My mother is from Southwestern Pennsylvania, my dad from Pittsburgh, and my in-laws from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When I visit these places, the first thing I recognize is the dialect. My Pittsburgh grandmother spoke in tried and true Pittsburghese. The toilet was a commode. The ...

The first week of October was Mental Illness Awareness Week, a designation by Congress since 1990 in recognition of the ongoing work of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. To help bring more understanding of the seriousness of emotional challenges that many people face, the American ...

What do you do when voters have rejected your party's policies and the losers have nothing new to offer? Answer: You stage large demonstrations that include name calling (this from Democrats who have called for "lowering" the rhetorical temperature). Anyone who believes last Saturday's "No ...

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau makes one thing clear: public programs work. Data from the 2024 Supplemental Poverty Measure shows child poverty in Michigan would double without supportive public policies like refundable tax credits, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) ...

In one of his classic New Jersey ballads, Bruce Springsteen sings of the sun "rising over them refinery towers." If New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy had gotten his way, the Boss would need to update the lyric to rhapsodize about enormous wind turbines looming on the horizon instead. Murphy's ...

My two boys recently got new passports. The little books are gorgeously designed. On thick paper, drawings are etched of wheat fields and farmers, statues and monuments. Quotes from great Americans - former Presidents George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, as well as the ...