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Keep up with a safe workplace

While, these days, we’re all used to efforts to keep workers safe, no matter the environment, we also remember that it wasn’t always that way. Today, April 28, is observed as the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, and it would be good for all of us to take time – today and every day after – to remember the efforts to protect ourselves and our coworkers, and just how far it’s all come. We live in an area prized for its industrial past, where steel mills, glass factories, potteries and more dotted the landscape. Weirton Steel, along with its successors, has witnessed ...

Fast work not always best work

As efforts from Washington, D.C., to reduce the size of the federal government continue with a sense of urgency that has yielded mixed results, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., was right to urge U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reverse course on a reduction in force effort that has affected the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown. “I believe in the president’s vision to right size our government, but I do not think eliminating the NIOSH coal programs and research will accomplish that goal,” ...

Dispose of unused prescriptions

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration calls our country’s substance abuse epidemic “a clear and present public health, public safety and national security threat.” No one needs to tell those living in our region that. We see it every day. And most of us wonder whether there is anything WE can do about it. There is. Among the ways we can combat the problem is taking advantage of National Prescription Drug Take Back Day to remove unneeded medications from our homes, preventing the possibility they might fall into someone else’s hands. The DEA calls it a “measure of ...

Child safety must come first

Remember back in June 2022, when West Virginia lawmakers contracted with McChrystal Group for a thorough assessment of what was then the state Department of Health and Human Resources? The group was supposed to come up with a strategic plan for the agency, and was paid $1.08 million to do so. But then, the legislature didn’t like what McChrystal presented as a plan of action for DHHR. “Our recommendation steers towards keeping a single DHHR with a sub-structure, with the goal being — at the lowest cost and quickest efficiency — getting good results for the citizens of West ...

Legislature did little to improve state

When it comes to the recently completed 60-day legislative session, if the only goal was to potentially bring data centers to West Virginia that are powered by microgrids, then perhaps lawmakers should get an A. Other than that — and let’s be clear, data centers and microgrids might create property tax revenue but they do nothing for jobs — the Legislature has little to show from this session that will help Gov. Patrick Morrisey in his quest to win an economic backyard brawl with West Virginia’s neighboring states. At best, they get a D. Morrisey this past week did tout that ...

We all can do something to save the planet

Today is an important day for our planet — it’s Earth Day. The theme of this year’s recognition is “Our Power, Our Plant,” with a focus on uniting around the efforts to grow renewable energy and the goal of tripling the amount of electricity generated by renewable sources by 2030, according to Earthday.org. The Washington, D.C.-based organization notes that, in 2023, the U.S. produced more solar power than ever before, led by projects in California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona. Texas, the organization reports, leads the nation in wind energy ...