Pennsylvania has kicked the proverbial can down the road on the issue of single-use plastics, unlike what has been happening in numerous other states. For example, Vermont and Maine have just imposed statewide bans on plastic bags while Palo Alto, Calif., and Orlando, Fla., last month passed ...
Trust that Roman Catholic Church officials will do the right thing about allegations of sexual misconduct by members of the clergy is in question in many countries, not just the United States. What Pope Francis and others in the Catholic hierarchy do about the matter is watched closely ...
Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein may yet spend an appropriate amount of time in a federal prison. He should have been sent away years ago. Why that did not happen needs to be explained. Epstein, 66, has been arrested by federal authorities in New York, on charges of sex trafficking involving ...
The Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a bill eliminating straight-party voting. The measure was forwarded to Gov. Tom Wolf who on Friday vetoed the it. Unfortunately, the Legislature ignored what would have been a better way to deal with the question of whether to remove the Keystone State ...
It’s easy to understand why opponents of Sunday hunting in Pennsylvania are wary regarding the apparent “compromise” legislation that passed the state Senate on June 26, sending it to the House of Representatives for consideration. The obvious basis for concern is that Sunday hunting, if ...
The Altoona Area and Johnstown public libraries, as well as others in Blair and Cambria counties and beyond, apparently will be impacted in a positive way by the 2019-20 state budget passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf. For the first time in a decade, libraries in ...
John Adams, America’s first vice president, who eventually would become this nation’s second president, did not believe today’s date — July 4 — should be celebrated as Independence Day. On July 3, 1776, he wrote to his wife, Abigail, that “the second day of July, 1776, will be the ...
This region finally is getting a break from the persistent wet and windy — some people would say “nasty” — weather conditions that dominated much of the spring. Fortunately, it’s just in time for the celebration of Independence Day. That doesn’t necessarily mean that all of this ...
Pennsylvania’s 2019-20 budget-preparation exercise will be remembered for the general silence that surrounded it. Even during most of the final days leading up to Monday’s start of the new fiscal year, budget negotiations remained unusually quiet and subdued, although more-detailed ...
Despite movement in Harrisburg in recent days regarding Pennsylvania’s anemic access to high-speed internet, commonwealth residents need to accept the reality that major progress on behalf of expanded service won’t be achieved quickly. The deficiency is too mammoth. Too many people ...
Corrective action cannot come soon enough for the 39th Street residents in Eldorado who are plagued by sewage and stormwater runoff. The situation should have been resolved a long time ago. Had those problems been resolved, new development — construction of new homes — might have ...
Police officers crossing municipal boundaries to assist officers of a neighboring or nearby jurisdiction who are in need of help due to some emergency is nothing new. That has been happening as long as people can remember. Assistance doesn’t generally entail routine police patrols unless ...
There is plenty of bad news and there are plenty of truly bad people for those of us in journalism to tell you about. Occasionally, really good people surface, however. You ought to know about them, too. You may never have heard of Rodney Smith Jr., of Huntsville, Alabama. Lots of other ...
If Iran is indeed behind recent attacks on several tanker ships carrying petroleum products, action by the world community — not just the United States — may be necessary. But as of last Thursday, only circumstantial evidence of Iranian complicity had been provided. It was on that day ...
New holidays and special observances are a dime a dozen. Sometimes, it seems we have too many. But one gaining popularity is well worth noting — and celebration by each and every American. It is Juneteenth, to be observed today — June 19. It is a celebration of the end of slavery in the ...
Downtown Altoona never again will be the bustling business and retail hub of Blair County that it was prior to the exodus to suburban malls and shopping centers, beginning in the 1960s. As redevelopment projects shifted into high gear during the decade of the ’60s, many memorable but ...
Members of the Altoona Area High School class of 2019 received their diplomas on Monday, beginning their transition toward higher education, jobs, military service and the next chapter of their lives. Moving on from high school always evokes mixed emotions, not only regarding challenges that ...
National Flag Day, tucked between Memorial Day and Independence Day, isn’t likely to attract the notice and spawn the patriotic fervor usually accorded to those other observances. That’s unfortunate. Although today’s observance is not a federal holiday, Flag Day still is important. ...
Someone finally noticed something was wrong at the Mount Carmel Health System hospital near Columbus, Ohio — but only after 25 people had died, allegedly because a doctor ordered they be given excessively large doses of a painkiller drug. Last Wednesday, Dr. William Husel was charged with ...
Sadly, many families in parts of the United States are facing years of recovery as the result of another catastrophic weather-related event. This time it is flooding. Flooding is no stranger to central Pennsylvania. However, flooding here generally is of a much smaller scale and shorter ...