PENNSYLVANIA INDEPENDENT: As the nation looks to the Philadelphia trial of Kermit Gosnell and his “house of horrors” abortion clinic, a grand jury report alleges that substantial regulatory failures at the Pennsylvania Department of Health allowed gruesome actions go undetected — or detected but unresolved…

Tom Corbett needs help from seven Democrat state senators to even sniff at a second four-year governor’s term next year. Corbett claims he personally was not aware Republican State Senator Jane Orie should be investigated for using state workers for campaign purposes. His attorney general office, however, snubbed a claim of such conduct by one of the workers.

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE Editorial: Of all the people Gov. Tom Corbett could’ve nominated to head Pennsylvania’s Department of Health, he chose acting secretary Michael Wolf, who lacks a medical or public health background.

We have no idea of the cause for this recent decline in state rating. It could be the need to skimp on services due to reduced governmental subsidies or clients inability to pay more. It could be slack management. Or there may be other factors. Nor do we know whether the same would have occurred under county ownership.

For the past forty-five years, morning breakfast was combined with the reading of either the Intelligencer Journal or the Lancaster Sunday News. It was a pleasant way of starting the day and keeping current with the most important local, state, national and world news.

Pennsylvania’s corruption appears to be “the worst such case, of a large scale, over a long period of time,” said Robert Poole, transportation fellow at the Reason Foundation, a free-market think tank in Los Angeles. The grand jury report covered activities over a decade

“[T]he Republican National Committee affirms its support for marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and as the optimum environment in which to raise healthy children for the future of America; and be it further resolved, the Republican National Committee implores the U. S. Supreme Court to uphold the sanctity of marriage in its rulings on California’s Proposition 8 and the Federal Defense of Marriage Act,” the resolution, first obtained by Chris Moody of Yahoo News, read.

According to the national Center for Disease Control, the national rate for obesity in 2010 had grown to 35.7%. Those overweight, but not obese, amount to another 30%. From personal observations, we would wager that the rate for obesity in the Lancaster area equals and likely exceeds the national average.

LEHIGH VALLEY EXPTRESS-TIMES Editorial: U. S. Sen. Pat Toomey seems willing to trade his “A” rating from the National Rifle Association for an expanded system of background checks for gun buyers. On Wednesday Toomey, R-Pa., joined with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in support of an amendment that breathed new life into a Senate attempt to extend background checks to gun shows and online sales, while stopping short of person-to-person private sales and a national gun registry.