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Why preserving historical places, sites should matter to us all

Why do historical places matter to people? Why should old places matter to historians, or to the general public that historians serve? What can we learn from the continued existence of old places in our communities and around our nation? Why does it matter if we save these old places or if we don’t? There are many reasons old places matter, from memory, to civic identity, to history, to architecture, to beauty, to economics. While most of the reasons don’t fully capture all of the many meanings historical places have for people, there’s one main idea to be emphasized: old places ...

Student loan relief still best addressed by lawmakers — not White House

The Biden Administration, once again, is trying to use executive action to reduce student loan debt. And once again, the White House’s approach fails to address the root causes of this problem and ignores the historic avenues that allow such root causes or larger concerns to be aired and alleviated — while setting expensive precedents in an age of a $34 trillion national debt. As we observed in a January editorial, “any proposal to cancel or forgive student loan debt without addressing the underlying problem — that for decades college tuition has increased in cost at a rate ...

Data on uterine cancer raising concerns

Women across America have been delivered a wake-up call regarding uterine cancer, but it probably will take at least several years to ascertain how well they have paid attention. Hopefully, women of the Southern Alleghenies region will be among those eventually delivering the message that they have responded correctly. According to a report in the Feb. 13 Wall Street Journal, the disease will kill an estimated 13,250 women in the United States this year, on its way, the American Cancer Society says, to surpass ovarian cancer and become the deadliest gynecologic cancer. The cancer ...

Pa. consumers deserve right to repair

State Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre, recently broke the charging port in his cell phone. (We won’t ask him how.) But when the manufacturer told him the part could not be repaired, he had no option but to buy a new phone. The replacement was more than a thousand dollars. “Now, phones are a necessity, and especially so for residents in rural Pennsylvania,” Conklin said. “We cannot wait for manufacturers to take a long time to repair consumers’ devices at exponentially high costs.” Conklin spoke outside a House Commerce Committee informational meeting discussing Senate Bill ...

These two choices aren’t better than one

Many Americans are unenthused, to say the least, about a 2024 grudge match between two grumpy old men, President Biden and Donald Trump. But after months of No Labels teasing an alternative “unity ticket,” this week it pulled the plug after failing to find a candidate. The exercise says something about the country’s political system and this particular moment. No Labels isn’t wrong that many voters think the two big parties are serving up the equivalent of week-old leftovers. In the latest Harvard/Harris poll, 62% (and 71% of independents) say the nation “needs another ...

For mandated reporters, there is no gray area

Last weekend’s front-page Mirror article “No gray area for mandated reporters” should have been a must-read for everyone, since virtually everyone has indirect or direct contact with children. The article in question should have “opened a lot of eyes” regarding safeguards already in place to combat or address unseemly situations that could endanger or damage a child’s life and possibly have negative implications even after that child reaches adulthood. However, the article also exposed possible issues that, if addressed, could help in the battle against dangerous people ...