Editorials category, Page 66
Editorial: The legal lessons of the Cosby debacle
Bill Cosby is at home now, free from SCI Phoenix for the first time in more than two years after a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision Wednesday overturned his sexual assault conviction. The move did not come because of new evidence or something that fell apart in the case that sent...
Laurels & lances: Opening early, taking too long
Laurel: To exceeding expectations. Remember last week when we gave a lance to the crash on the Tarentum Bridge? The one that happened right there in the middle of the construction project that was already complicating everyone’s commuting? It was going to delay reopening of the bridge amid the $3.24...
Editorial: Remove the mystery around Westmoreland elections bureau
The position of Westmoreland County Elections Bureau Director is up for grabs again. Officially now. It’s been almost three weeks since JoAnn Sebastiani was suspended with pay on June 8. Since then, the county commissioners have done little but confirm her absence while remaining tight-lipped on the reasoning. Until Tuesday,...
Editorial: Some drug laws catch wrong targets
The world of illegal substances can create webs of other social or legal problems — child or domestic abuse, theft, assault, death. Those problems then have to be handled by the government, which can mean new laws being written or old ones being tweaked. Yet government involvement almost always means...
Editorial: The Steelers and Saint Vincent belong together
The coronavirus pandemic isn’t done with the economic gut punches yet. As more and more people have been vaccinated, the covid-19 precautions have been slowly rolled back. On Monday, Pennsylvania’s mask mandate was lifted. That means the state isn’t requiring the unvaccinated to wear masks in public places anymore. Individual...
Editorial: Exotic pets call for logical local regulation
Pennsylvania has rules about animals. There’s a whole Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement. Many others fall under the Department of Agriculture’s umbrella. State law can be brought to bear in cases of neglect or cruelty. Local ordinances can come into play, too. They regulate how people are required to handle...
Editorial: Another sweet, but legal, perk for state legislators
A per diem is an amount of money that an employer will give someone to cover expenses for a business-related trip. Unless you have a very specific job where travel is required, it’s not usually the kind of thing that becomes a big part of your paycheck. But then there...
Editorial: Trust (but verify) local police with speed radar
You’re cruising down the interstate. Maybe you’re going a little bit faster than you should be. Maybe not. But if you catch a glimpse of a state trooper’s cruiser, you probably ease up on the gas, just in case. It might be that you know the Pennsylvania state police use...
Laurels & lances: Attitude, delay and entertainment
Laurel: To a positive outlook. When Sara Belt of Unity was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at 53, it could have been a crushing blow for her and her family. Instead, she chose to be appreciative of the answers the diagnosis gave for her symptoms. Three years later — when estimates...
Editorial: Don’t fall for a phony ‘forensic audit’ of 2020 election
How long does the 2020 presidential election need to haunt Pennsylvania politics? Almost seven months after the polls closed in November, the state is still being harangued by questions of whether or not to count the ballots yet again. Former President Trump — who lost Pennsylvania and then the White...
Editorial: The dual good causes of local fire departments
Volunteer fire companies play two valuable roles in most Pennsylvania communities. First, they are an irreplaceable service. They do more than douse flames, as if that wouldn’t be enough. They rush into emergencies that aren’t burning buildings. They respond to car crashes and natural disasters. They save us from acts...
Editorial: Holding university funding hostage won’t solve this impasse
We depend on our leaders to fix problems when they are presented. Whether it is a state of emergency in the face of a hurricane or recognizing a new kind of fraud and declaring it a crime, the people we elect to run our government need to find ways to...
Editorial: Westmoreland Transit making right moves to bring back passengers
The federal CARES Act funding passed in 2020 was meant to do more than just provide stimulus checks to families and loan money to keep businesses writing paychecks. It also was about keeping necessary services from closing down. The Westmoreland County Transit Authority will be making use of that to...
Editorial: Cocktails-to-go and other no-big-deal moves from the state
Pennsylvania has long been home of some of the most restrictive alcohol laws in the country. The Keystone State has made it harder to get a drink than just about any state but Utah. While other states had effortless mechanisms to pick up their beer and wine, Pennsylvanians had to...
Editorial: How to celebrate Juneteenth
On June 19, 1865, 2,000 Union troops marched into Galveston Bay, Texas. They carried a message for the 250,000 enslaved people of the Confederate state — and the people who owned them. Slavery was over. This was the last corner of America to hear the news. It came three years...
Laurels & Lances: Bikes, bridges and slides
Laurel: To pedaling forward. There may be no more quintessential expression of the freedom of summer vacation than a kid on a bike. It’s exercise. It’s fun. It’s the ability to be and grow and do on their own. But for some kids, a bike is out of reach. On...
Editorial: No excuse for silence about change at county elections office
The person in charge of Westmoreland County’s elections bureau is out of the office. Kind of. Maybe? It’s hard to tell because no one is talking about what’s going on. The county commissioners met Tuesday as the election board, doing pro forma tasks such as certifying the final numbers for...
Editorial: Lower impact fees mean real pain for local governments
Natural gas drilling does not translate to money in the bank for local governments. In 2020, while prices on items such as hand sanitizer and commodities including lumber went through the roof, other numbers dropped through the floor. One of those was natural gas, which hit a low of $1.66...
Editorial: Vaccine success depends on keeping track of second-dosers
In boxing, a simple balled-up fist, delivered quick and hard, is the basic blow. But the sport depends on a strategic combination of attacks. The most basic is the one-two punch. It starts with a jab — a quick, straight punch delivered hard and fast like a bullet. That is...
Editorial: All told, the school year was something amazing
Now that school is over for most kids, it’s finally time to take a good look at the way things went over the past nine months and give out some grades. Not to the students. Their final scores for math and reading and science and history are in. Their tests...
Editorial: For women in Pa. politics, a steady rise
Women are not the minority. In the United States, they edge out men by 0.5%, but, if you look at the population of adult women, the numbers creep up to 58%, the U.S. Census Bureau tells us. In Pennsylvania, ladies make up 51% of the state’s residents. That means that...
Editorial: Legislators, show us the receipts for your expenses
The first real political scandal in the newborn United States — and an excellent second act number in a Broadway musical — is the Reynolds Affair. In 1791, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton had a relationship with a married woman, whose husband subsequently blackmailed the politician. When the tawdry...
Laurels & Lances: Celebrated centenarians, slippery silence, real recycling
Laurel: To longevity with brio. Newspapers usually wait for an occurrence of threes to cite a trend, but two will do in this case. This week, we observed the 100th birthdays of two dynamic men: Ufemio “Fem” Biagioni of Leechburg and Frank Pugliano Sr. of Washington Township. Both are Italian...
Editorial: College students, step up and get the vaccine
The team project has been the bane of many an educational institution. There are the ones who have done the reading, come up with a plan and broken it all out into a series of tasks. There are the ones who will do what they are told. And there are...
Editorial: Community health centers are essential healers
The first hospital in Pittsburgh opened its doors in 1847, when the Sisters of Mercy built on their mission of aiding the sick. It has been 174 years, and, today, healing the sick and maintaining the healthy has become a billion-dollar industry in the region. On June 2, UPMC released...
