Breaking News

Opinion

Applause, Applause

Columns

Each Saturday, The Express community newspaper highlights people, groups and activities our readers deem worthy of applause. THANK YOU to all of the volunteers from Sugar Valley Lions Club members, community members, family, friends, neighbors, church members, co-workers, complete strangers and Bingo players, as well as, to all that donated food, monetary donations and baked goods for our Spring 2026 Bingo fundraisers. We look forward to seeing you all again for our Fall 2026 Bingo events the second Friday in September, October and November. All proceeds from these events will be ...

Cory Booker should be ashamed of himself

Columns

I wish “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker had asked Sen. Cory Booker if he’s qualified to represent New Jersey given that nearly 9 out of 10 of his constituents are not Black. I should probably back up. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled in Callais vs. Louisiana that the state’s newest congressional map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Here’s a simplified recap. After the 2020 census, Louisiana drew a congressional map that included just one “majority-minority” district. Some Black voters sued, arguing that Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act ...

Could Trump care less about you and me?

Columns

Camelot, it’s not. King Arthur, not even close. Donald Trump is a pretender president who doesn’t even pretend to do right by the people. In all candor, this city, graced by garden squares, memorials and museums, feels like a crime scene, with his fingerprints everywhere on it. Places we held dear are demolished (the White House East Wing) or closed (the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts). But who knows what’s in the knave’s heart? Trump also dumped toxic debris from the East Wing site onto a popular public golf course. His visage scowls from windows at passersby on ...

Specific pottery artists can command premiums

Columns

Kitaro Shirayamadani, also spelled Kataro, was born in Tokyo, Japan, and came to the United States as a young man. Already an accomplished porcelain painter, he initially worked for Fujiyama, an importer and decorator in Boston; then he accepted a job at the Rookwood Pottery Company in ...

Dear Annie: Reality check on a changing friendship

Columns

Dear Annie: I’ve been friends with “Mark” since high school, which was over 15 years ago. He actually feels more like a brother than a friend. But over the past year, there’s been a shift in him. He’s gotten deep, deep into conspiracy theories. Every conversation somehow turns into a rant about the government’s hidden agenda or the evils of the pharmaceutical industry. I brushed it off for a while, but it’s constant. It makes me not want to be around him. I’ve tried joking it away and even telling him directly it makes me uncomfortable, but he either doubles down or ...

When businessmen enter the beltway, it’s business as usual

Columns

Something strange is happening in Washington. A generation of investors and entrepreneurs who built careers championing private capital and intuitively understood the power of market discipline and limited government have joined the Trump administration, taking charge of hundreds of billions of dollars of other people’s money. They assure us that they are deploying it strategically, with accountability and a businessperson’s rigor. From Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (who is apparently convinced he can rearrange the American economy through tariffs and industrial policy as if it ...