Editorial: War is never as far away as it seems
When we watch war unfold on television, there is fear and uncertainty. But there also can be the detachment of distance. It is not a comfort, but it can be insulating to know what is happening is so far away. That is not true for everyone. Even neighbors in Western...
Editorial: Hatred finds a microphone
Three things collided in Pittsburgh this week: hatred, technology and infrastructure. The result was antisemitic threats against Mayor Corey O’Connor broadcast over a public safety radio channel used by police and emergency responders. O’Connor comes from a diverse background. His late father was Catholic, his late mother Jewish. He has...
Laurels & lances: Raptors & rodents
Laurel: To flying high. The Tarentum Bridge carries about 36,000 vehicles a day across the Allegheny River. Soon it will also carry the weight of a $97.5 million rehabilitation project. But before construction begins in 2027, planners are making sure another set of residents is considered: the peregrine falcons nesting...
Editorial: How did Pittsburgh Regional Transit calculate CEO’s bonus?
On Friday, the board of Pittsburgh Regional Transit unanimously approved a $55,000 bonus for CEO Katharine Kelleman. The issue is not that the transportation authority came off a financially difficult year. It is not that $55,000 is a lot of money when the organization had to use $100 million in...
Editorial: The boundary around medical privacy
On Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon denied a Department of Justice request to force UPMC to turn over records for minor patients who received gender-affirming care. In doing so, she did not mince words about the federal government’s approach. “Left to its devices, the DOJ would trample states’...
Editorial: Safety tools need safety rules
In the event of an emergency, it is important to have the best information possible. You can hear that in the recordings of 911 calls when dispatchers calmly try to get the whos and whats and hows from people dealing with medical events, accidents or crimes. It still leaves holes...
Editorial: Spirit Airlines may recover. Will local airports?
Spirit Airlines has been experiencing turbulence. In November 2024, the budget carrier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten months later, the company filed again. This week, Spirit’s parent company — Spirit Aviation Holdings — announced it expects to exit bankruptcy within months, having come to a preliminary agreement with lenders...
Editorial: Courthouse turnover shouldn’t delay critical cases
A capital case in Allegheny County may be delayed because another prosecutor assigned to it is leaving the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Berosh said during a status conference Monday that she was leaving the prosecutor’s office. She was not the first. Her departure makes her...
Editorial: Alcoa’s sales for data centers signal new industrial revolution
It can be hard to understand in a world of soda cans and smartphones that there was a time when aluminum was rarer than diamonds. That changed in Southwestern Pennsylvania. It wasn’t that aluminum was scarce in the earth. It was that turning it into usable metal was nearly impossible....
Laurels & lances: Competition & consequences
Laurel: To bringing home the gold. Having Western Pennsylvania represented in the Olympics is nothing new. There is a long history of athletes from across the region taking up the mantle of Team USA — or showing up for other nations. Pittsburgh Penguins stars such as Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby...
Editorial: The private price of public property
Real estate development would be much easier if everyone could get land for free — or close to it. Of course there are the expenses of design, site work and construction. There may be hurdles for permits and approvals. But the cost of land is often the biggest obstacle. As...
Editorial: Supreme Court tariff ruling spotlights local government limbo
Tariffs have created economic confusion over the past year. Some don’t really understand what they are or how they impact prices in the U.S. Some support them as an American trade policy even if they do have an impact at home. For many — including government agencies — they have...
Editorial: New Pa. law is about the write stuff
Education has been criticized in recent years —
decades, really — for not teaching children how to think so much as teaching them how to take tests. Specifically, students have learned exactly what they need to perform well on standardized exams. Those tests measure how well a school is doing...
Editorial: On Barack Obama and the aliens
We got a kick out of an old chestnut among conspiracy theorists — whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe and whether any of those aliens have visited Earth — that rose to the surface this week thanks to the musings of none other than former President Barack Obama....
Editorial: Let’s see the receipts on data centers
Pennsylvania lawmakers are embroiled in the annual dance in balancing our collective checkbook — the state budget. At the same time, the Keystone State is offering a tax exemption to data center developers that the Department of Revenue acknowledges it cannot fully track. It’s an odd thing to justify. Qualifying...
Editorial: Why does transparency have to be so partisan?
The City of Pittsburgh Republican Committee has called for an itemized ledger tracking how $12 million in private donations will be spent. Coming from a political party, it’s easy to read that as partisan. It very well might be. That doesn’t mean that should be the assumption — or the...
Laurels & lances: Consequences & community
Laurel: To correcting mistakes. Greensburg’s police pension commission this week approved the forfeiture of pension benefits paid to a retired officer, Regina McAtee, convicted in federal court of drug conspiracy charges. That includes repayment of $75,400 already received. The process was deliberate, with a public hearing and submitted briefs. A...
Editorial: When local control means working together
Regionalization is becoming a reality in Pennsylvania. You can see it with police departments. In the Alle-Kiski Valley, departments that were questioning their future are now serving broad swaths of territory. Freeport once struggled to provide round-the-clock coverage with a small roster of officers. Today, as part of the Southern...
Editorial: Reading between the lines of the First Amendment
There are two ways to read information. One is to look only at the black-and-white letters. You take in the text exactly as written and process it on that basis alone. If you were on the Supreme Court, this would make you an originalist — someone who does not bring...
Editorial: RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism is entering a new phase
The stability of the U.S. vaccine market rests on an obscure $4 billion fund known as the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., long a critic of the fund, now appears intent on dismantling it. Vaccine production can be a fickle business....
Editorial: A closed door doesn’t mean disappearing help
A closed door is often read as an ending. It marks the moment a business shuts down or an opportunity slips away. But sometimes a closed door is not the end. Casa San José has closed its front door. At the same time, it is buying a building. The nonprofit...
Editorial: Savannah Guthrie, Cassandra Gross and the hard truth about missing-person cases
Watching Savannah Guthrie sit on a couch and look into a camera is nothing new. It is how many Americans start their day — with a cup of coffee and the “Today” show. But for two days this week, the usually upbeat host has not been interviewing others about their...
Laurels & lances: Podiums & plumbing
Laurel: To going for the gold. Winter or summer, whenever the Olympics roll around, Americans tend to get into the flag-waving support of Team USA. This year, Westmoreland County has particular reason to cheer. Jasmine Jones, a Hempfield graduate and former Eastern Michigan sprinter, is competing as a brakeman for...
Editorial: Adding up the state’s structural deficit versus rainy day fund math
Debt and savings are different columns in the same ledger. Any business can tell you that. So can anyone working on their taxes right now. Like blood circulating in the body, the amount of money in and out of any operation is always in flux. Pennsylvania’s numbers show just how...
Editorial: Pennsylvania is more than a political stand-in
Pennsylvania is often described as a microcosm of the nation, its blue population centers offset by wide stretches of red and its elections swinging from cycle to cycle. But that political shorthand can obscure something important: what looks tidy on a map becomes far more complicated when policy reaches real...
