“Please pray for me. I need the prayers.” The conversation I had with Archbishop Bernard Hebda of the Twin Cities in early August at a conference in Washington, D.C., was brief. At the time, he had no...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his first term, Donald Trump’s favorite president, other than himself, was Andrew Jackson, the hatchet-faced, self-made populist who relished turning Washington upside down. Now h...

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China is rolling out the red carpet for more than two dozen world leaders at two major defense-related events this week. The guest lists, and some notable omissions, are a window...

The editorial department of the Mon Valley Independent encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be no more than 500 words, must be in good taste and must include the author’s name, town of resid...

Even before America became a country, Americans already had a habit of freaking out about even minor violations of abstract principles. “In other countries, the people … judge of an ill principle in g...

To the Editor: Aww, it seems local MAGA members are upset that a late-night comedian made fun of their ‘daddy’ Trumpy Dumpy. TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) was so upset about being made fun of that ...

NEW YORK (AP) — When the White House fired Susan Monarez as director of the premier U.S. public health agency, it was clear to two of the scientific leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prev...

On a quiet street in suburban Maryland, not far from where I live, the FBI raided the home of John Bolton, a card-carrying conservative who served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser and is no...

ACROSS WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, kids are going back to school. The college dorms are overflowing. The high school football games are lighting up Friday nights. School buses are back on the roads taking l...

THE HISTORY OF DRUG USE in America is not necessarily a story of opium dens and crack houses. It’s a story of substances that weren’t illegal until they were abused. Patent medicines might be everythi...

The new method of journalism is to wake up, scratch yourself, announce this is what I think and then find someone who agrees with you to cite as an “expert.” This honorific is generally given either t...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Democratic National Committee is seriously considering scrambling the party’s 2028 presidential primary calendar. And South Carolina — the state that hosted the Democrats’ first...

To the Editor: Every executive order the left doesn’t like they run to a biased petulant judge to hold up the agenda of Trump’s administration. The administration is forced to appeal over and over kno...

Consider two recent stories about illegal immigration. The first is the continuing saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran who illegally crossed the border and is charged with human smuggling in ...

IT IS NO SECRET that President Donald Trump does not like mail-in voting. “Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans,” he said of it on Twitt...

The Pavlovian Left goes berserk at the mere prospect of each new Trump initiative. Its escalating reactive venom and hysteria are calibrated to the success of Trump’s latest policy. Yet the new hard-l...

“At noon on Thursday, a crowd gathered outside the Wapakoneta Fire Department, their eyes looking at the small but powerful addition to the building: the new Safe Haven Baby Box. With one simple cut o...

Sparkling wine flowed, hors d’oeuvres were passed, speeches were given. There were panel discussions, an archives tour, a reception and dinner. I wasn’t there, and you weren’t either. Nor was anyone y...

IS THERE ANYONE WE TRUST more than a firefighter ? These are the people who don’t just respond when called. They literally walk into fire. But despite the name, fire is only part of the job. They pull...

To the Editor: To the “victor” go the “spoils.” The “victor” is Donald Trump. The “spoils” are the rewards and benefits that come with that victory. The war began when Trump won the 2024 presidential ...