Faisal Kutty: We celebrate civil rights heroes only after they stop making us uncomfortable
Every February, Black History Month invites Americans to honor the giants of the civil rights movement. We commemorate them in speeches and street names, reassuring ourselves that their struggles belong safely to the past. But history tells a less comforting story. We tend to celebrate Black moral courage only after...
Athan Koutsiouroumbas: Raising a family in Pa. feels harder than it should
Wherever parents congregate, you hear the same thing. The refrain can be heard at school pickup lines, church basements, birthday parties, and at youth sports games. When it comes to the finances of raising kids, doing everything “right” no longer feels sustainable. The numbers explain why. According to recent cost...
Christine Flowers: Antisemitism again, this time from Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission
I thought I could abandon the topic of antisemitism for a few weeks. There was Pam Bondi to ridicule, ICE raids to criticize and an idiotic Super Bowl halftime show performed in Spanish by a guy who didn’t want us to know how misogynistic he really is. But then a...
Noah Feldman: Grok fakes are a digital assault. Make it a crime.
The horrifying episode in which Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot generated and posted millions of sexualized images of real people, including women and children, has a clear lesson: It should be illegal to use anyone’s photograph to create a fake image intended to depict that person. Last summer, Congress passed the...
Parmy Olson: The AI panic ignores something important — the evidence
Last week, a post written by tech entrepreneur and investor Matt Shumer went viral on social media. Titled “Something Big Is Happening,” it was a rundown of all the ways artificial intelligence would, in short order, decimate professional jobs. Tools like Claude Code and Claude Cowork from Anthropic PBC would...
Cal Thomas: Why so much faith in politics?
It’s only February and other than the almost nonstop coverage of the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping story, especially cable networks are obsessed with the November election, though it is more than eight months away. So much can — and likely will — change before then. Why all the attention? When I...
Cal Thomas: Remembering Rev. Jesse Jackson
President Trump called the Rev. Jesse Jackson “a force of nature” and so he was. Jackson, who died Tuesday at 84, was the last great orator of the civil rights movement. He could bring an audience to cheers or to tears with the power of his personality. I once accompanied...
Destenie Nock: When the roads freeze, home heat becomes the emergency plan
Three days after the latest storm dumped almost a foot of snow on us, my side of the city still hadn’t been plowed. But I had to get to work. So I bundled up, strapped my daughter into her car seat and headed out. In the back of my SUV,...
LZ Granderson: There should be no partisan divide about naming Epstein’s fellow abusers
At a House Judiciary hearing last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi was holding a document labeled “Jayapal Pramila Search History” that included a list of files from the unredacted Epstein archive accessible to lawmakers such as Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. That means, over the course of a year, Bondi’s Department...
Dick Polman: Pam Bondi has me pining for Janet Reno
I found it perversely entertaining watching shrieking she-devil Pam Bondi as she sought to defend her dirtbag tenure at the Department of Pedophile Protection. She made the Wicked Witch of the West look like Mother Teresa. Any second I expected her to vow vengeance against her congressional inquisitors, a la...
Kaitlyn Buss: The Guthrie search shows what’s possible. Can we make it the standard?
If there’s any chance Nancy Guthrie’s assailant will not be found, it won’t be for lack of awareness. Her disappearance has mobilized extraordinary attention nationwide. It’s heartbreaking to think the 84-year-old Arizona woman — the mother of Savannah Guthrie, co-host of NBC’s Today Show — might still be held against...
Christopher Magra: How a 22-year-old George Washington learned how to lead, from a series of mistakes in the Pa. wilderness
This Presidents Day, I’ve been thinking about George Washington − not at his finest hour, but possibly at his worst. In 1754, a 22-year-old Washington marched into the wilderness surrounding Pittsburgh with more ambition than sense. He volunteered to travel to the Ohio Valley on a mission to deliver a...
Joe Palaggi: What ‘Star Trek’ understood about division — and why we keep falling for it
The more divided we become, the more absurd it all starts to look. Not because the problems aren’t real — they are — but because the patterns are. The outrage cycles. The villains rotate. The language escalates. And yet the outcomes remain stubbornly the same: more anger, less trust, and...
Joe Battenfeld: Kamala Harris teasing a comeback with AOC as VP
A Kamala Harris-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presidential ticket is gaining some traction among desperate Democrats but it could be the best case scenario for Republicans in 2028. Harris — trounced by Donald Trump in 2024 — is not ruling out another run and teasing a comeback, aided by the fact that few...
Donny Hamilton Jr.: Pittsburgh’s transportation moment is here. The question is whether we’ll seize it
Pittsburgh is at an inflection point. We are enjoying renewed national attention, preparing to host major events like the NFL Draft and continuing to position ourselves as a center for innovation, technology and advanced industry. Yet beneath that momentum lies a persistent question that will shape our region for decades:...
Mark Gongloff: Extreme cold is a billion-dollar problem, too
If you’re a climate-change denier in the eastern U.S., including the president, then the past few weeks have been a dream. It’s cold and snowy where I live, you might say, colder and snowier than in years. Therefore, climate change is a hoax, just as I’m always saying. Would I...
Jason Lias: 5 Democrats, 2 Republicans — is Pa. Gaming Control Board playing loose with the rules?
Pennsylvania’s Gaming Control Board is supposed to watch over the state’s $14 billion gambling industry. Think of it like the casino eye in the sky — constantly watching, making sure everyone plays fair and catching cheats before they slip by. But right now, the board itself looks like it’s bending...
Sheldon Jacobson: Lessons learned from the Olympics — we must be on the same team
The 232 athletes on the U.S. Winter Olympics team are supported by the entire nation. Watching family, friends and supporters waving American flags and applauding world-class performances makes all of us feel united. Yet watching how Congress is dealing with the final appropriation bill for the Department of Homeland Security...
Peter Morici: Economy threatens House Republicans in midterms, but Trump’s legacy secure
The Trump economy is delivering growth and investment in artificial intelligence, the stock market is booming and real wages are rising, yet many voters are unhappy. If the Democrats flip the House, then President Trump will be constrained. Still, his overall economic legacy won’t be easily displaced. Democrats could subject...
David Macpherson: Moral injury and patriotism
I attended high school in the early ’70s, just as the Vietnam War was ending and Richard Nixon was cheating. I wanted to think of myself as a protester, but most war protesting was over by the time I could drive. Furthermore, displaying patriotism was not what cool kids did...
Kaitlyn Buss: Jeffrey Epstein case forges a rare, cynical American consensus
Jeffrey Epstein has become one of the few scandals that unites Americans in cynicism. The case is about far more than sex crimes. It has crystallized a suspicion many Americans across party lines already carried — there is one set of rules for the powerful and another for everyone else....
Counterpoint: Trump’s flawed import tariff policy
It has been 10 months since President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” import tariff announcement in April. Ultimately, that announcement led to U.S. import tariffs rising to an average of 17%, their highest level in 100 years. It is still too early to draw conclusions as to the overall damage those...
Jake Maruschok: A case for Pittsburgh Steel’s 2030 return
As a 34-year-old engineer working in steel, I’ve noticed policy pressure heating up in the last year. In November I posted a video on new developments in our local education, trades, energy and investments; all are anticipating steel demand increase. While many comments were enthusiastic, a few people commented that...
Ally Bove, Susan Graff and Bridget Keown: Proposed student loan rules threaten women’s careers — and the future of health care
Are audiologists, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, or speech-language pathologists not “professionals”? The Department of Education seems to think so. These are providers who earn rigorous master’s or doctoral degrees, pass national certification exams, maintain licensure, are legally required to report suspected abuse and follow strict codes of ethics. They are,...
Jason Lias: While economy booms, corporate greed starves rural America
The economy is getting stronger. Jobs are up, people are spending and on paper, everything looks great. This should be a time to strengthen the middle class, create stable jobs, and help small towns and rural communities thrive. But corporate America has other plans. UPS and Amazon are showing exactly...
