Lori Falce stories, Page 3

The conspiracy theories come faster these days. There was a time that it took months or years for a good skeptical narrative to develop around major events. The apocrypha surrounding the Freemasons, for example, have been 400 years in the making. Flat Earth theories in the modern era can date...

Malphine Fogel had former President Donald Trump’s full attention, and then everything exploded into chaos. The 95-year-old Butler woman met Saturday with Trump, the GOP presidential candidate, to discuss her son’s imprisonment in Russia. It was the most recent appeal to a powerful political figure to intercede on Marc Fogel’s...

America is a relatively young country. At just 248 years since announcing our debut as an independent nation with the Declaration of Independence, we are relative children on the world stage. Let’s look at the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — a good starting point for...

We have often been told about the perils of leading horses to water. You might be able to push, pull, ride or haul your steed where you want it to go. You cannot ensure it will do what you want when you get there. Life has no guarantees, no matter...

I went to a Catholic school. We prayed in class at the start of the day, before each class, before lunch, after lunch and at the end of the day. And that was just your random Monday. On a holy day of obligation or the first Friday of each month,...

Once upon a time, in a country that seems all but forgotten, people identified important issues and did what needed to be done to accomplish change. It is amazing how much political history resembles fairy tales. This week, I spent quite a bit of time doing research on refugees, immigrants,...

Americans held in a foreign country during a presidential election year. It’s a scenario that sounds familiar for a reason. In 1979, after the revolution overthrowing Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, hundreds of armed college students took the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. It was a shocking event, with 66 Americans...

Talent is not necessarily hereditary. It’s also not something you can buy. Nothing proves that more than the tale of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s daughter North West and her major theatrical debut. Over the weekend, the 30th anniversary of Disney’s “The Lion King” was celebrated with a star-studded event...

The City of Uvalde, Texas settled a lawsuit with the families of 17 children killed and two who were wounded in the 2022 massacre of Robb Elementary School. The city is paying out $2 million. That may sound like a large number. In some cases, it might be. In this,...

After nearly two years in a Russian prison, Oakmont teacher Marc Fogel said Thursday he is able to live with excruciating joint pain but pleaded for U.S. officials to bring him home, the hope of a miracle never far from his thoughts. “I see doctors here. They’ve given me medicines....

Harrison Butker, the Kansas City Chiefs player who kicked the longest field goal in Super Bowl history, has become a pariah for many after a graduation speech at Benedictine College. A devout and very conservative Catholic, Butker gave a speech not about taking the lessons from the Atchison, Kan., school...

The words we use can make a difference in the way we think. For instance, I have received more than one email talking about “demonrats” instead of Democrats. “Republicans” can be mutated into “Rethuglicans.” The message in the mangling of the words is clear. It’s one of distaste and distrust,...

There is a question that is dividing the internet, and it has nothing to do with anyone running for office. It’s a gut feeling kind of question. The idea is this: Ask a woman if she would rather be in the woods confronted by a bear or a man. At...

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case that needed to be heard. The issue was presidential immunity. Donald Trump wanted the court to weigh in on whether a president can be held criminally responsible for his actions. The former president obviously has a vested interest as he faces...

A criminal trial is built out of more than just evidence, testimony and justice. Predominantly, it is constructed of people: the prosecution, the defense, the accused, the judge, the witnesses. All are moving parts in the machine of court. But the most critical group of people in the process are...

Some recipes are synonymous with a particular place. Chicago is hot dogs and deep dish pizza. Can you even think about cheesecake and bagels without New York coming to mind? Philadelphia is more than just cheesesteak — think soft pretzels, scrapple and water ice. And then there’s Pittsburgh. Our food...

Medicine advances at a remarkable rate, with each new advance building on the discoveries that came before it. Today’s immunology and microsurgery and miracle drugs wouldn’t be possible without the anatomical, imaging and pharmaceutical innovations of the last century. There are entire branches of medicine that didn’t exist just a...

Famine is supposed to be like earthquakes and tidal waves — an unstoppable force that happens through no one’s fault. No one conjures a drought from thin air. No one causes a blight on crops. Other than that one time in the Bible, a plague of locusts was not a...

The easiest way to rally people to your cause can be to focus on the way it affects children. Hunger in a foreign country? Show starving children. War in a foreign country? Show the youngest victims. Everyone does it. Health care? How does it impact children? Education? Easy one. Show...

A solar eclipse doesn’t happen every day. For any given area, the “total” variety — the ones where the moon scoots between the Earth and the sun at just the right distance and the right time to leave a bright halo around it — is a once-in-a-few-centuries kind of event....

I love shopping. Not just picking out the perfect shoes or a great dress. I like grocery shopping. I like vacation shopping. With PowerBall and Mega Millions both in spitting distance of a billion dollars, I’m doing quite a bit of fantasy real estate shopping right now. I don’t care...

If you go on TikTok today, you are going to see a lot of the same things that pop up every day. The “For You” page is a tab on the app where the things that interest you are funneled. The app’s algorithm notices that you engage with cooking demos...

A holiday meal is supposed to be special. That isn’t just about the people. It’s also about the food. On holidays, we have things we don’t eat every day. Seriously — how often do you make a whole roast turkey? There are rituals and traditions to the foods that grace...

There’s a lot of debate about what kids should learn in school. What needs to be prioritized? Should reading, writing and math still be the tent poles, or is science and technology where the focus should be? Do we need the arts? What about life skills like balancing a checkbook...

Mitch McConnell is in his last term as GOP leader in the U.S. Senate. The Kentucky legislator made the announcement Wednesday. “One of life’s most under-appreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell said. The implication, obviously, is that he does recognize...