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Heighten awareness of colorectal cancer

Editorials

Each March, Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month calls on our nation to confront a disease that is both common and devastating, yet in so many cases, entirely preventable. When found early, colorectal cancer is one of the most treatable and beatable cancers, with a five-year survival rate of 91%. That’s why screening and early detection are critical. A recent report from the American Cancer Society underscores the urgency: colorectal cancer is increasingly affecting younger adults, and rectal cancer rates are rising. These shifts mean screening, awareness, and timely follow-up care ...

Early intervention needed to stop teen suicides

Editorials

There are some injuries where you have to wait to respond. You can’t put a cast on a leg before it breaks. You can’t give chemotherapy before someone has cancer. Taking out an appendix proactively is not only useless, but it’s also wrong. Then there are the ones that require intervention before the problem occurs. Suicide — especially among teenagers — can’t wait for the break to happen first. The problem is the “break” doesn’t look like a crisis at all. It looks like normal teenage behavior — until it doesn’t. That can leave shattered families trying to ...

Saying goodbye to a hometown favorite

Local Columns

For the second time in my life, I have to look for a new restaurant. After I turned 44 in 1994, I decided I wanted to find a restaurant that I could go to on a regular basis. It took a while, but I finally landed at Miller's Restaurant outside of Mill Creek. It ...

The Origins of the Humble Easter Basket

Local Columns

Easter is quickly approaching, and I find myself once again in preparation mode. All eight Easter baskets, one for each of my grandchildren, are lined up neatly across the dining room table, like a row of cheerful little bunnies and chicks waiting to be filled. These are the very same baskets they received on their first Easter, a small but meaningful way to create continuity, memory, and tradition. While the contents may change from year to year, the baskets remain the same, white bunnies for the girls and yellow chicks for the boys. As I set them in place, I began to wonder: Why do ...

AI regulations from social media mistakes

Editorials

Twenty years ago, no one really knew where social media was going to go. Facebook had just dropped “The” from its name. It was not yet ubiquitous. It was only beginning to move beyond college campuses and into broader public use. By 2006, it opened the doors wide. There were just two requirements: have an email address and be at least 13. It was a revolution without a war. We can remember a time when we weren’t in years-long WhatsApp group chats or documenting every sandwich on Instagram. But the inch-by-inch way social media’s before and after bled together can obscure how ...

State should consider I-99 extension

Editorials

People unfamiliar with Blair County’s mid-20th century highways probably cannot grasp the picture fully of how major roadway projects over the subsequent decades were the springboard for great economic progress. Interstate 99 has been the biggest economic generator up to now for the county as a whole and it isn’t done yet, as this editorial will discuss. However, numerous other improvements, including bigger ones such as the modern, four-lane, limited-access Route 22, Altoona’s 10th Avenue Expressway and 17th Street corridor, plus the improvements to Plank Road, Logan Boulevard ...