By WILLIAM M. COTTER President and CEO Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association A developer wants to rezone a public park to allow high-density housing. The local school board weighs a plan to close an elem...

Editor’s Note: To commemorate our 9th anniversary, we are republishing our editorial from our first edition, published on May 2, 2016. ON DEC. 31, 2015, when The Valley Independent published its final...

WESTMORELAND COUNTY PRISON’S population has been on the rise. The jail has a capacity of 720. Last week, there were 708 inmates. It isn’t an anomalous spike. The March population averaged 695 inmates....

As soon as President Donald Trump left office in 2021, we had to endure four years of liberals concocting preposterous court cases against him, gleefully taking his mug shot (how did that work out?), ...

TODAY MARKS 50 YEARS SINCE THE FALL OF SAIGON and the end of the Vietnam War. On that day, April 30, 1975, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell to North Vietnamese forces, marking the end of the...

Tuesday marked the end of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. Beginning on Day 90 or so, we’ve seen a slew of polls and pronouncements delivering judgment on the president’s performance...

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party has won the federal election, capping a stunning turnaround in fortunes fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump’s annexation threats an...

Pope Francis has died, and I have a regret. Early on in his pontificate, I wanted to write a book that would have his face on the cover. At the time, everyone seemed to be coming out with a book on “t...

Since 2021, the left has waged a veritable war against the American legal system in a variety of ways. One serial target of Democrats and the Left has been the Supreme Court. In 2020, Senate Minority ...

COMPUTER DATA EXISTS in a series of electronic blips. They are the 1s and 0s of a code that compiles, catalogs and categorizes billions of pieces of information. Storing information physically takes u...

IF THERE’S ONE THING investors have learned in recent days, it’s that there’s no way to guess what America will do next. With its onagain, off-again tariffs, the administration has demonstrated a will...

TORONTO (AP) — Donald Trump might as well be on the ballot when Canadians vote for a new government. The U.S. president’s trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state have infuriated Canadians ...

As we approach the landmark 100 days of the second Trump ascendancy, the nature of his rule has become clear. It is, to be sure, chaotic, like his first term. But this Trump presidency differs in fund...

Is Kilmar Abrego Garcia a good person? I don’t know. In 2021 his wife petitioned for, and received, an order of protection against him after she alleged domestic violence; she said last week that thei...

Local businesses got an extra boost thanks to participation in the Mon Valley I2E Cohort, which was a free workshop series designed to help aspiring and existing entrepreneurs develop their business p...

To the Editor: Prior to and at the start of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and up to the present time, our country has experienced upheavals that shook the very foundation of our constitut...

The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Donald Trump first came up with his plan for a “National Garden of American Heroes” at t...

PASSAIC, N.J. (AP) — Alleged gang members without criminal records wrongly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador. International students detained by masked federal agents for writing opinion colum...

On Easter morning, the day before he died, Pope Francis met Vice President JD Vance, a devout defender of President Trump’s virulent anti-immigration policies. Francis and Vance exchanged brief pleasa...

PENNSYLVANIA HAS 67 COUNTIES, 500 school districts and 2,560 municipalities. With each step down that ladder, there are more and more opportunities for people to step up and participate in their gover...