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          Monday March 25
  • Connections for Women - Hopespring, Market St., Bangor 6-8:30pm
  • Bingo - Kunkletown Fire Co. Progressive Jackpot. 7pm
  • Blue Mountain Library - Open 10-12 & 6-8pm
  • Bangor Public Library - Open 1-8
  • Slate Belt Senior Center - Open 8-4. Blue Valley Farm Show
  • Bangor School Board Business Meeting - Slater Conference Room , 7:30.
  • Bangor Borough Council -  Workshop, Bee Hive, 7:00pm
Pen Argyl - March, 2013
MTD: 3.55   Normal: 3.83
01 - .00
02 - .00
03 - .00
04 - .00
05 -. 00
06 - .03
07 -. 00
08 - .12
09 - .17
10- . 00
11 - .00
   12 -  2.46
13 - .00
14 - .00
15 - .00
16 - .16
17 - .00
18 - .59
19 - .02
20 - .00
21 - .00
22 - .00
23 - .00
24 - .00
25 - .00
26 - .00 
27 - .00
28 - .00
29 - .00
30 - .00
31 - .00
November 27............................3.1
December 22............................0.5
December 24............................1.6
December 26............................2.0
December 27............................0.5
December 29............................3.5
January 15...............................0.2
January 16...............................2.0
January 25...............................1.0
Janaury 28...............................1.0
February 1................................1.5
February 2................................1.0
February 5................................0.6
February 8................................4.8
February 13..............................0.5
February 15..............................0.5
February 19..............................1.0
March 8/9.................................2.5
March 16..................................2.0
March18...................................3.0
TOTAL...................................33.0
Pen Argyl  
March 25, 2013
3.50
Scale
High 9.7 - 12
Medium High 7.3  -9.6
Medium Low 4.9 - 7.2
Low Medium 2.5 - 4.8
Low 0 - 2.4

PREDOMINANT POLLEN

Maple and Juniper

ALLERGY FORECAST DISCUSSION

    The amount of pollen in the air for Tuesday will be increasing in the high range. This rise is a result of drier air. Tomorrow's increase could spell trouble for allergy sufferers.
Bangor's Drea Falcone swings prepares to throw, during the Bangor girls softball team's 19-1 win over East Stroudsburg South in a game played Friday afternoon at Bangor.   Sbtt Photo Casey Baker.
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Bangor catcher Kailey Smith homered, during the Bangor girls softball team's 19-1 win over East Stroudsburg South in a game played Friday afternoon at Bangor.   Sbtt Photo Casey Baker.

Rental Assistance Helps
The Low-Income Disabled

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   Harrisburg -The Department of Public Welfare and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency will use $5.7 million in federal rental assistance to make some accessible housing more affordable for 200 low-income individuals with disabilities.
   "Pennsylvania was one of 13 states selected to receive this rental assistance money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, reflecting the state's proven history to help people with disabilities live independent lives," Acting Secretary Beverly Mackereth said. "This effort will improve the quality of life for people with disabilities and reduce health care costs by giving the individuals the option of living in their own community instead of living in a long-term care facility."
   The Pennsylvania Housing and Finance Agency and the welfare department will create the new housing opportunities by using the same successful methods developed through PHFA's Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program and other affordable housing projects administered by both agencies.
   The accessible, affordable housing will support three groups of individuals under the age of 62: persons with disabilities who are institutionalized; those at risk of institutionalization, and those currently living in a congregate setting who desire to move into the community.
   "Part of the reason that Pennsylvania was awarded this funding was due to our history of productive collaboration between our two agencies benefiting the state's residents," PHFA Executive Director and CEO Brian A. Hudson Sr. said "Working together, we can use this assistance from HUD to make a powerful, positive difference in the lives of Pennsylvanians with disabilities who want to live independently."
   The $5.7 million for rental assistance is part of the HUD's first-ever selection of Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities Project Rental Assistance Demonstration.
  For more information, visit the Department of Public Welfare at www.dpw.state.pa.us<http://www.dpw.state.pa.us> or call 1-800-692-7462.  To contact the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, visit www.PHFA.org<http://www.PHFA.org> or call Holly Glauser at 717-780-3876.
Scroll Down for.......
  • Gun Law and other Polls
  • More use cell phones than Toilets
  • Dead Cat Rug Sparks Anger
  • Universe Older Than Thought
  • Bangor-Pen Argyl Tennis

Full Moon Celebration
at Columcille

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    Join everyone at Columcille for the March 2013 Full Moon Celebration.  They will gather for the 'Full Worm Moon' in the circle of stones at 7:00pm on Wednesday, March 27. The Gathering is open to all who feel called to participate in welcoming and honoring Grandmother Moon and her healing energies. If weather becomes an issue, please consult the Columcille web site HERE and click on Full Moon Gatherings on the left menu.
    They welcome all who wish to bring their drums, flutes and other musical instruments. Please bring any poem, song, chant or story you would like to share as well as your crystals, gems, etc. for cleansing by the Full Moon energies.
   Of course, this will be followed by a sharing of 'Tea and Treats' - bring your favorite treat!
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These girls anxiously search for eggs at the Easter Egg Hunt held Satuday at Grace UMC in Pen Argyl. (New photo tomorrow) Sbtt Photo Larry Cory
This boy sees an egg that he wants to get  at the Easter Egg Hunt held Satuday at Grace UMC in Pen Argyl.(New photo tomorrow) Sbtt Photo Larry Cory

More People Have Access to Cell Phones Than Toilets

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News 
   A new United Nations study has found that more people around the world have access to a cellphone than to a working toilet.
   The study’s numbers claim that of the world’s estimated 7 billion people, 6 billion have access to mobile phones. However, only 4.5 billion have access to a toilet.
   At a press conference announcing the report, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson announced the organization is launching an effort to halve the number of those without access by the end of 2015.
   “Let’s face it—this is a problem that people do not like to talk about. But it goes to the heart of ensuring good health, a clean environment and fundamental human dignity for billions of people,” Eliasson said at the press conference.
In August 2012, the Bill Gates Foundation began its own effort to “reinvent the toilet” as a way to help curb the number of people around the world without access to sanitary waste disposal.
     Interestingly, the report states that India alone is responsible for 60 percent of the world’s population that does not use a toilet, an estimated 626 million individuals. Yet, at the same time, there are an estimated 1 billion cellphones in India.
   Conversely, in the world’s most highly populated country, China, only 14 million people do not have access to a toilet. However, there are also fewer cellphones in China, 986 million, according to the Daily Mail.
   Driving the point home, more than 750,000 people die each year from diarrhea and one of its primary causes is from unsanitary conditions created in communities without access to toilets.
    And there are other benefits of installing more modern sanitation options that don’t immediately come to mind.
   “This can also improve the safety of women and girls, who are often targeted when they are alone outdoors,” said Martin Mogwanja, deputy executive director of the U.N. Children’s Fund. “And providing safe and private toilets may also help girls to stay in school, which we know can increase their future earnings and help break the cycle of poverty.”

People Angered by Sale of
Rug made from Dead Cat

    A British man has upset animal lovers in New Zealand by turning a roadkill cat into a rug and selling it online for more than $750.
    Taxidermist Andrew Lancaster found the large male cat on the side of the road on his way home from a concert last month.
    "I thought 'that's a pretty nice looking cat', did a U-turn and picked it up,'' he told the New Zealand Herald.
  Lancaster, an ex-pat who lives in Tauranga, said he thought the cat must have been "run straight over'' as its skin was relatively undamaged.
    Interest in the cat had "gone ballistic'' after he listed on New Zealand's equivalent of eBay as a "great little gift for the mancave''.
    He specializes in unusual stuffed animal creations and previous works include a possum-headed chicken with vampire teeth, and a small bird with the head of a child's doll.
     Despite his latest creation, he usually stays away from working on pets like cats and dogs.
    "It puts a lot of people's backs up. If someone has known their pet all their life, it's very hard to get it right when you work on them.''
    Eliot Pryor, from animal advocacy organisation SAFE, said the sale of the cat was in "extremely bad taste''.
   "But there is also something distasteful about the attitude shown to an animal once it has died, as the description is light hearted and not respectful.''
(L-R) Anthony Polizzi and Wesley Smith (TOP PHOTO)  defeated  Nick Cesari and Nick Hagan 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 in the number two doubles match, during Knights' 3-2 win over the Slaters in a match held in frigid weather at Bangor High School Wednesday. Sbtt Photo Casey Baker.
Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, weather forecast
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News Published Free in The Town Topics

    If you want to publish an announcement about your organization,  sign-ups for Little League, or similar information - this a FREE service provided by the Town Topics.   
   Charges only result when you publish something in the form of display advertising. 
  Send us your news by e-mail to sbtopics@rcn.com , call 610-863-1988, text 570-688-3724, facebook@sbtopics or mail to 335 S Franklin St., Pen Argyl, PA 18072.

Universe older
than scientists thought

PARIS -- A new examination of what is essentially the universe's birth certificate allows astronomers to tweak the age, girth and speed of the cosmos, more secure in their knowledge of how it evolved, what it's made of and its ultimate fate.   Sure, the universe suddenly seems to be showing its age, now calculated at 13.8 billion years - 80 million years older than scientists had thought. It's got about 3 percent more girth - technically it's more matter than mysterious dark energy - and it is expanding about 3 percent more slowly.
    But with all that comes the wisdom for humanity. Scientists seem to have gotten a good handle on the Big Bang and what happened just afterward, and may actually understand a bit more about the cosmic question of how we are where we are.
   All from a baby picture of fossilized light and sound.
   The snapshot from a European satellite had scientists from Paris to Washington celebrating a cosmic victory of knowledge Thursday - basic precepts that go back all the way to Einstein and relativity.
    The Planck space telescope mapped background radiation from the early universe - now calculated at about 13.8 billion years old. The results bolstered a key theory called "inflation," which says the universe burst from subatomic size to its vast expanse in a fraction of a second just after the Big Bang that created the cosmos.
   "We've uncovered a fundamental truth of the universe," said George Efstathiou, director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge who announced the Planck findings in Paris. "There's less stuff that we don't understand by a tiny amount."
   The map of the universe's evolution - in sound echoes and fossilized light going back billions of years - reinforces some predictions made decades ago solely on the basis of mathematical concepts.
   "We understand the very early universe potentially better than we understand the bottom of our oceans," said Bob Nichols, director of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth in Britain. "We as humanity put a satellite into space, we predicted what it should see and saw it."
   Other independent scientists said the results were comparable on a universal scale to the announcement earlier this month by a different European physics group on a subatomic level - with the finding of the Higgs boson particle that explains mass in the universe.
    The Big Bang theory says the universe was smaller than an atom in the beginning when, in a split second, it exploded, cooled and expanded faster than the speed of light - an idea that scientists call inflation. It's based in part on Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity - from about 90 years ago.
   "The universe is described amazingly well by a simple model," said Charles Lawrence, the lead Planck scientist for NASA, which took part in the research. "What is new is how well the model fits both the old data and the new data from Planck."
   The $900 million Planck space telescope, launched in 2009, is named for the German physicist Max Planck, the originator of quantum physics. It has spent 15 1/2 months mapping the sky, examining so-called light fossils and sound echoes from the Big Bang by looking at background radiation. When the light first burst out, it was blinding, but it is now fractions of a degree above absolute zero, Lawrence said.