Featured Commentary category, Page 43

A congressional subcommittee met July 26 to hear testimony from several military officers who allege the government is concealing evidence of UFOs. By holding a hearing on UFOs — now called “unidentified anomalous phenomena” by government agencies — the subcommittee sought to understand whether these UAPs pose a threat to...

President Joe Biden recently returned to his birth state to pitch his newly branded economic vision: Bidenomics. Though Biden seems eager to paint a rosy economic picture, the numbers show that Bidenomics is, at best, a mixed bag. Yes, the national unemployment rate is below 4%, where it has remained...

Here in Aliquippa and other communities like ours across Western Pennsylvania, we’re seeing how the hard work and determination of our ordinary citizens directly contributes to the strength and resolve of our commonwealth. Bouncing back in the aftermath of a global pandemic has not been easy, but our neighbors are...

Shortly after Yale professor and former Obama-era Justice Department official, Fiona Scott Morton, landed the role of the European Commission’s chief competition economist, the knives came out here in France. French President Emmanuel Macron led the charge himself. “If we have no (European) researcher of this level to be recruited...

Who takes their car to a mechanic, learns what repairs are needed and walks out without getting the actual work done? Who goes to a doctor, gets a diagnosis and leaves without pain relievers, a prescription or a referral to physical therapy? No one, right? But isn’t this really what’s...

It was in the early ’60s. I was a copy boy at NBC News, and the overnight disc jockey for the local radio station called and asked if I’d like to go on a boat ride down the Potomac River with his guest, Tony Bennett. For several hours we cruised...

Florida has justly earned its recent reputation as the most dysfunctional, surreal and outlandish state in the nation. The so-called Sunshine State continues to promote high-profile lunacy. Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the new, updated framework for how Black history will be taught in K-12 schools, including guidelines that...

Few Americans have studied the plight of formerly industrialized cities more closely than Alan Mallach. Throughout his career, the noted community development expert has delved into the challenges facing many small and medium-sized communities that have had to deal with concentrated deindustrialization, disinvestment, and population contraction. He has distilled much...

Over the last decade, the drive to legalize marijuana has been the subject of a significant public relations campaign. Throughout the country, the push to erase any stigma associated with marijuana has essentially become part of contemporary pop culture. In a vast effort to influence perceptions, musicians, actors, media personalities...

The escalating opioid crisis, especially in the Appalachian region, is a stark reminder of the harsh realities of addiction. A recently published study by the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute Foundation for Opioid Research and Education illuminates the alarming rise of opioid- related deaths in the Appalachian region, disproportionately higher than the rest...

In a very complicated place like the state Capitol, for once, things are simple. There is no budget impasse. And there was no “Great Betrayal.” The hyperbolic rhetoric from the Senate over the past few weeks would make you think otherwise and requires that the record be set straight. As...

On June 29, the Supreme Court delivered a 6-3 ruling that essentially prevents colleges from using affirmative action and race-based quotas in the college admissions acceptance process. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “The race-based admissions systems … fail to comply with the twin commands of the Equal Protection Clause...

When a conservative Supreme Court majority effectively ended the use of affirmative action in college admissions, it disregarded more than 40 years of precedent — and the realities of systemic racial discrimination. Meanwhile, the court left affirmative action for the wealthy in place. While colleges no longer can consider race...

President Joe Biden put forward a “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” that provides five guiding principles for the development and implementation of artificial intelligence. They outline aspirational goals that also align with principles in the Democratic Party platform. Technology leaders also have expressed concern about the untethered growth...

This week, Country Music Television pulled Jason Aldean’s highly controversial music video for “Try That in a Small Town” after its release last week sparked controversy. Aldean, one of the biggest country music stars, has been criticized widely for the song and video, which features intense hostility and threats of...

Most of us still call them UFOs — unidentified flying objects. NASA recently adopted the term “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP. Either way, every few years popular claims resurface that these things are not of our world, or that the U.S. government has some stored away. I’m a sociologist who...

The future of Ukraine in the NATO alliance will prove critical to the balance of power in the Pacific and U.S. economic leadership around the world. Tensions within NATO on the embattled nation’s status were on full display at the Vilnius Summit last week. On the agenda was Ukrainian membership,...

Children who watched a 1-minute-long gun safety video were more cautious when they found a real handgun hidden in a drawer in our lab compared to children who watched a car safety video, according to our randomized clinical trial published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. We observed this difference even...

Ryan Walters, a far right-wing education official who currently serves as Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, recently caused a political firestorm when he insisted the Tulsa race massacre can be taught in public schools without amounting to “critical race theory” — so long as it’s taught without discussing race. Walters,...

In education policy, there are two main groups of stakeholders: parents and special interests. Parents want the best opportunities for their children, while special interests benefit from maintaining the status quo. The first group is much more numerous. The latter, unfortunately, has far greater political power — with dozens of...

A political powerhouse now rivaling Philadelphia as the bedrock of Democratic electoral strength in Pennsylvania, Allegheny County has been consistently trending more progressive. This past May’s primaries in Pennsylvania’s second-largest county added another layer of icing on a cake that’s been baking for nearly a decade: In Allegheny County, progressives...

The June that just ended was the Earth’s hottest — ever. And the first week of July saw the trend continue. The surging summer temperatures made me wonder: Just how much heat can the human body stand? Deaths from heat are pretty common and, as the world heats up, may...

The summer of 1993 was an eventful time: Prince changed his name to a symbol, “Jurassic Park” was released and Congress passed the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act requiring the inclusion of women in clinical research. Most people aren’t aware of this law, which requires that women be included...

Earlier this month, a group of conservative judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit spoke out against allowing homeless people to sleep in public spaces, after the court’s liberal majority decided that those with nowhere else to rest cannot be subject to criminal penalties. It’s the...

My grandma calls him the “seed man.” He used to come by our farm outside of Fond du Lac, Wis., every year, trying to persuade us to buy the latest variety of corn and wheat seeds. If the “seed man” didn’t have something we liked, then there were the options...