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Other Voices: Democracy doesn't require truth police

In Our Opinion

It became fashionable a few years ago for people to blame “misinformation” for others holding views they find wrongheaded. Social media platforms, sometimes jawboned by the federal government, invoked this supposed crisis to justify censorship, especially during the pandemic. This insulted the intelligence of the American people, who can make up their own minds without being told what to think. A new study explores how exposure to “misinformation” on social media affected voters in 2020. The answer, drawn from a three-month experiment on nearly 16,000 users, is very ...

Reagan movie is superbly made, worth seeing

Local Commentaries

CHAUTAUQUA—After seven decades of tyranny, the Soviet Union and its empire collapsed due in no small measure to the efforts of two former actors and a grocer’s daughter. One actor—named Karol Wojtyla—grew up in Wadowice, Poland, and later moved to Krakow, where he eventually became a Roman Catholic priest, bishop, archbishop, and cardinal. The other actor—nicknamed Dutch—was born in Tampico, Illinois, grew up in nearby Dixon, and became a sports announcer at WOC in Davenport, Iowa, and WHO in Des Moines before moving on to acting. The two, of course, are John Paul II, ...

Homelessness proving to be an intractable problem

In Our Opinion

The population of homeless in Chautauqua County didn’t explode last year like it did in the last two-year study by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office. That first study of homelessness put a number to the increase (103% from January 2022 through January 2024) in homelessness we had been seeing all around us. The increase is a lot less in 2025 than it was in 2024 - 23.7% year-over-year. That’s the good news, if one can call it that. The bad news is that homelessness across the state decreased by 7.9% over the same time period, though that decrease was largely driven by New ...

SKF’s foray into humanoids come at interesting time

In Our Opinion

SKF officials have jumped into the humanoid robot market with a new joint venture with LeaderDrive, a Chinese company focused on high-precision transmission components for robot joints. SKF is focusing on the application of humanoids powered by Embodied AI technology in industrial settings after a thorough study to identify a potential role for the company in the humanoid market, concluding it should focus on humanoids for industrial applications. We don’t know if any of the bearings that would be part of a humanoid robots product would ever make its way to SKF’s Falconer ...

Camera coverage could help police Fairmount, Fairdale avenue intersection

In Our Opinion

Lakewood-Busti police are applying for a grant that would include funding for a camera at the intersection of Fairdale and Fairmount avenues. While we have been wary of the increasing use of cameras - particularly in neighborhoods where there can be an expectation of privacy - we can’t disagree with the reasons why Matthew Bentley, Lakewood-Busti police chief, would want to have camera coverage of this particular intersection. Despite the intersection’s presence in a series of intersections with stop lights that also include turn arrow signals, Fairmount and Fairdale is an area ...

Amazon deal could be boon for local company

In Our Opinion

It was roughly six years ago that Chautauqua County made a pitch for an Amazon regional distribution center that, when completed, would have been one of the largest in the world. County Executive PJ Wendel, Mark Geise, county IDA director and former U.S. Rep. Tom Reed all advocated for Amazon to consider Chautauqua County, which was pushing land the county owns in Ripley as well as the Mason Industrial Park in Ellicott. The project never came to fruition, but there was a lot of genuine excitement around the possibility at the time. Last week Amazon made a quieter entry into ...