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Consequences of late payments haunt borrowers

Many student loan borrowers are receiving unwelcome messages about their higher education indebtedness, and most of the blame, if not all of it, is attributable to them — their shoulders alone. Lack of attention or mere irresponsibility is coming back to haunt them, in a way that, for many, will take years to resolve, if not more than a decade. Information about these borrowers’ current predicament needs to filter down to the new “class” of borrowers — members of high schools’ Class of 2025 — who will be starting their studies at colleges and universities in the ...

Everyone must work together

The biggest immediate challenge that will confront the new “All Together Altoona Fund Development Committee” will be to construct an operational format that will allow it to remain focused, productive and forward-looking for at least a decade as it works toward objectives outlined in the city’s new comprehensive plan. New people come aboard, new issues and challenges evolve and addressing new needs becomes imperative, so even the best planning implemented at this time can be eroded by distractions along the way. That must not happen regarding the newly introduced venture, which ...

Ligonier Beach sadly flooded with red tape

There is no beach in Ligonier. That isn’t surprising. Westmoreland County is more than 100 miles from Lake Erie and hundreds more from the Atlantic Ocean. There is water in abundance from the variety of creeks and springs and more peppering Pennsylvania. There is no stretch of sandy shore perfect for bikinis and beach towels on a sunny day. Once there was. Well, there was something close. Ligonier Beach was built in 1925. It wasn’t the kind of faux tropical water park you might see in a touristy area today. It had no rapids, no man-made surfing wave pool and no river for ...

Train service expansion plan should continue

Voters of the six-county Southern Alleghenies region, as part of the national electorate who opted to return Donald Trump to the White House, were supportive of his promise to cut the size of the federal government. Trump has found many “candidates” for the proverbial chopping block — some right, some questionable, some that many Americans believe are blatantly incorrect. Courts already are busy with the task of making rulings, in response to legal challenges to certain administration actions. Yes, the new administration is engaged in an aggressive process that it seems is ...

SCOTUS must protect against exec overreach

As legal challenges to the actions of the Trump administration mount, President Trump declared in a social media post: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” The quote was not original — it has been attributed to the French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte. But the laws and the Constitution of the United States were crafted to prohibit Napoleon’s form of authoritarian leadership. A key principle is that we are a government of the people with three distinct branches, each meant to serve as a check and balance to the other two. Since its foundational ruling in ...

Fear of cost must not stall prison plan

It is an important development that possible sites for a new Blair County prison — three total — have been identified. However, what is even more important is that the three current elected county commissioners — Chairman Dave Kessling, Amy Webster and Laura Burke — have made a verbal commitment to move the new prison project forward, unlike predecessor boards who talked about the need for a new lockup but did nothing — or next to nothing — to advance such a project. Reasons for the predecessors’ inaction were obvious — fear over possible political ramifications ...