Editorials category, Page 56
Editorial: Funding emergency equipment is vital responsibility
The siren of an ambulance, a fire truck or police car can herald a pricey proposition. For most people, that would seem to be about the hospital bill or the insurance deductible or that speeding ticket. But first responders know just how much it costs to keep the specialized equipment...
Editorial: Keystone State built on bridges
So what happened to the Fern Hollow Bridge? While most people might not necessarily know the name of the bridge that transported traffic through Frick Park, it gained national attention when it broke apart Friday and plummeted into the ravine below. The timing of the collapse, just hours before a...
Editorial: Nursing shortage can use rescue plan funds
A shortage of nursing care is the kind of problem everyone can notice and everyone agrees needs to be addressed. It’s not, however, the kind of thing where the answer is readily apparent. See a fire, grab a hose. The solution is literally as simple as water. But the nursing...
Editorial: Logical failings with Act 77 challenge, court ruling
On Friday, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court narrowly decided that voting by mail without being sick or working isn’t how things should be done. It isn’t just not legal, the court decided. It’s unconstitutional. The five-judge panel that came to that decision split along party lines — three Republicans to two Democrats....
Editorial: Pittsburgh bridge collapse shows infrastructure failings
Pittsburgh is more than a city of steel. It is also the City of Bridges. It has more of them than Venice, Italy — a city that is most easily traveled by boat. Venice has 443 bridges. Pittsburgh had 446. Today it has 445. That last bridge, where Forbes Avenue...
Laurels & lances: Partners, verdicts and a voice
Laurel: To assembling assistance. Chris O’Donnell is the state humane officer for Armstrong County. That means she has more than enough on her plate trying to handle cases of abused or neglected animals. But some cases are bigger and more challenging than others — like the St. Patrick’s Day 2021...
Editorial: Rallying around missing monkeys and a curious canine
Monkeys on the loose during a pandemic? It was a little too perfect — too deliciously ironic. When the news broke about the Friday crash near Danville, it seemed like just the latest in the never-ending series of jokes about the new and different variety of apocalypses on the horizon....
Editorial: Just draw the redistricting maps already
Pennsylvania is less than four months away from the 2022 primary. The ballots will include one U.S. Senate seat. Right now, that is the only legislative position that isn’t in dispute about who it will represent because it represents every Pennsylvanian. But when it comes to the rest — the...
Editorial: Is gambling growth a good thing for Pennsylvania?
Pennsylvania has a lot of industries working inside its borders. Manufacturing, agriculture, recreation, health care, banking, education. The diverse landscape and workforce make for fertile ground to plant a business. One industry is showing the kind of year-over-year growth that would make internet billionaires green with envy. Despite the shutdowns...
Editorial: Food deserts demand change in thinking
New Kensington is not a desert. Not in the classic definition, at least. Nowhere in Southwestern Pennsylvania really is. In an area crisscrossed with rivers and streams, scarcity of water is seldom a problem. But food deserts are a different story. A food desert is an urban area where it...
Editorial: Truth is kids need to be safe from gun violence
Marquis Campbell should not be dead. Campbell, 15, of Pittsburgh was shot at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday in a school van where he sat, waiting to go home from Oliver Citywide Academy in Marshall-Shadeland. As a society, there is often an attempt to make sense of tragedies by blaming the victims....
Editorial: Judge Mariani’s murder verdict dismissal in Club Erotica case is all drama
There are things that happen in television courtrooms with regularity that don’t pop up the same way in real life. The Perry Mason moments when a lawyer gets a witness to admit she really committed the crime. Surprise evidence admitted at the last possible minute. Cases heading in front of...
Laurels & lances: Donations, driveways and change
Laurel: To a great birthday present. When legendary comedic actress Betty White died on New Year’s Eve, it was both a crushing end to 2021 and the way everyone should go out — living 99 years and having the whole world agree it wasn’t long enough. But in celebration of...
Editorial: Open seats are chance to step up
It seems like every day brings a new announcement of the latest person running for governor or the U.S. Senate seat representing Pennsylvania. The ever-enlarging pool of possibilities comes on the heels of two presidential elections with fields of candidates so large they didn’t all fit on the debate stages...
Editorial: Big cases defy change of venue
Robert Bowers still is moving slowly toward trial for the October 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill. On Monday, defense attorneys filed a motion in the case. In nearly 3,900 pages, they detailed the reasons that a federal judge should give the case a change...
Editorial: Pa. Senate shouldn’t be childish with open records
Malicious compliance is a passive-aggressive response to authority. Tell your kids to clean their room, and they shove everything under the bed. Tell your kid to get in the shower, and she does — but doesn’t turn on the water. Tell your kid he can have one bowl of ice...
Editorial: King’s dream is quest for unity
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Ask most people to name when those words were spoken, and they may say the Declaration of Independence. They are not wrong. Thomas Jefferson did pen them on that historic parchment that was sent to a king...
Editorial: Insurance payment for tests should have better coordination
In a pandemic, things can move quickly. You can see that in the rapidly rising and cresting waves of numbers as new variants of covid-19 cause an ebb and flow of spread. It was obvious in the relative lightning speed of development of testing for the virus and for vaccines....
Editorial: Supreme Court ruling could make hospital, nursing home jobs harder
Hospitals and other medical facilities have been struggling under the weight of competing crises during the coronavirus pandemic. On one hand, there is the need to help the patients. Pennsylvania’s numbers are on an upswing as the state, like the rest of the country, tries to handle the spread of...
Laurels & lances: Christmas, permit and reports
Laurel: To a second chance. Christmas didn’t come just once for Isaiah Olson this year. The Norvelt 6-year-old and his family lost their home on Jan. 5 to a house fire that claimed the life of his great-aunt, Alisa J. Richwine, 62. That’s a lot to disappear in a traumatic...
Editorial: If schools want parents to decide about masks, how do they enforce that?
Let the schools decide, people said. When the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the state Department of Education and Gov. Tom Wolf called for masks to protect from covid-19, there was protest from some parents and community members. This shouldn’t be a state decision. It shouldn’t be an edict from on...
Editorial: PennDOT should have shined a light on traffic signal
Red lights mean stop. Green lights mean go. Yellow lights mean be careful. Use caution. Slow down. Yield. It is probably the one part of learning to drive that no one really needed to learn. It’s a message that we have been taught forever. It’s a shorthand used for diets...
Editorial: Allegheny County Jail should follow the law
Twisting words to avoid following the law is a problem, especially when being done in a jail. In May 2020, almost 70% of Allegheny County voters agreed with a referendum on the ballot that called for radically restricting solitary confinement at the county jail. While often referred to as a...
Editorial: Schools reacting to covid staffing challenges
In March 2020, kids went home from school on Friday and didn’t come back for months. Some didn’t walk through the school doors in person until August 2021. Instead, they found new ways to work that weren’t at a desk next to 25 other students. They used Google Classroom or...
Editorial: Brainstorming winter storm plowing
There aren’t quite enough people to plow the roads this winter. That’s a problem that was identified last year. In November, PennDOT reported it still had hundreds of temporary positions, plus plenty of regular full-time jobs, that needed to be filled to get through the winter. On top of that,...
