of Pennsylvania, in total, received $251.8 million. Since the impact fee was legislated in 2012, the state ...

Provisions to increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $12 an hour were not addressed with the new state budget, as Gov. Tom Wolf had hoped. We hope that does not mean the minimum wage will not be increased. It is well past time to increase the lowest minimum wage in the country. It ...

Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein may yet spend an appropriate amount of time in a federal prison. He should have been sent away years ago. Why that did not happen needs to be explained. Epstein, 66, has been arrested by federal authorities in New York, on charges of sex trafficking involving ...

The scenario is the same every summer. The regular Little League Baseball season ends, leagues pick all-star teams and they start competing. But only once has this annual passion play for 11- and 12-year-olds resulted in a Williamsport team making it all the way to Howard J. Lamade Stadium ...

State lawmakers recently passed a separate measure amid their budget votes that designates $90 million to pay for counties instituting new voting machines that have an auditable paper trail ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Given the state’s history of unfunded mandates inflicted on ...

Equal pay for equal work has been one justification cited by those who believe the U.S. Soccer Federation’s World Cup-winning women’s team should be paid as much as those on the men’s team. But that is misleading. In an important way, the women are doing more valuable work. U.S. Sen. ...

Our kids are world-class, both on the playing fields and in the classroom. In another month, we’ll be watching the annual Little League World Series unfold and rooting on new rosters of football players across the region. Then school bells will start to ring, calling youngsters back to ...

Its roots may be traced to 1868, just three years after the end of the Civil War, and in 1870 it held its first exhibition. Ever since then, the Lycoming County Fair has been the place to go each year for an agricultural extravaganza — and so much more. Each year, the modern fair just seems ...

Pennsylvania has an on-time state budget that does not raise taxes and puts aside $300 million in its Rainy Day Fund for future emergencies. The budget includes funding increases for a wide variety of educational initiatives, from pre-K programs to workforce investments. The workforce ...

Ebola sometimes seems like a nightmare that will not go away. It is a truly horrible disease, killing about half of those who contract it. Here in the United States, where the very few people who have contracted Ebola receive the very best of care, the illness can be less serious. But in ...

Early action has saved the county $7,000 on software that is intended to make the county budget more transparent and understandable to the public. But we have to agree, partly, with Republican Commissioner Tony Mussare, who recently voted against spending $94,949 initially and another ...

Elephants are among the most majestic creatures on the planet. Yet in some places, they are being killed off at an alarming rate. Poachers, who often cut the tusks out of dead elephants and leave their carcasses to rot, are responsible for many of the killings. Ivory still can bring a nice ...

The likelihood I would ever be invited to serve on a network panel questioning the Democratic presidential candidates is equivalent to an invitation to take the next trip to the moon. Still, as I tortured myself watching the two “debates,” which were not really debates, but mostly a show ...

Enabled by technology and state law, the development of cyber charter schools threatens our public school system that is intended to provide a free public education. Cyber charter schools allow parents to place their children in an online classroom that is not directly part of the public ...

Substance abuse is both a personal crisis and a public health challenge. Resources to battle it need to be viewed in that light. If a new study of how people purporting to be heroin users are treated by some health care providers is any guide, relatively minor federal policy changes could ...

The pleasant days of June are behind us, with the hotter temperatures of July and August just ahead. With the mercury and, often, humidity high, a cool dip in the pool sounds really good. Notice we did not write about diving into the river, a local creek or a farm pond. The risks there are ...

Tonight we celebrate our freedom with fireworks. But before the night sky is lit up, we should take a moment to reflect on what it took for us to have not only our freedom but the riches that freedom has generated, nearly two and a half centuries later. By riches, we mean the freedom to ...

It’s costing 19 percent more than budgeted this year to pay for the health care of Lycoming County government employees. That’s disturbing, to the tune of $2 million in health care costs over the budgeted amount. More disturbing is one of the reasons given by Commissioner Rick Mirabito ...