Editorials category, Page 16

Judges can’t pick and choose when it comes to death penalty cases. That’s the ruling of the Pennsylvania Superior Court. The case in question started with the Bellevue killing of Rachel Dowden in January 2022. Prosecutors say the crime was committed by her ex-boyfriend, Deangelo Zieglar, 28. The Allegheny County...

Children will make up elaborate stories to get out of trouble. The broken cookie jar is because of a monster. Or an imaginary friend. Or the dog. Yeah, that’s it. The dog did it. The child will tell that story with innocent eyes as big as the missing cookies. It’s...

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly opened his news conference at the Butler Farm Show grounds Monday with an explanation. Kelly, R-Butler, co-chairs a committee investigating the July 13 shooting in which former President Donald Trump was wounded, Buffalo Township volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore was killed and two others also were hit...

Back in 2016, it was the Russians who interfered with the U.S. presidential election, stealing emails and computer files from the Democrats and giving them to WikiLeaks to publish, seeking to embarrass the party and damage nominee Hillary Clinton. The culprit was the FSB, the Kremlin’s successor to the KGB,...

The U.S. Secret Service has a remarkable record when it comes to protection. It was born in 1865 — not because of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln but because of wildfire counterfeiting in the wake of the Civil War. The Secret Service is a child of the Treasury Department, transferred...

It was just an honest mistake. That was the Pittsburgh Office of Management and Budget Director Jake Pawlak’s interpretation of the misuse of city credit cards to pay a former employee as a contractor. A six-page summary of the three-month Office of Municipal Investigations probe was issued Wednesday, assuring everyone...

Laurel: To obvious opportunities. Irwin police Chief Dan Wensel wants his borough leaders to authorize the department to join the Westmoreland County SWAT team. The group assembles members from eight other departments: Allegheny Township, Greensburg, Lower Burrell, Murrysville, New Kensington, North Huntingdon, Vandergrift and Washington Township. There are 25 operators,...

Why isn’t the Arnold police chief at work? No one knows. Well, the people of Arnold don’t know. The people who have placed Chief Josh Stanga on administrative leave obviously do know. What they won’t do is divulge the reason, beyond Mayor Shannon Santucci stating that he is the target...

The first harbinger of autumn’s arrival is upon us, with public school students preparing to return to their classrooms for the 2024-25 school year. Over the next two weeks, classes will begin throughout the area — in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, in public and private, parochial and charter schools. That...

In Chicago, the last steps are being taken. With the Democratic National Convention in full swing and the Republican convention a month in the rear view mirror, we are in the last leg of what seems like the longest power struggle in history. And that leg is running right through...

About 2½ years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the latter has turned the tables with an incursion into the Russian region of Kursk — once the site of a pivotal WWII battle — that by some estimates has left it with control of more than 1,000 square kilometers. While both...

People are fascinated with finding things that have sunk in water. The wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic in the North Atlantic has been a draw since it sank in 1912, but especially since it was found in 1985. In 2023, billionaires died in an experimental craft trying to see it...

Beware of dog. It’s a simple sentiment and one that requires little explanation. See a sign with those words on a fence, and you know there’s a guard on the other side whose bark could be worse than his bite — if you’re lucky. Similarly, the letters “K-9” on a...

Laurel: To the celebration of the summer. The event of the season is upon us — the opening of the 70th Westmoreland Fair. Maybe you come to the fair to show off the produce from your garden. Maybe you have a child entering livestock in the 4-H and FFA events....

The United States is a representative government rather than a direct democracy. Usually. There are times when we take the issues directly to the people rather than placing them in front of elected officials. It is called a referendum. Instead of picking the people who will make the decisions, we...

The Department of Education accounts for 4% of federal spending. That’s less than Health and Human Services, Social Security Administration, the Treasury, Defense and Veterans Affairs. The 2024 federal education budget is about $79 billion. There are more than 54 million school-age children in the United States, according to the...

George Washington was not a third-party candidate. He was a no-party candidate. He was adamantly opposed to the idea of political parties, believing them to be detrimental to the intent of the constitution. John Tyler started his political career as a Democrat, but it was the Whigs who nominated him...

The answers about what happened July 13 are coming, but they are coming slowly. Four weeks after the shooting at the Trump rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds, there has already been testimony in front of a joint panel of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary committees. The...

Deepfakes are getting attention as we creep closer to the election. These are things that spread like a bad flu with increasing reliance on technology. Often, they are a political weapon. Thousands of people in New Hampshire received robocalls ahead of the primary, with a voice that sounded like President...

Laurel: To being a crime stopper. Bad things happen all the time, and people often wonder what would happen if someone was in the right place at the right time. Sharpsburg Mayor Kayla Portis can tell you because it happened Monday. Portis said a random passerby made all the difference...

In 1999, the opioid addiction epidemic began. That was around the time when school districts and police departments began to have meetings with parents and residents about the dangers. In the ensuing 25 years, the addiction problem has continued. Much like the trajectory of addicts’ journeys, the main players on...

Gov. Josh Shapiro will not be the vice president of the United States. At least, he won’t be on the ticket this year. The Democratic nominee and current VP Kamala Harris unveiled her running mate pick after two weeks of speculation. The honor went to Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota...

Westmoreland County commissioners want to track where county-owned vehicles are going. It makes sense. The county owns or leases 180 vehicles. Cars, trucks, SUVs, vans — all of them are intended to help county employees or elected officials provide the services residents need. The government is one of the largest...

A small bit of justice came to two very evil men when they met their ends in Beirut and Tehran last week. Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was blasted to oblivion by Israel in Beirut after Hezbollah fired an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket into the Golan Heights, killing a dozen Druze children...

A Rube Goldberg machine is the intersection of inspired engineering, cartoonish imagination and childlike faith. Familiar from Goldberg’s own illustrations in the 1930s and Saturday morning programming like “Tom and Jerry” and “Scooby-Doo,” they are contraptions that string together improbable parts to accomplish a seemingly simple task. A marble rolls...