The sentencing of former Johnstown pediatrician Johnnie “Jack” Barto on Monday in Cambria County Court exploded quickly beyond the parameters of local news. Just hours after the sentencing, a former suburban Johnstown resident currently living in Colorado emailed a relative about ...
“Working group” too often is a political term that translates in the long run to talking much about a problem — but doing little. Let us hope a meeting hosted by first lady Melania Trump this week breaks the mold. Trump called a meeting Monday at the White House of the Interagency ...
Sheetz stores have been good to Altoona and the hundreds of other locales where they exist as a vibrant member of the business community. The stores are well-respected by everyday customers as well as customers who are able to shop at them only infrequently. Altoona is, of course, the ...
Many Altoona residents probably wouldn’t be opposed to the city rescinding some of its rules governing plumbing and electrical work, and about who is authorized to perform that work. There are residents who consider certain existing rules problematic; they believe that the mandates infringe ...
Pennsylvania lawmakers have many more important issues demanding their attention than considering whether Daylight Savings Time, which went into effect last weekend, should in the future be eliminated in the commonwealth. As long as the whole nation, or a region of the country like the Middle ...
The biggest problem with PennDOT’s proposed project to eliminate congestion in the area of Altoona’s Seventh Street Bridge is that construction isn’t slated until 2022. But based on a front-page article in the March 2 Mirror, the improvement will be worth the wait. Traffic flow, once the ...
There are reasonable arguments on both sides of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget proposal to increase, to $45,000, the minimum salary for the state’s public school teachers. However, what also must be at the forefront of discussions, going forward, are the potential ramifications for ...
The cover of the May 10, 1999, issue of Newsweek magazine asked the question, “How well do you know your kid?” The reason for that question was the nation’s shock over the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., which had occurred nearly three weeks earlier. This editorial ...
Pope Francis said all the right things during the recent extraordinary conference to discuss sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests and coverups by their superiors. But what he did not say has some observers, both inside the church and out of it, upset. Francis summoned 190 Catholic bishops ...
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s renewed proposal for an increase in the state minimum wage, which seemed dead on arrival at the time of his 2019-20 budget address on Feb. 6, might actually still be breathing, as a result of limited “life support” being provided by legislative ...
Cultural resources are a major component of a vibrant community, and Altoona is vibrant for many reasons. In terms of cultural amenities, Altoona is blessed by having the Mishler Theatre as a dynamic centerpiece amid the business, industrial and professional assets that, together, make the ...
There has been no news yet about the progress of an expanded-passenger-rail-service study — involving only the potential for additional trips between Pittsburgh and Altoona — for which the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation hired a consultant approximately five months ago. In ...
Officials of 18 Pennsylvania counties who accepted gifts, trips or meals from companies competing to sell or lease new voting machines ahead of the 2020 elections apparently didn’t break any state law. Nevertheless, state residents — from the counties in question or from any of the ...
Many Americans, including many people living here, remember hearing reports about the serious health problems suffered later by many first responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York. However, probably only a few area people, by comparison, ever ...
The Altoona Area School Board’s recent vote in favor of purchasing a bank building at Sixth Avenue and 12th Street probably surprised a lot of people. While the board, in prior months, has discussed a possible location for its administrative offices that was not included in the section of ...
The proposal to end Roaring Spring’s 99-year-long alcohol, manufacture and sales prohibition is being met with mixed reactions. That is no surprise. But there’s an established path within state law for deciding such a change, and borough residents, now that the issue has surfaced, might ...
If the Legislature really has lost faith in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, as one prominent state lawmaker has suggested, commonwealth residents need to ask why the General Assembly hasn’t been more proactive over the past decade to try to fix things that legislators ...
Pennsylvania’s state parks again are the subject of welcome attention, just as they were in the summer of 2017, when a long-overdue, first-in-25 years public review of the basic mission of the parks system was launched. But while the examination that was begun about a year and a half ago ...
During his statewide listening tour currently getting underway, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is destined to hear plenty of support — unfortunately — for legalizing recreational use of marijuana, if a September 2017 Franklin and Marshall University poll remains an accurate barometer ...
(Editor’s note: The following editorial was written by former Mirror Staff Writer Amanda Gabeletto in 2013. We liked it so much, we decided to run it again this year.) Love covers a lot of ground. There is the love between a parent and a child. There’s love for one’s partner, sibling, ...