Editorials category, Page 57

Guess what? Not everything is about the election. It’s true. There are still things happening in the world that have nothing to do with who won the presidency — or attorney general or auditor or treasurer or one of the legislative seats. And maybe one of the best things about...

When big things happen in the world, the job of hometown papers is often to find a way to connect it to the local community. The 2020 election turned that on its head. The battle for the presidency may have been a national story, but that was in large part...

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is the kind of Republican that needs to be heard right now. Toomey has been a reliably conservative Republican his entire political life. He has advocated for the Constitution and hewn close to the party’s bones when it comes to foreign policy, small government and fiscal...

Laurel: To doing your duty. Some people plan to vote but don’t get around to it because they get busy or they don’t feel well or the weather isn’t nice. But some people really put in the effort. Megan Walker of Tarentum is one of those committed voters who doesn’t...

Late night humor is often political, frequently gleeful and generally a fluid blend of accurate and exaggerated. That’s comedy. Stephen Colbert may be the reigning king of the savage political snark, but Tuesday, he took a Twitter stab at the Keystone State that might have seemed like humor but could...

Big companies can be like Russian nesting dolls with layers upon layers of organization and ownership. The bigger the parent company, often the more companies are contained within other companies. Pennsylvania electric consumers could deal with a new middleman company in 2022. That’s when Keystone Appalachian Transmission Co. takes over...

There is a lot of attention paid to endorsements in elections — that rubber stamp from one organization or VIP given to this candidate or that ticket. But if the 2020 election shows us anything, it is the critical importance of another E word. Empowerment. The most important thing about...

Paychecks can often be a sticking point when it comes to government work. It isn’t that government employees necessarily toil in poverty. It’s that there can be a big difference between what the same work merits in public service versus private. The presidency, for example, comes with a $400,000 annual...

Pennsylvania is ready for the election on Tuesday. That’s what the state government says. “Pennsylvania is prepared. We are protected for this election and voters can cast their ballots with confidence. We are going to have a fair election where everyone can vote without interference,” Gov. Tom Wolf said Thursday....

It’s that spooky time of year when things that chill the soul wait around every corner. Vampires. Zombies. Blood and gore and skeletons. But the scariest frights are the ones you didn’t expect. On Friday, what jumped out of the dark at 81 faculty members of Indiana University of Pennsylvania...

Laurel: To an appropriate response. Fox Chapel Borough is right to move deliberately with the proposal to change the names of streets and trails that contain the word “Squaw.” The council president wants to collect the opinions of the people living on the roads of Squaw Run and Squaw Run...

According to Book of Ecclesiastes — and made popular by The Byrds by way of Pete Seeger — there is a time and a season for everything. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to build...

The law is built on concepts like precedent and fair play and coloring inside the lines. It follows a script and a timeline. Justice is blind because it is meant to operate only within the confines of the cage of the laws the way they are written. Thus the courts...

When writing and researching articles, reporters rely on two elements. There are the anecdotal incidents that occur. What a crime victim saw, what a politician said, the feelings of the crowd at a protest. Then there are the facts. It takes both of those things together to make up the...

The way the news comes in waves that crest and crash can mean that something huge and all-encompassing one minute can seem to become smaller and less important the further away it gets. But that isn’t true. An event that is important because of the pain it causes and the...

Gov. Tom Wolf tried to give a gift to Pennsylvania bars and restaurants that serve alcohol last week. In a Thursday announcement held at LeMont Restaurant on Mt. Washington, the governor proposed giving the businesses — many of which have faced struggles because of the social distancing and restrictions during...

Laurel: To expanding reach. KDKA Radio has been one of the voices of Pittsburgh longer than most people can remember — even if they were alive back when the Harding/Cox presidential election returns were broadcast in 1920. But after 100 years on the AM dial, KDKA is finally making the...

Every court case that comes to a plea deal is a game of poker. Who has the better hand? Who has the better bluff? Who has the most to lose or everything to win? In the case of Purdue Pharma and the part its massively successful pain medication OxyContin played...

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Sept. 17 ruling on mail-in ballots. The state high court ruled that ballots cast by mail could be counted if they were received as late as 5 p.m. Nov. 6, three days after the...

There is a difference between security and secrecy. Security is making sure that dangerous things are protected. Secrecy is making sure things — dangerous or otherwise — are hidden. Those might seem related, but they aren’t the same. A $5.1 billion pipeline that transmits millions of gallons of natural gas...

This is your last chance. If you want to vote in the November general election, Monday is the last day to register. Pennsylvania is not one of the handful of states that allow you to just decide that you want to participate in your government with five minutes to spare...

Once again, fall is here and Pennsylvania has no plan for how the money will be spent and where it will come from for the next seven months or so. It’s like a rerun of a show you didn’t even like the first time around. It’s a tragic sitcom where...

Laurel: To honoring service. James Wilson of Herminie was a U.S. Marine and a World War II veteran, but he was more than that, too. He fought another battle as one of the first Black men to serve in the Marine Corps. In 2011, President Obama signed the legislation that...

The other day, we said that the various hurdles this year’s voting has been experiencing aren’t reasons to give up but challenges to overcome leading toward the 2020 elections. We stand by that — even though additional problems have cropped up since then. We already knew Westmoreland County was having...

Is anything ever too far gone to be redeemed? A freshwater shellfish says no. The Kiski River was so polluted for so long with the runoff from mining and the discharge from industry, it seemed too far gone to ever be home to life again. In 1909, A.E. Ortmann, curator...