Tech companies propel US stocks to early gains; Intel jumps

124386449_web1_web1_PA-Dept-of-Labor-and-Industry-logo-1

Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate up slightly to 4.5%

Diamonds to King&rsquo;s College and the NEPA Task Force Against Human Trafficking for putting together a simple yet essential trafficking awareness campaign. King&rsquo;s has mustered 23 volunteers who went around the area Friday to set up posters with tear-off contact information sheets in locations where trafficking often occurs, including truck stops, bus stops, restaurants and prisons. Tammi Burke of the Victims Resource Center offered chilling, succinct data on a crime that generates $150 million a year exploiting our most vulnerable people in a particularly heinous way, selling them into prostitution, child labor and other abuses that shouldn&rsquo;t even exist in this country at this time. As Burke said, it&rsquo;s happening right here, with Pennsylvania shamefully holding ninth place among our 50 sates in trafficking.
				Coal, while we&rsquo;re at it, to the people who conduct human trafficking, and to the people to indulge in the services of the tragic victims. Coal as well to state and federal legislators who, while having taken some modest actions, continue to drag their feet in combating the problem. Burke also pointed out how the law routinely punishes the victim &mdash; especially those forced into prostitution &mdash; while leaving the users and the traffickers to go about their sordid ways. The problem shouldn&rsquo;t exist at all, but there are obvious steps that could be taken to make it less profitable to practice and more dangerous to engage in.
				Diamonds to the area&rsquo;s organizations and institutions that held events commemorating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in conjunction with the national holiday Monday. If you attended an event &mdash; King&rsquo;s College and Wilkes University both hosted celebrations this week &mdash; you got a chance to hear quotes from the legendary civil rights activist, reminders of how a great orator can stir the soul and inspire us to move toward life&rsquo;s loftier goals. King spoke of love and truth and justice in ways that transcended the problems of racism, segregation and xenophobia, calling on all of us to build a truly united nation rather than exploiting our fears. In an age of hyper-partisan rhetoric that so often drags political debate through the muckiest of swamps, King&rsquo;s words are a reminder of how noble we can be when we look to our better angels.
				Coal to mega food giant Kraft Heinz for the ad stunt of killing off Mr. Peanut, the 104-year-old icon of Wilkes-Barre-born Planters Peanuts. No, we&rsquo;re not bemoaning the publicity stunt-ness of killing off a fictional character (performing an heroic act of self-sacrifice) via a YouTube video &mdash; it was actually a pretty smart move in the age of social media, as the vast free publicity generated shows. And we&rsquo;re not criticizing any media outlet for jumping on the bandwagon, which this paper and other outlets understandably did, knowing the dapper legume&rsquo;s origin. This is a complaint about slighting Wilkes-Barre. At the very least, Mr. Peanut&rsquo;s funeral should be held in the Diamond City, and if he (as many suspect) the monocled icon is found to have survived his fall into a canyon, he should first be sighted near the original Planters building still standing on South Main Street. Better yet, Kraft Heinz should consider an old proposal that still has merit: Use that building as the starting point for a Planters Peanut museum.

Our View: Fight against human trafficking is a worthy cause