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Baby Agnes mystery needs to be solved

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 might have missed the announcement, Coroner Ray Benton and the state police revealed that the unidentified partial remains of a child found deceased on Feb. 5, 1987, in a wooded area between Pinecroft and Bellwood had been exhumed on June 10 with the purpose of attempting to obtain DNA ...

Trust between parents, kids most important

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 for Missing and Exploited Children and to Thorn, a child-safety nonprofit. But it was the individual tragedies that she recounted and the photos of the victims that accompanied the article that proved the horrific nature of what occurred. The article and photos also provided the realization that ...

Cellphone law could be tougher

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 currently in place, innocent drivers or vehicle passengers could die or be maimed — just because only a warning will be issued now, rather than a monetary penalty from violators’ wallets or pocketbooks. The possibility of a fine, rather than a warning, could deter some drivers from risking use ...

Rise in alcohol use by women concerning

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 troubling. Women and their spouses — or significant others — need to pay attention and, perhaps, have some heart-to-heart discussions about what’s at stake and what needs to be done to avert a tragic outcome. No right-thinking person should consider the issue one to be pooh-poohed. Those who ...

Road work headaches affect us all

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 Keystone State’s borders — some of those cities engaged in their own efforts at ridding themselves of deteriorated remnants of the past. Like what is happening here, it is not uncommon to hear stories about motorists and non-motorists elsewhere who are frustrated and angry about what is going ...

Students now being courted with job offers

Parents and communities as a whole often lament the exodus of young people who move away to pursue opportunities that they don’t envision being close to home. Leaving home for college studies or to enter military service are pursuits that don’t usually spawn a mountain of dread. After all, no matter where the higher-education studies might be, they are seen as a path hopefully to a prosperous life. Meanwhile, those who choose to serve this country in one of the military services become a source of pride “back home” and for this nation as a whole. But what about those who ...