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Tunnel to Towers expands mission to leave no veteran behind

SHANKSVILLE — Two Augusts ago, I joined Frank Siller a few miles from his quest to reach this Somerset County borough as part of his 537-mile tribute walk to all those lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The walk started in Washington, D.C., and would end at Ground Zero in New York just in time for the 20th anniversary of the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center. Siller lost his brother Stephen that day, a fireman who had just finished his shift at Brooklyn’s Squad 1 when he learned a plane had hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center. The younger Siller strapped 60 ...

Spotlight PA’s journalism cuts through the noise

HARRISBURG — State capitols are the testing grounds for the future of our country. New policies and novel legal theories on everything from abortion to education to election administration are being shaped at the state level. And the decisions made in Harrisburg have a far greater effect on your life than the little done in Washington, D.C. these days. That’s why Spotlight PA’s investigative and public-service reporting on the state capitol and urgent statewide issues is more vital than ever. Our journalism holds the powerful to account, keeps track of your tax dollars, and ...

Open Markets Act would protect small businesses, consumers and workers

This weekend is Small Business Saturday, and it’s the perfect time to start your holiday shopping by supporting the small businesses who create jobs and invest in our local community. But, it’s also a time to recognize that our main street businesses need more than just our dollars. In the United States, a fair marketplace is a healthy marketplace. Open competition is the engine of our nation’s economy, and we need to ensure that state law protects against companies that seek to restrain Pennsylvania commerce. For decades, large companies across the nation have purchased ...

The long reach of long COVID

I get it. People are tired of COVID. So am I. Many people think COVID isn’t a big deal anymore. Let’s end COVID!, a group dedicated to public education and COVID mitigation, sees it differently. We strive for accuracy and exist to inform the public about known facts that can lead to good-faith discussions of the best ways to manage complex public health problems, even though we wish we didn’t have to deal with them. We want people to know how to safeguard their own and their loved ones’ health. Respiratory viral illnesses have now reached epidemic levels in the United States ...

America’s ‘silent majority’ will stand against wave of antisemitism

Antisemitism in America seems like it should be an oxymoron. The United States has been the best country ever for the Jewish people, a beacon of light and tolerance. There have been some dark moments. The United States refused 300,000 refugees offered by the Nazis before the scourge of the Holocaust wiped out European Jewry. The United States lied when it said it could not bomb the rail links to the death camp, Auschwitz, when in fact bombers were operating out of both Italy and the UK. Private letters now show both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to be antisemites. In 1942, Treasury ...

Democrats’ Bucks County school board sweep should unnerve GOP everywhere

DOYLESTOWN — There are only a handful of counties in this country that can authentically claim their voting habits are bona fide bellwethers for elections in battleground states. Bucks County, a suburb near Philadelphia, is one of them. What makes it so is the political diversity of voters that is split up into three distinct geographical patches: Lower Bucks, Central Bucks and Upper Bucks. Lower Bucks has always been filled with working-class voters, traditional New Deal Democrats and many Catholics who migrated here out of Philadelphia to bedroom communities in the 1950s and ...