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Governor must give new scholarship program a sporting chance

Football season is here, but not just at Lincoln Financial Field. Friday night lights shine brightly on high school teams and crowds statewide. And let’s not forget the other beloved fall sports: cross country, volleyball, soccer, softball, and golf. But while kids stress about playing time or making it to state, parents on the sideline wrestle with an entirely different issue: the cost. An AP–Ipsos poll found that about two-thirds of parents with at least one kid playing sports spend up to $2,000 per year on equipment, fees, training, and travel. Some paid even more. This ...

Price squeeze leaves many worse off

Higher interest rates divide households. Savers holding cash or buying new bonds can earn more interest. Borrowers taking out new loans or carrying variable-rate debt pay more. Existing bondholders can suffer losses as inflation and yields rise, while stock-market gains cushion households with substantial portfolios. Those without financial assets have fewer buffers. These shifts favor savers and investors over households dependent on paychecks and borrowing. For households without substantial assets, relief requires both slower price growth and less expensive financing. That divide ...

Putting children first in custody law

A children’s rights, trauma-informed perspective reframes custody statutes as children’s rights instruments, not just sources of parental entitlements. Laws should emphasize: the child’s needs, especially for the very young, as well as their voice and participatory rights; the child’s schedule, especially the healthy dimensions of routine and stability; the need for statutes to integrate developmental science, including age-specific needs, attachment, and each child’s key milestones, transitions and individual needs; and the long-term trauma impacts of forced contact with ...

‘Free’ health care would be anything but

P.J. O’Rourke once famously wrote, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” Pennsylvania House Democrats want to test that theory. Pennsylvania House Rep. Greg Scott introduced House Bill (HB) 2763, which would establish a state-run, single-payer health-care system in the commonwealth. He calls this “Medicare for All,” but what it really means is a fiscal and healthcare disaster for all Pennsylvanians. The bill is now under consideration in the House Insurance Committee. This bill is wrong for Pennsylvania for many ...

Consumers spending but want better deal

Americans haven’t stopped spending. They are looking harder for a price they can live with. Bank of America’s August card data show spending per household rose 4.5% from a year earlier. But big-box and general merchandise stores outperformed traditional retailers, suggesting shoppers are seeking lower-cost alternatives while continuing to spend. That is a more useful description of the consumer than a single strong or weak label. The last housing report for August tells a similar story, even among the relatively higher-income households who buy newly built homes. New home sales ...

Ground broken on a Rust Belt powerhouse

The last time that I stood on these grounds along the Ohio River in Beaver County was 1976, 19 years after the first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States opened here. My Perry High School physics teacher, David Burrows, had loaded a handful of us into a van for a field trip to the atomic station and to the coal-fired Bruce Mansfield plant next door. What Mr. Burrows and I both still remember is the climb -- 20 flights up metal bar-grating stairs to the top of a cavernous industrial cathedral built to house Mansfield’s multi-story steam boilers -- and the black ...