Editorial: Why phasing out French is a lesson in local control
Public education is at the intersection of individual growth and collective responsibility. Schools exist to help students become their best selves while also preparing them to contribute to the economic and social life of their communities. That balance is not always comfortable. Serving one goal can feel like sacrificing the...
Paul Kengor: Surviving the cold — and Trump
We’ve had a brutal week of weather. For me, it hit last Friday. My wife and kids made the annual trip to the March for Life in Washington by bus. The whole event has a penitential feel, especially with the weather, which this year was downright frightening. When they arrived...
Jonah Goldberg: White House denying facts about Alex Pretti’s death
The killing of Alex Pretti was unjust and unjustified. While protesting — aka “observing” or “interfering with” — deportation operations, the VA hospital ICU nurse came to the aid of two protesters, one of whom had been slammed to the ground by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent. With...
Letter to the editor: Defund ICE until it follows the law
This week, the country faces another shutdown due to congressional inaction. This has become the norm no matter the party in charge. This potential shutdown vote has one issue that is potentially more important than the shutdown itself, and that is continuation of funding for a group that is not...
Eugene DePasquale: Pa.’s energy future depends on balance, not absolutes
Pennsylvania is helping power America’s energy transition. As the nation’s third-largest electricity-producing state and the second-largest natural gas-producing state, we generate more electricity than we consume and export surplus power across the region. Today, natural gas generation fuels nearly 60% of our electricity — more than double its share a...
Editorial: Fetterman, McCormick and why ICE matters in Pennsylvania
U.S. Sen. David McCormick is among Republicans calling for a full accounting in the Minneapolis death of Alex Pretti, 37, a Veterans Administration intensive care nurse who was shot during an encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. “We need all the facts,” he said. McCormick is joined — to...
Letter to the editor: Dems prioritizing others over Americans
Not often do the predictable results of the Democrats’ border policies become so obvious locally (“New Kensington-Arnold considers adding in-house ESL service, phasing out French,” Jan. 26, TribLive). The rising number of English as a second language students has required difficult decisions be made at the local level. In this...
Letter to the editor: ICE reminiscent of Gestapo, 1930s Germany
Let’s call ICE what they truly are: President Trump’s private army of thugs. They are the Gestapo of today, violent and dangerous. To paraphrase: “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” It’s like we are now in the Germany of the 1930s. We have a president in...
Letter to the editor: We need ICE thanks to Biden-Harris
In response to the letter “ICE are the domestic terrorists” (Jan. 20, TribLive): There would be no need for ICE if the Biden-Harris administration hadn’t let, by some counts, 12 million-plus illegal immigrants, many of whom were criminals, enter our country illegally. Do your homework! Rene A. Marquis Jeannette...
Letter to the editor: After exploiting Native Americans, we turn away others?
Let’s get this straight: Europeans came to this land and killed as many Native American men, women and children as possible. We proclaimed their land our land. We forced their few remaining children into boarding schools where we physically and sexually abused them and sometimes outright killed them. When we...
Letter to the editor: Common sense and paper ballots
In the summer, the Westmoreland County commissioners were presented with a petition asking for paper ballots in a paperless era. Five thousand signatures is all it took for Sean Kertes and Doug Chew to approve $40,000 for these ballots. Of those ballots, 3,996 were used; that’s 1,004 less than the...
Letter to the editor: Clean energy good for people and planet
I believe the majority of the Pennsylvania population would agree with Erika Strassburger’s op-ed “Clean energy provides jobs, consumer savings” (Jan. 20, TribLive). I’m glad Pittsburgh City Council sees the importance of clean energy, and I hope the state government can also set aside its cozy promises to oil and...
Letter to the editor: Trump and our military
I just finished a book “The Boys in the Light,” a true World War II story about a tank division that landed at Normandy and, after traversing northern France and Germany, rescued two Holocaust survivors months prior to the end of the war. Against orders, the division kept the refugees,...
Letter to the editor: Will Republicans stand up for the Republic?
It is now plain to me that ICE agents pushed an ER nurse to the ground, sprayed him, relieved him of his (legally carried) firearm, then panicked and shot him to death. They then left, failing to secure the crime scene, which professional law officers would have done. Before the...
Athan Koutsiouroumbas: Pa.’s SNAP numbers are falling. The debate is just beginning.
Did it actually work? It is what we hope most policymakers ask themselves after a piece of legislation is passed. In the case of work requirements for food assistance, the question has lingered for nearly a decade: revived, rebranded and reheated across administrations. But in Pennsylvania, we finally have enough...
Rep. Lindsay Powell: Pennsylvania must act to protect safe access to health care
“I can tell you which protesters will arrive at which times on Saturday, and where they’ll set up to intimidate patients,” a security guard at Allegheny Reproductive Health Center told me, gesturing toward the clinic’s front window. “Procedure days are by far the most intense — physically and emotionally.” I...
Sheldon H. Jacobson: Getting air travel back on track is easier than it once was
The recent winter storm impacted over 245 million people spanning 2,000 miles as it crossed the country. Cities in the Midwest and the Northeast were blanketed with a foot or more of snow. Areas in the south were not spared, with Atlanta hit with ice and below-freezing temperatures and Dallas...
Editorial: By the time it’s an emergency, it’s already too late
By the time the snow begins to fall, the most important decisions already have been made. When it’s time to clear the driveway, it’s too late to buy a shovel. You can see that after a massive winter storm swept across 17 states, closing schools, snarling roads and forcing public...
Richard Fellinger: Reaction to McCarthy’s hire shows ageism exists
Suddenly, I’m rooting for new Steelers coach Mike McCarthy, and I mean really rooting for him. I would have rooted for him anyway as a Steelers fan old enough to rattle off names like Terry Hanratty and Frenchy Fuqua. But I’m really rooting for him now because I want to...
Dan Grzybek and Jordan Botta: It’s past time to reform Allegheny County’s LERTA program
Allegheny County’s Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) program was created with a worthy goal: to encourage investment in deteriorating properties by temporarily reducing the tax burden on new construction and major improvements. In theory, the LERTA program helps spur development where it wouldn’t otherwise occur, revitalizing communities that have...
Letter to the editor: What about the local criminals?
The Trump administration is saying they are keeping the U.S. safe from illegal immigrant rapists, murderers and drug dealers. What are state and local authorities doing about the homegrown American rapists, murderers and drug dealers? Remember Luigi Mangioni, Tyler Robinson and Matthew Crooks? The suspected homegrown local drug dealer who...
Letter to the editor: Address looming power problems now
PJM, the grid operator that serves 67 million people across 13 states, including all of Pennsylvania, is facing an unprecedented electricity demand surge due to AI data centers opening. Starting as early as summer 2026, the grid may have only enough power to remain reliable, and by June 2027, the...
Letter to the editor: Students don’t need Republican propaganda
Rep. Brian Rasel’s proposed Unraveling Socialism Act purports to address a crisis in higher education that simply does not exist. Requiring every student at a public college or university to take a mandatory class about the “threats” of communism and socialism is not education, it’s public theater. Justification by Rasel,...
Letter to the editor: Trump’s hypocrisy on Maduro, Hernandez
Did you know that on Dec. 1, President Trump issued a full pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez? Hernandez was convicted by a federal jury of conspiring to import cocaine and firearms into the United States, trafficking more than 400 tons of U.S.-bound cocaine. Was it the pardon...
Letter to the editor: Trump is a policy genius
For years I have closely monitored our political parties’ policy preferences, the most important factor in candidate selection. Today, major party preferences are more dissimilar than ever. President Trump is a policy genius, whose views closely align with our Founding Fathers and the governing documents they produced. His passion is...
