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A slow news week in the state capital

Local Columns

Last week was a slow news week when it comes to my specific beat of West Virginia state government news. Reporters who cover the same beat had similar opinions when I talked to them. There are weeks when it is not uncommon for me to write as many as 15 stories per week or sometimes four stories in one day. I certainly don’t mind a busy week, but last week was mostly quiet. Sure, there was the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia’s summer meeting at the Greenbrier Resort at the beginning of last week, which saw many state elected officials address the group and talk about West ...

Love thy neighbor

Letters to the Editor

To the Editor, I and many of my neighbors of Penco Estates received a letter on Aug. 1 from Bishop Mark E. Brennan of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese concerning a Miracle Field and Playground to be placed in our neighborhood within the city of Weirton. This letter was in response to a petition sent to the diocese regarding the proposed Miracle Field to be built adjacent to St. Joseph the Worker School. Brennan’s letter was condescending and implied that the neighborhood residents have no Christian love for young people with disabilities. That is an absurd and arrogant ...

More growth for our recreation trails?

Local Columns

It’s only been a few months since the paving was completed on the West Virginia portion of the Panhandle Trail; a project which truly has been years in the making. Now, it looks as if additional improvements are in the works for the trail, which travels between Weirton and Carnegie, Pa. As we reported in our Thursday edition, the City of Weirton – with work from the Weirton Board of Parks and Recreation and the city’s Planning and Development Department – is planning to apply for a Transportation Alternatives Program grant through the West Virginia Department of ...

Can enrollment numbers be reversed?

Editorials

As if our county boards of education did not have enough to worry about, a recent report by The Reason Foundation suggests a trend may present big challenges for West Virginia public schools. In a look at public school enrollment across the country, the foundation said West Virginia was one of only four states with public school enrollment that decreased by more than 5% between fiscal years 2020 and 2024. Certainly, the COVID-19 pandemic had something to do with that, but the Mountain State has not bounced back. At the beginning of FY2020, West Virginia had 263,485 students enrolled ...

Guest column: It’s time for West Virginia’s youth to sit at the table when discussing mental health

Local Columns

There’s a quiet crisis unfolding across West Virginia. Our young people are hurting and far too often, they’re navigating it alone. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for West Virginians ages 10 to 24. More than 60% of youth with major depression receive no treatment, and 26 counties across our state don’t have a single practicing child or adolescent psychiatrist. These are not just statistics—they’re warning signs for all of us to listen more deeply. The truth is, we can’t talk about the youth mental health crisis in 2025 without acknowledging the shadow ...

Guest column: Early signs matter: What looks like aging in loved ones could be Alzheimer’s

Local Columns

When Zelda Hill was in college, he began noticing subtle changes in his father. The man who had always been precise began forgetting current events, mixing up dates and times, and getting lost in familiar places. Zelda had seen memory loss in his grandparents before, and like many people, assumed it was a normal part of aging. With his father, though, he was more attuned to the changes in behavior, and the family sought medical advice. First came a diagnosis of dementia, then Alzheimer’s disease. Zelda’s father was only in his 50s. Alzheimer’s is the most common form of ...