Ted Cheatham, who is executive director of West Virginia’s Public Employees Insurance Agency, knows the route to the state Capitol well. He has traveled it many times, often with hat in hand. It will not be long before he repeats the performance, Cheatham informed members of the House of ...

The board of trustees at Eastern Gateway Community College took a good first step toward clarifying some of the issues surrounding the school Wednesday when it unanimously voted to terminate the contract of Jimmie Bruce. The decision to end Bruce’s four-and-a-half-year tenure as president ...

For the last several years, politicians, businesses and everyday citizens have decried the lack of reliable internet access in portions of our area, and much of West Virginia. In a day when digital technology is necessary for many of us, not having a hig-speed internet connection can be ...

Good for state senators for acting quickly on a bill that fills a need for a substantial number of West Virginians. It is SB 94, which passed the Senate by a vote of 33-0 (with one senator absent). SB 94 provides that disabled Mountain State residents who are registered to vote can cast ...

Mention $32,000 couches, and the five members of the West Virginia Supreme Court are likely to wince. Good. Irresponsible spending — by, it should be noted, some of their predecessors, not them — was allowed for too long on the state’s highest court. But the current justices have been ...

Many senior citizens in West Virginia rely on various organizations, many of them dependent themselves on state funding, for important services. They range from hot meals to help with household tasks and even medical care. Organizations and quasi-government agencies providing the help often ...

State officials point to “natural growth” in government revenue as the way they expect to have enough money to phase out a $100 million-a-year tax that hampers economic development. That is not an unrealistic expectation; during the past decade, general revenue fund collections have ...

There is no magic wand we West Virginians can wave to create a line of companies waiting to bring jobs here. Economic development is complex, with many moving pieces. But little by little during the past few years, state legislators and Gov. Jim Justice have been making our state more ...

Iran’s leaders accomplished what they needed to do last week, with a major rocket attack on two areas in Iraq where U.S. troops were housed. They were able to tell their own people they would not allow the “great Satan” — the United States — to push them around. Scores of U.S. ...

Thank heaven she will be all right. That is the appropriate and no doubt widely shared reaction to an accident Monday in which a 10-year-old girl was struck by a car after she got off a school bus. Second in some minds will be the question of how this could have happened in our area. It ...

Haven’t gotten around to getting that flu shot yet? Figure you’re young and strong and wouldn’t have any trouble fighting off a bout with influenza? Well, if you come in contact with older people, children or anyone else for whom flu is serious — perhaps deadly — business, shame on ...

Hazards to Americans in the Middle East, especially those in the military, are in the news. That makes an event Saturday in Charleston most gratifying to West Virginians. On that day, more than 140 West Virginia National Guard troops returned from a nine-month deployment to Kuwait, Saudi ...

Misbehavior of the type in which Brooke County Sheriff Larry Palmer was caught is precisely the reason why the work of the West Virginia Ethics Commission is important. Palmer’s misdeed was relatively minor — but still serious. He broke faith with voters who elected him in ...

If West Virginia legislators about to begin their annual regular session need any reason to pursue economic development initiatives, a new national population report provides it. From 2018 to 2019, the nation’s population increased by nearly 0.5%, or about 1.5 million people, the Census ...

New Year’s Day 2020 is in the books and, hopefully, a fond memory for you. You might have enjoyed a day off work, perhaps a celebration the night before and maybe some college football on the big day itself. Forget to do anything? Hint: Have you checked your smoke and carbon monoxide ...

As we Americans celebrate the beginning of a new decade, we continue to allow a serious challenge to escalate to crisis proportions. It is the national debt — $23.2 trillion as 2020 began. Thoughtful Americans understand the perils of a big national debt. It can increase inflation. It ...

West Virginia House of Delegates member Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, will co-chair a new Legislative Tech Caucus, as was reported a couple of weeks ago. It is good that our area will be represented — and good, too, that the caucus is a bipartisan effort. The other co-chair is Republican ...

Hundreds of clergy accused of sexually abusing children, including some convicted of crimes, were left off lists released by the Roman Catholic Church in reaction to a worldwide scandal, The Associated Press found. In terms of rebuilding trust with those of the faith, the church seems to be ...

As we usher in a new year, we quickly offer up a way to get a healthy start in 2020. It’s Cervical Health Awareness Month — a great time for our female readers to get tested. American Cancer Society officials are reporting that between 60 and 80 percent of women with newly diagnosed ...

By the time you have settled in to start reading this, the new year will have arrived. Like every year, 2020 will bring with it a sense of hope, a feeling that the future ahead of us is at least a little brighter than the past that is behind us. There should be good things in the year ...