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Memorial Day offers time for reflection

The weather-related tragedies many families have experienced this year, not only in this region but in neighboring states and those farther away as well, will no doubt distract some from celebrating this year’s important Memorial Day holiday in their traditional ways. By “traditional ways,” we’re referring to attendance at patriotic parades, attendance at other holiday-themed ceremonies and visits to cemeteries. However, many families victimized by Mother Nature’s ravages will use Monday’s holiday and attendance at holiday-related events as a respite from the tedious, ...

It’s Trump’s move on future of U.S. Steel sale

Nippon Steel is putting more money on the table. But will it matter? The nearly $15 billion elephant in the room is the Japanese company’s offer to acquire Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel. It’s a deal that has been dragging on since December 2023. It slow-walked through the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States process in 2024. Both then-President Joe Biden and now-President Donald Trump expressed their opposition, along with legislators and other politicians of both parties. It looked as though it was dead in January when Biden quashed it but then punted a final ...

Hollidaysburg Area School District fiscal woes must be tackled

Taxpayers of the Hollidaysburg Area School District should take some time to contemplate the full scope of the district’s costly needs before they succumb to the knee-jerk reaction of heaping criticism on the current school board and administration. That’s because the district’s current financial concerns have been accumulating for years, because prior boards and officials were content to “kick the proverbial can down the road” rather than addressing the district’s growing needs when they could have been resolved for much lower cost. It is easy to say “we were fiscally ...

Conscience check past due for FAA

Until the midair collision that claimed 67 lives on Jan. 29 near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, followed soon thereafter by a number of other incidents involving planes, some of those incidents also resulting in fatalities, members of the flying public generally had exuded great confidence regarding their safety while using that mode of travel. Now, however, many of those same travelers do not feel quite as secure, due to what has been happening during recent weeks on the air travel front. It is clear that the level of confidence that had existed in the past will not be ...

Food should never be a political issue

This is an editorial that there should be no reason to write. Regardless, the editorial should not have to question why federal lawmakers who purport to fight for their district’s best interests are harboring so much silence — perhaps fear — about the issue that will be discussed here. The issue is food, and every lawmaker should be committed to food availability, regardless of political party and under whose presidential administration a good program was launched. Unfortunately, politics appears to have infiltrated a good, worthy food program covering 27 Central Pennsylvania ...

Measles being ‘eliminated’ at tipping point

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines “tipping point” as the critical point in a situation, process or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place. A tipping point was reached quickly in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast-forward to today, when the question is whether a tipping point is about to be reached — or perhaps already has been reached — regarding measles, an acute contagious disease caused by a morbillivirus and marked especially by an eruption of distinct red circular spots. Using the 1950s as an example, ...