Opinions / Editorials

Since we still operate over the summer, many Pitt News editors and writers get the chance to spend their school-free months in Pittsburgh. And in our last print edition of the summer, we wanted to reflect on a trend we’ve noticed here year after year — we’re far lonelier in Oakland from May to August. […]

Fake news is like a bad game of telephone — one source reports their truth, then everyone else runs with it, imparting their own spin upon it. Serious problems arise when people get their news from just one source, because that source could be the last person in the line. And when the president gets […]

The Board of Trustees at Pitt has some serious power — by its own words, the Board “retains ultimate responsibility for all University affairs,” meaning its diversity is all the more important. Pitt appointed four new board members on June 30, three of whom are women. And while there’s still a lot of progress to […]

Regardless of what Sen. Pat Toomey may say, the new Senate health care bill does cut federal spending to Medicaid, and does so in a significant way. Medicaid is a federal program designed to provide health insurance to those who otherwise cannot afford it, and as of April 2017 nearly 75 million Americans were enrolled […]

The Port Authority has promised people that live on the lines of the proposed Bus Rapid Transit project faster commutes, new electric buses and safe bike lanes. But the proposal isn’t perfect, and the people that might be negatively impacted by the project are being ignored. Some 3,000 riders are still unsure if this infrastructure […]

“Tell your elected officials: With Pitt, PA Wins.” So begins the University’s recent plea for students to lobby on its behalf for state funding. And while the statement is true — many of the state’s greatest achievements have come from Pitt, such as the recent development of a new HIV detector or the historic discovery […]

If it weren’t on the 35th floor of the Cathedral of Learning, you might be able to hear the crickets from outside in the University Honors College lounge. But it wasn’t always this way. Founded in 1987 by Dean Alec Stewart, the UHC once was a place where true intellectualism fostered, a place where students […]

Execution proceedings happen in the state of Pennsylvania five times each year — yet the state hasn’t executed an inmate since 1999. Mock executions are routinely performed to ensure that in the event of an execution, the prison guards and doctors would be prepared. But right now the state isn’t permitted to actually execute any […]

It’s impossible to get a majority of people to support anything it seems — except marijuana. Franklin & Marshall College recently found that 56 percent of registered Pennsylvania voters think the state should make recreational marijuana legal, mirroring a nationwide trend of increased support for the drug. Pennsylvania seemed to be trying its best to […]

How much is all of the information stored on your computer worth? A ransomware that spread to more than 100 countries in just a few hours faced thousands with this very question. When infected users opened their computers on Monday, they were met with nothing. All of their files were encrypted by the WannaCry ransomware. […]