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Looking toward the year ahead

Editorials

With the beginning of every year comes a sense of hope and the feeling that the future ahead of us is at least a little brighter than the past that is behind us. That’s the case as we say farewell to 2025 and welcome to 2026. Education and health care have played significant roles in our region’s economy for many years now, and that figures to continue, with major changes coming. The property where the former Eastern Gateway Community College sat along Sunset Boulevard in Steubenville will be taking on a new look, as Youngstown State University is preparing the building and a ...

The ones we’ve lost in 2025

Editorials

It’s likely that you lost a cultural icon who meant something to you during 2025, whether from the world of religion, politics, the arts or sports. Whether they helped to entertain us, on stage, on film or on television; whether they dazzled us through their accomplishments in athletics; or whether they helped to change the course of the world, each served as a reminder about the importance one person can have on countless numbers of lives. At least one of those deaths had a connection to Steubenville. Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who jumped onto the back of President John ...

Don’t drive impaired this New Year’s

Editorials

New Year’s parties are about to get under way, and it is a good time to again remember not to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking or using any impairing substance at one of those events. National statistics offer a sobering look at the dangers of driving while impaired. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 12,429 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in 2023, the latest year for which statistics are available. And, NHTSA adds, about one third of traffic fatalities involve drivers with a blood-alcohol content of .08 or higher. ...

Heading back to the future in West Virginia

Local Columns

By the end of this week, we will all travel forward to the future, to the year 2026, and we will have moved past the first quarter of the 21st century. It wasn’t until last week putting together my roundup of top West Virginia statehouse stories that I stopped to think about us getting through the past 25 years. It seems like yesterday that I was part of the Class of 2000 preparing for all of the computers to crash. I was born in 1982, so it’s weird to think that I have lived longer in the 21st century than I had in the 20th century. Yet, still no flying cars, still no ...

2025: Looking back at the year that was

Local Columns

We only have a few days remaining in 2025, and, for many, the last year certainly has been active. In Weirton, and some surrounding areas, the year began much as the previous one ended, with a series of line breaks and boil orders affecting the municipal water system and resulting in a lack of expected service. Water had to be brought in to allow for some of the schools to be open, distributions were made for residents, and there was a great deal of anger and frustration expressed. Eventually, the West Virginia Public Service Commission held a hearing, with a study finding various ...

Bowl season is here

Editorials

If you are a fan of the college football bowl season, there’s some good news and some bad news. We’re right in the middle of the bowl schedule, with the sport’s second round of playoffs set for later this week, and some pretty good matchups filling up some of the other slots. That’s the good news. The bad news is that as the College Football Playoff expands — a move that could come again as soon as next season — the bowl system as we have come to know it will look a whole lot different. Bowl games have certainly come a long way since they were first played in the ...