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Deepfake tech creates a trail of victims

Last weekend in this space we focused on the issue of “lunch shaming” — that the practice has no place in our schools. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the topic, “lunch shaming,” which was the focus of an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal’s June 2 edition, was described in that article as “an insidious bullying tactic ‘creeping into school cafeterias across the country.’” It involves making and sharing unflattering photographs of other students eating. Julie Jargon, the Journal columnist who wrote the column, wrote that “kids are snapping and ...

Officers’ flawless work lauded

Anyone who ever has harbored the foolhardy notion of trying to smuggle an illegal substance or item into the Blair County Prison was dealt an “eye-opener” by way of the June 5 Mirror article “Warden commends work to halt smuggling.” The lesson was that, to be successful, it will take a plan much more sophisticated than the one hatched to “funnel” illegal items to an inmate who was at the Station Medical Center on Ninth Avenue in Altoona for an appointment — and that an even-more-sophisticated plan is likely to be doomed to failure, with additional criminal charges being ...

Lunch shaming has no place in our schools

June is the month when Pennsylvania public school districts finalize work on their budgets for the new fiscal year that begins July 1. It’s a busy time consisting of trying to grasp the best possible final estimates of incoming and outgoing revenue for the new fiscal calendar, settling on tax rates for the upcoming 12 months and identifying and implementing internal funds moves to ensure that, at least on paper, the budget has the semblance of balance. It’s also a time for reflecting on the fiscal/school year ending and the one that will be getting underway. Amid that exercise, ...

E-bike crackdown welcome

The June 12 Mirror front-page headline “E-bikes, vandalism spurring concerns in Duncansville” was an appropriate Page 1 introduction to the article to which it referred. However, the appropriate headline for an opinion page editorial related to that article requires more bluntness: “E-bikes, vandalism demanding persistent action in Duncansville” — and, actually, in every other community experiencing the same problems. If the proverbial blind eye is employed in relation to the problems in question, in Blair or anywhere else, the problems have the likelihood of worsening. ...

Insurance holders should read fine print

Thousands of insurance policies are bought each day in America, and the people who have purchased those policies usually feel some semblance of peace of mind, believing they will be protected if they are victimized by an event such as an accident, fire or weather disaster, including a hurricane or flood. After completing the purchase, most of the new policyholders most likely tuck away the policy in a safe place, determined that they’ll read it “when they have the opportunity to sit down with it” — an opportunity window that, for many, never becomes available amid the hustle ...

GOOD Act should be on Trump’s desk

The Las Vegas Review-Journal The Trump administration has made strides in chopping away at the corpulent federal administrative state. Nevertheless, the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates government regulations still pile $2 trillion in annual costs on American consumers, or nearly $16,000 per household. “Businesses and citizens spend too much time and money trying to comply with rules and edicts imposed by Washington,” Wayne Crews, the institute’s Fred L. Smith Jr. fellow in regulatory studies, noted last month, “and those costs mean higher prices, lost jobs and ...