Americans elect their leaders on the premise that those individuals will be capable of making the right decisions on difficult, as well as easy, issues. An issue on which members of Congress might have to render a decision, possibly in the early weeks of the new legislative session, is the ...

“Fast away the old year passes” is a line out of the old Christmas carol “Deck the Hall with Boughs of Holly.” A year from now, some people are likely to be singing that line about the year 2025 that is now newly upon us. What is important, though, is what will happen between now ...

Our television screens have been showing heart-wrenching images of abused dogs and cats, and with those images have come pleas for financial help to try to save those and other animals, many of them on the verge of death. Images such as those are not just from “somewhere else.” The ...

Pope Francis’ appeal for peace in the world last Christmas fell on deaf ears. The world is no closer to peace now — Christmas 2024 — than it was then, and perhaps even farther away, judging from the scope, deaths and destruction of the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and the long-running ...

At this purportedly joyous time of the year — although for many people it is not — there is reluctance to focus on topics perceived to be troubling, especially health topics that have a potentially negative implication. However, the Wall Street Journal, on Dec. 13, reported on a health ...

Altoona-Blair County Airport Manager Tracy Plessinger delivered a message to the airport authority on Dec. 11 full of optimism and evidence of how airport leadership has poised the air facility for the future. But perhaps unbeknownst to him at the time, he also made the best of the ...