An Associated Press article about the Feb. 3, 2023, Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, said the accident prompted a national reckoning with rail safety and calls for reform, although proposals for new industry rules stalled in Congress. Unfortunately, though, with each ...

The possibility exists that someone — or some persons — in Blair County or somewhere else in the region might be feeling much anxiety or outright fear today as a result of an announcement last week by this county’s coroner and the Pennsylvania State Police. For the benefit of anyone who ...

Julie Jargon’s Family & Tech column on the Personal Journal page of the June 9 Wall Street Journal focused on “sextortion” scams involving Apple Messages that ended in tragedy. She wrote that in 2024, more than 5,000 sextortion cases were reported by the public to the National Center ...

The expression “time flies” is familiar to most people. However, time cannot “fly” fast enough regarding Pennsylvania’s new handheld-cellphone ban for individuals operating motor vehicles on commonwealth roadways. Until the full teeth of the law replaces the wishy-washy provisions ...

There is a new “chapter” in the saga of alcohol-consumption health consequences. Actually, the chapter itself is not new, but there’s a new recognition that hasn’t been front-and-center in a widespread way up to now. Now that recognition is becoming more visible and, with that, more ...

Difficulty navigating streets and roads due to major infrastructure replacement projects is not a situation unique to what Altoona currently is experiencing. That is true even though the Mountain City is more compact than some other cities of comparable size in Pennsylvania and beyond the ...