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Support for rape crisis centers can create change

Rape crisis centers in Pennsylvania will see state funding double under the budget signed last month. These agencies provide services to victims of sexual assault. Pittsburgh Action Against Rape was one of the first in the state and one of the first in the country. It has been a refuge and a helping hand for victims for more than 50 years. It is one of 47 rape crisis centers in Pennsylvania. In 2025, the state budgeted $12 million for them. That can sound like a lot of money until you cut it into 47 pieces and expect it to stretch like a too-small blanket to cover women, men and ...

Readiness program calms kids’ anxiety

This is an editorial focusing primarily on the Altoona Area School District. However, the message within it should be of interest to every district in the six-county Southern Alleghenies region, as well as beyond. The message is one too late to be implemented for the 2026-27 school year, but it’s not too late — or early — to be contemplated for the 2027-28 school year, or beyond. For many young children, this is a month for anxiety about the new experience that only is weeks or days away — the experience of starting kindergarten or first grade. However, many Altoona School ...

NS merger must be watched

The fate of the proposed merger under which Norfolk Southern Railroad would be acquired by Union Pacific Railroad, creating America’s first transcontinental rail freight carrier, is beginning to undergo scrutiny by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board under what is being touted as a tough new standard. Therefore, the review, now just beginning, will not only decide whether the proposed merger would be in customers’ best interests; it also will deliver a verdict on the correctness and effectiveness of the new standard itself. For communities like Altoona that have a stake in ...

Human verification essential

Municipalities in this part of Pennsylvania generally feel insulated from the problems affecting big cities. For the most part that is true, especially regarding crime and the challenges — financial and otherwise — associated with providing needed municipal services. Even the issues of cities such as Altoona and Johnstown are of minor scope compared with those being dealt with by New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta, for example. Municipalities large or small and those of any size in between have one thing in common, though, the need for an adequate amount of revenue to ...

Transparency ensures public gets answers

The words “irreconcilable differences” didn’t — and don’t — delve into the specifics about why the Blair County commissioners cut ties with the architectural firm working on the new-county-prison project. Commissioner Amy Webster, who offered that vague explanation following a commissioners meeting on July 23, said “there were several things that we couldn’t get answers to,” but those additional words also failed to shed light on specifics about which county taxpayers have a right to have clear information, even if not every detail. However, Webster did say the ...

Region must remain great destination

One of the definitions in Webster’s Dictionary for the word “destination,” besides the definition “a place to which one is journeying,” is “a place worthy of travel or an extended visit.” That last definition is apropos, for a number of reasons, for this region — especially when one ponders several recent events. Think back to earlier this month when the world’s largest operating steam engine — Big Boy — arrived in Altoona, “posed” at Norfolk Southern Railroad’s Rose Yard for two days, then traveled to the Horseshoe Curve, where it “posed” again for ...