Editorial: An airport needs a plan, not a wish
Once upon a time, there was a small, regional airport in Westmoreland County. It had steady passenger traffic, popular leisure routes and a loyal base of travelers who appreciated skipping the long drive and long lines elsewhere. For years, that story held. Flights came and went. Suitcases rolled through the...
Laurels & lances: Animals & ambulances
Laurel: To new ways of thinking. For many community leaders, animal control is treated as just that — controlling the animals. Pick them up when they become a problem, hand them off to someone else to deal with however they choose, and move on. Delmont is joining a growing number...
Editorial: Economic development can’t be built on ifs and maybes
In August 2020, Hempfield supervisors approved plans for a 250,000-square-foot home improvement store along Route 30 near Westmoreland Mall. Nearly five years later, the project has yet to move beyond the proposal stage. Why? It’s not as if Wisconsin-based Menards is unfamiliar with building. Supplying construction materials is its business....
Editorial: Mike Tomlin’s exit and Pittsburgh’s future
Calls for Mike Tomlin to step down are not new. They tend to surface the same way every time — after an ugly loss, after a season that ends not with hope but with disappointment. Monday night’s 30-6 wild-card loss to the Houston Texans followed that familiar script. It was...
Editorial: Why Macy’s can’t save a failing mall
A pyramid can be the strongest shape humans know how to build. Load-bearing. Enduring. It also can be a scheme — something that looks solid from the top down but collapses when the base proves hollow. At one time, the shopping mall was a pyramid in the best sense of...
Editorial: Recording law enforcement officers is not a crime
An official with the Department of Homeland Security recently suggested that following or recording federal law enforcement officers “sure sounds like obstruction of justice.” The statement was given to Reason magazine in response to a direct question, was confirmed in writing and followed by a warning that DHS will prosecute...
Editorial: Stability matters for Pittsburgh police leadership
Pittsburgh needs stability at the top of its police bureau. The question is how to get it. For much of the past several years, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has operated under a cloud of uncertainty concerning its chiefs. Scott Schubert retired after a three-decade career with the department. A...
Editorial: What does Pennsylvania’s 2026 governor’s race tell us?
If you want a measure of where 2026 will take Pennsylvania politically, this week has been a great yardstick. Gov. Josh Shapiro formally launched his reelection bid with events on opposite ends of the state, beginning in the Pittsburgh region and closing in Philadelphia. At the same time, Republicans learned...
Laurels & lances: Showing up & holding out
Laurel: To a good trend. Scott Township is expanding its police department with a new hire. This one will not be a police officer. It will be a social worker. The department looks to add the employee by summer. The goal is a full-time position to augment response to cases...
Editorial: The cost and value of regional EMS
It takes time to move from an idea to implementation. It also takes discipline to recognize when the time for that shift has arrived. Two years ago, the conversation about the future of emergency medical services in the Alle-Kiski Valley was still largely theoretical. Communities were talking about sustainability, staffing...
Editorial: Health insurance costs drive benefit cut in Westmoreland County
The rising cost of health insurance — and how to pay for it — is a question many families are debating around kitchen tables, strained checkbooks close at hand. Westmoreland County leaders are confronting that same reality. The county salary board, composed of the three commissioners and Controller Jeffrey Balzer,...
Editorial: Pittsburgh turns the page — with work still to do
On Monday, Pittsburgh started a new story. Corey O’Connor was sworn in as the city’s 62nd mayor. As with so many such moments, it came with optimism about what comes next. It also has to come with realism. There is much that must be examined with clear eyes and honest...
Editorial: Why is Secret Service dropping the ball on protecting president?
President Donald Trump’s Secret Service detail has one job: protect the president. Yet even after a 2024 assassination attempt in which then-candidate Trump was shot in the ear while campaigning in Butler, there are appalling lapses in security. In September, the president went to dinner with Secretary of State Marco...
Editorial: AI is changing the job hunt
Artificial intelligence is everywhere. The technology is being used to refine medicine, science, business and industry. At the same time, concerns about how fast AI is evolving — and what that means for jobs, the environment and daily life — are growing. In Springdale and other communities, those concerns are...
Editorial: Penn State trustees still aren’t talking enough in public
Penn State’s Board of Trustees deserves credit for spending more time in public discussion this year than it has in the recent past. After years in which outcomes often were treated as foregone conclusions, more conversation is a welcome change. But more is not the same as enough. The measure...
Laurels & lances: Safety & honor
Laurel: To being prepared. Two Philadelphia lawmakers introduced legislation in October to require school districts to stock naloxone — a medication that reverses an opioid overdose and can save lives. A TribLive story revealed that many Southwestern Pennsylvania districts didn’t need a law passed. They already have naloxone on hand...
Editorial: Preparing for the politics of 2026
There is something clarifying about opening a fresh calendar. The pages are clean, the boxes empty, the year ahead undefined. It invites planning even as experience reminds us that no year ever unfolds exactly as written. This will be another year when Pennsylvania finds itself under a political spotlight. Presidential...
Editorial: What most-read letters say about 2025
A newspaper can sometimes feel like a fire hose, delivering a steady stream of information to the reader. This person was arrested. This tax is being levied. That politician did something controversial — depending on your point of view. But the opinion page is different. It’s not a speech. It’s...
Editorial: A year defined by accountability
When it comes to editorials, our focus is always on our people — what hurts, what helps, what can be fixed. Sometimes that means being hyperlocal, examining issues that may start on a single street or in a single community but carry meaning across the region. Other times it means...
Editorial: Broadband decisions must outlast politics
Congress made a bipartisan promise a year ago: Every home and business in America would have access to high-speed internet. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act put
$42.5 billion into the Broadband Equity, Access and
Deployment program on a simple premise: In a world where work, education and health care...
Laurels & lances: Charity & clarity
Laurel: To a spirit of giving. Western Pennsylvania communities deserve credit for stepping up — again — at a time when generosity is harder to give. This year’s Toys for Tots campaign was more important than ever as families through the region struggle with high prices and stretched paychecks. Hundreds...
Editorial: Are you naughty or nice?
Everyone knows about The List. Santa makes it. He checks it. He checks it again. Are you naughty? Nice? We don’t know. Santa does. The List is why we have elves sitting on shelves. It’s why kids brush their teeth more and pay closer attention to their homework after Halloween....
Editorial: Taking political pay raises off autopilot
Wouldn’t it be great if your income automatically increased based on the cost of living? Higher food, gas or electricity prices would sting less. Rent increases might still hurt, but not nearly as much if paychecks rose alongside them. That is the reality for some in Pennsylvania. State lawmakers and...
Editorial: Lower housing prices, not loan standards
Philosopher George Santayana once famously observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Unfortunately, our nation’s collective memory doesn’t seem to even extend back two decades. Last month, Fannie Mae dropped the requirement that borrowers have a minimum credit score of 620. Freddie Mac had made...
Editorial: VA staffing cuts test a promise to vets
Our veterans are not just people who performed military service. Veterans are the front line of promises that should be kept and what happens when promises are broken. They are our neighbors and family. They are teachers and police officers, doctors and elected officials. They are the aging, the sick,...
