A severance tax on the Marcellus Shale gas-drilling industry has been one of Gov. Tom Wolf’s major priorities since he became Pennsylvania’s chief executive in 2015. If he’s re-elected in November, it’s likely that that so far elusive goal will remain one of his agenda items, going ...
The Hollidaysburg Area School District requires each senior student to perform some community service in order to graduate. In 2017, our retirement community had students volunteer to plant flowers in front of each of our homes. The students worked hard and did a great job. We were so ...
Prior to the election, state Sen. John H. Eichelberger Jr. made the statement that the election was up to God, now. I couldn’t agree more, and so God finally got rid of Jogging Johnny for us. It also gave us a twofer. We got a new state Senator in Judy Ward and gave Eichelberger time to ...
I looked at the youth protest regarding school shootings, and I could not help feeling sad that it all began in 1962, when I was in high school. Why then? Because the liberals rose up and demanded Bible reading and prayer be removed from the schools. What, therefore, has replaced this ...
Anyone who has observed the political slime that has been Pennsylvania’s redistricting map changes of recent months should be heartened that even some members of the sitting Legislature are embarrassed enough to change the process. The Senate’s State Government Committee this past week ...
Nellie Drew, a sports-law professor at the University of Buffalo, told the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. Supreme Court’s on May 14 decision invalidating federal prohibitions on sports betting across the country would “add an entirely different dimension to fan engagement.” That’s ...
There are nine countries in the world with nuclear weapons — the U.S., U.K., Russia, France, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel. But according to the U.S., Israel and others, Iran is absolutely forbidden to have them. Why are some countries allowed to have nuclear weapons, ...
Eric Frein exuded cowardice when he used the cover of darkness, trees and vegetation to mask his ambush of two Pennsylvania state troopers in September 2014 in Pike County. One of the troopers died at the attack scene — outside the Blooming Grove state police barracks — and another was ...
I and two other members of the Hollidaysburg Community Watch Dog Association attended the last meetings of the Hollidaysburg Planning Commission and the zoning board. On the agenda at both meetings was a request for zoning variances by the developer of the apartment complex to be built ...
We hear a lot of negative stories about teenagers. As a grateful grandmother, I want to acknowledge the students of Hollidaysburg Area High School for helping my grandson with Down’s Syndrome have a very typical and inclusive experience in school. He graduates this year and has ...
How to increase tourism in Bedford County has come to the forefront in the issue of whether or not to increase the room tax from 2 to 5 percent. The last large increase in the tourism budget occurred in 2008 when revenues increased by more than a third. Why did this increase occur? The ...
Tuesday didn’t produce the strong voter turnout that the primary election deserved, but people who did venture to the polls provided evidence that they were paying attention prior to the balloting. That was especially true in Blair County, which will elect two new state House members in ...
I would like to address the problem on 11th Avenue, here in our city of Altoona, whereby teenagers and young children seem to think it is OK to just ignore the signs posted that state, “No skateboards, etc. on the property.” These are clearly posted in front of the post office and on ...
It may shock you to learn that county jails have become the largest mental health facilities in America. County jails and taxpayers dollars are increasingly being used to detain pre-trial offenders and house inmates who suffer from serious mental illness and developmental disabilities; the ...
Officials of municipalities in this part of Pennsylvania should be interested in watching how Reade Township’s missing-equipment saga plays out but not for a reason some might expect. To those other municipalities, the identity or identities of anyone who might have had a hand in making the ...
Somebody really needs to ask more questions about Senate Bill 1006 because of the potential to cause problems for property owners in Blair County. Under this bill, counties would be permitted to enact an ordinance requiring notice of substantial property improvements. Currently they receive ...
For once, Hillary Clinton is right on target. Her warning about negotiations over North Korea’s weapons buildup is absolutely correct. Clinton, during a visit to Australia last week, said U.S. officials should make no concessions to the North Korean regime without seeing concrete action ...
Now that I’m retired, I find time to learn about different stories in the news. One interesting topic that I become aware of a few years back is the ranking of presidents. This ranking is conducted by members of the American Political Science Association. Respondents are current and ...
Ann Coulter’s May 3 column in the Mirror revealed more about Coulter than it did about the immigrants that she wrote about. According to her, the main contributions of recent immigrants were such things as raping elderly people and food stamp fraud. For these reasons, she, like her savior ...
The unflattering housing-condition information compiled by a survey launched by Altoona’s city planning office last summer doesn’t mean the Mountain City is a bad place to live. To the contrary, the survey’s optimistic side is that this community is being proactive in trying to ...