Local Columnists

Do you care more about higher prices at the grocery store or a steady job? Of course your answer will depend on your circumstances, but for the Federa...

The times are so strange, so confusing, so upside-down that it is easy to miss what counted most at the two national political conventions conducted u...

A century and a half after the end of the Civil War, 56 years after the signing of the Civil Rights Act, and a dozen years Americans elected a Black p...

Everyone knows that the Declaration of Independence guarantees Americans “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but less well known is the fac...

There were several striking things about this week’s mostly virtual Republican National Convention: the prominence of Black prime-time speakers; the e...

ALBANY (TNS) — The days of summer glide by as we prepare to greet September. And Andrew Cuomo still refuses to tell us how many nursing home residents...

Editor’s Note: This commentary, the result of a collaboration between the Olean Times Herald and interviewer Marcia Kelly, gives voice to area people ...

In the cosmology of the Chinese Communist Party, the existence of Uighur Muslims is a threat not only to China’s dominant ethnic group, the Han, but a...

Donald Trump took over the Republican Party, but it’s still discernibly the Republican Party. The Republican National Convention was obviously very Tr...

The other day a friend said, “It’s almost time to put my summer furniture away. It seems like I just got it all out!” It’s a reminder that fall is com...

It has long been accepted, at least in some circles, that there is a condition known as Trump Derangement Syndrome. But if there are still any skeptic...

Nikki Haley proved that she learned something by working in Donald Trump’s administration. She can look America dead in the eye and lie. “America is n...

WASHINGTON (TNS) — Amid vast uncertainty about the Republican Party’s future, several of its rising stars spoke at the convention this week with a dua...

The coronavirus pandemic has thrust millions of American small businesses into crisis mode, as they scramble for the cash they need to get through to ...

It’s always tempting to write about politics in portentous terms: Joe Biden as the last Irish Catholic Democrat, passing the torch to a new multi-ethn...

The number of Republicans speaking at the Democratic National Convention had progressives on edge. They shouldn’t have fretted. Even if a handful of e...

American politics is the most expensive game in the world. You have to pay to play. Private interests with the means to pay are uniquely positioned to...

WASHINGTON — Nearly everything in American life has changed in the 16 months between the launch of Joe Biden’s White House campaign and his address Th...