The disposition of Lancaster’s two most important issues, (1) the moving ahead with the Convention Center Project initially without a feasibility study and later despite one, and 2) the recent county commissioner’s approval and praise of the acquisition of the Harrisburg Incinerator, again without a feasibility study, makes us consider throwing in the towel.

A budget document circulated by Gov. Tom Corbett’s Office of Budget to state government departments on August 30 paints a dismal portrait of the commonwealth’s finances going into next year’s election cycle, and casts doubt on the state’s long-term ability to bail out Harrisburg.

A paper published today in the journal Science confirms earlier studies finding that ice is present under the Martian surface — and the new report goes further, concluding that water can be extracted from soil samples.

NEW YORK TIMES Editorial: A handful of cities across the country, including Baltimore and Phoenix, have specialized courts that deal with sex-trafficking offenses.

In my view, with the sale and transfer of municipally owned assets, the burden is placed disproportionately on the residents and taxpayers of the city. While it’s true that the city’s major creditors have agreed to accept an immediate partial payment of approximately $210 million of the nearly $300 million debt, the plan calls for additional distribution of future funds that will make the creditors whole…

NEW YORK TIMES: As diplomats at the United Nations push for a peace conference to end Syria’s civil war, a collection of some of the country’s most powerful rebel groups publicly abandoned the opposition’s political leaders, casting their lot with an affiliate of Al Qaeda.

…The $11bn comprises $7bn cash and $4bn of mortgage relief for struggling homeowners as penalties for allegations that the bank packed mortgage-backed securities with faulty home loans in the run-up to the crisis.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, Mr. Obama drove home the conclusion that he came to after his own party deserted him over a military response to the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 1,000 Syrians: The bigger risk for the world in coming years is not that the United States will try to build empires abroad, he argued, but that there will be a price to be paid in chaos and disorder if Americans elect to stay home…

“I am friends with all of the candidates, I am friends with Allyson: She can’t win in the fall. Rob can. She can’t win in the center of the state. Rob can.”

When insurance marketplaces open on Oct. 1, most of those shopping for coverage will be low- and moderate-income people for whom price is paramount. To hold down costs, insurers say, they have created smaller networks of doctors and hospitals than are typically found in commercial insurance. And those health care providers will, in many cases, be paid less than what they have been receiving from commercial insurers…

HARRISBUBRG PATRIOT NEWS Column: State Treasurer Rob McCord has done everything short of announcing his candidacy, even suggesting to many possible followers he’d be in the race by Labor Day.