Editorials category, Page 75

Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. There are plenty of old sayings that urge us not to do something on principle that makes sense but has an obvious fly in the ointment....

The Amazon announcement Tuesday of a new nonsortable fulfillment center near Pittsburgh International Airport was well- received. It was like Allegheny County got an unexpected rose from a TV “Bachelor.” It’s a $30 million investment. It means 800 full- time jobs will be created with $15 per hour paychecks. It...

Laurel: To working hard to make beautiful music. Some people start saving early for Christmas but the Hempfield Area High School marching band is more focused on stockpiling money for New Year’s Day. The Spartans will ring in 2020 five hours earlier than the rest of Westmoreland County because they...

Have people always been this disgusting? In our cameras-everywhere internet age, we seem to be assailed with a lot of things no one wants to know. Not just the “how-is-the-sausage-made” kind of thing. No, this isn’t about incidental disgust — the unpleasantness that happens and we turn away because, hey,...

Festivals that over-promise, over-commit and under-deliver to the point of investigations and public outcry are becoming all too common. The Fyre Festival has become synonymous with fraud. The “luxury music festival” planned for 2017 in the Bahamas was canceled at the last minute amid broken promises. Sounds something like Tuesday’s...

A drug buy is the kind of thing that could happen anywhere. It doesn’t have to be a crack house. Money doesn’t just change hands in dark alleys and abandoned warehouses. There isn’t just one kind of neighborhood where people have drug problems. The July 23 shooting at Northland Center...

How do you punish a company that is bigger than a country? How do you control an industry that evolves at light speed? Can you? The Federal Trade Commission tried last week. Facebook was hit with a $5 billion fine on Wednesday. That’s a huge number. As individuals, it’s hard...

The death penalty is alive and well in the federal government. On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr resuscitated the punishment that has languished since 2014 when the Obama administration began a review. That review is complete and executions are being scheduled. The first five death row inmates who will...

Laurel: To free-flowing traffic. If you’ve been avoiding Freeport Road in East Deer for a year, you can stop taking detours to avoid delays. On Monday, the road was reopened to traffic with a new longer, wider bridge built to stand 100 years. The bridge is the last one in...

It’s fine for a government official to take a stand, as long as he remembers who is picking up the tab. Wyoming Valley West School District is in Luzerne County, and there’s little reason that it would usually attract national attention. According to measurements by Niche.com, the district’s report card...

When a police officer assumes his role, it isn’t like other jobs. He may put on a uniform. He may punch a clock. He may be “on duty” from this time until that time. And all of that might have a lot in common with other jobs. Cable installer. Postal...

Hey, let’s watch some TV. That should be simple enough. Pick up your remote, press a button, pick a channel. It’s not rocket science. Collapsing on the couch and zoning out to the television is the very definition of rest for many people. So why are entertainment companies making it...

Development always seems like a good idea. It’s expansion. It’s growth. And generally, yes, that can be great. Our leaders are responsible not just to maintain the status quo but to keep an eye on the future. That means we have to grow. We need younger residents to feed the...

The numbers show two perspectives of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police’s relationship with black people. But are they telling the same story? On Monday, the Black Political Empowerment Project pointed to the data from the latest class of police recruits as a “serious disappointment.” The numbers show just four black...

Moon shot. It was an against-all-odds idea. It was a plan that was as far-fetched as it was impossible. It was the kind of ridiculous idea that you threw out there as an example of ridiculous ideas. But in 1961, John F. Kennedy gave the impossible a deadline. He stood...

Laurel: To a hero’s dream come true. Seven military or first-responder brides received a fairy godmother moment in Greensburg when they participated in a Brides Across America event that put Cinderella-fantasy wedding gowns onto women who have served their country or their community — or are marrying someone who has....

“Our Independent Voice.” That’s how a Bucks County congressman’s official website describes him. It takes digging on Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s website to uncover his GOP affiliation. You can find that he’s a former FBI agent and an attorney, a CPA and an EMT. It shows he is on his second...

It is easy to have a plan. It’s a little harder to assemble it. It is a lot harder to make it function the way it should. Kennywood can speak to that. The idea of the Steel Curtain roller coaster has been a hit from the beginning. It’s been months...

President Trump can’t block his opponents from his Twitter account. That’s not because of last week’s federal appeals court ruling that upheld a lower court’s decision calling the presidential blocks unconstitutional. Trump has just shy of 62 million followers on the social media platform. He has used it to reach...

Charlie Brown is a cookie-cutter drug czar. The round-headed kid with earnest intentions and a fervent desire to just do the right thing would want to stop dangerous drugs from flooding the streets. He would want to save people from the downward spiral of addiction. He would do everything he...

If we care about educating our kids, let’s put the money into teaching them. Let’s not send millions of dollars to companies who can really just tell us whether our kids can take tests. According to Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, Pennsylvanians pay almost $18 million for testing high school seniors...

Gov. Tom Wolf thinks that scrapping straight-ticket voting will lead to confused voters and long lines at the polls. Do you know what else confuses voters? Do you know what else leads to long lines? When no one knows what’s going on. How we vote might be the most important...

Laurel: To a high-flying honor. Pittsburgh International Airport has been named the seventh-best airport in the country, according to Travel & Leisure magazine, a publication that obviously knows a little something about arrivals and departures. That’s a pretty nice ranking for an airport that isn’t a major hub. And hey,...

Let’s talk about gun control. No, not the government controlling the weapon you have a constitutional right to own. We need to talk about the obligation to control the weapon and yourself when it is in your possession. The recent shooting at the North Versailles Walmart illustrates the importance of...

Ross Perot wasn’t a guy who did things first. He was a guy who saw a way to do them a little bit better. Perot, who died Tuesday, wasn’t the first person to make money in Texas. He was one of the first to drill into technology instead of oil....