Breaking News

Opinion

Getting ready for the school year

Editorials

Ohio and West Virginia are preparing to welcome back-to-school shoppers with sales tax holidays. And while residents of both states have become accustomed to that yearly break as they prepare to send their children back to the classrooms, Ohioans will see one big change: This year’s tax holiday has been expanded, and will run from midnight Aug. 1 through 11:59 p.m. Aug. 14. That’s two weeks for families to take advantage of tax-free purchases — made in-person or online — of eligible items up to $500. West Virginians, meanwhile, will get their sales tax holiday from midnight ...

Keep the lines of dialogue open

Editorials

Bethany’s new mayor, Thom Furbee, is hitting the ground running only a few weeks into his new position. While no stranger to local politics, having previously served as a member of the town’s council for 10 years and holding a prior appointment to the sanitation commission, Furbee has noted he doesn’t have all of the answers and is looking to the community he serves for suggestions. This week, he hosted a town hall meeting at Bethany Memorial Church, inviting town residents to sit down and talk about their concerns, ask questions, and offer suggestions for possible projects the ...

Officials must not avoid hard decisions

Editorials

One of elected officials’ favorite tricks is to drag out the line “But are you better off than you were (insert politically beneficial timeframe here)?” It gets people thinking: Am I better off? For West Virginians living in a state that hopes to win an economic “Backyard Brawl,” the answer may very well be “no.” But according to WalletHub’s “States with the Most People in Financial Distress,” the Mountain State is ranked 45th In this case, that’s a good thing. West Virginia’s total score was 33.17. For comparison, the least distressed folks were in Hawaii, ...

Keeping the state clean

Editorials

As the weather makes it easier for many of us to get out and about to explore our beautiful state, it may shine even brighter thanks to the work of West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection workers and volunteers. In fact, more than 6,000 of those volunteers took part this spring in cleaning more than 140 tons of litter from roads, streams, public lands and trails. All that work was made possible through the Make It Shine and Adopt-A-Highway programs. “Protecting our environment starts at the community level, and this year’s cleanup efforts show just how deeply West ...

Too far gone?

Editorials

If anyone in our area needed a reminder that the efforts to maintain our state’s roadways has been ridiculously underfunded, all they had to do was listen to the discussions during last week’s Brooke County Commission meeting. Commissioners were approached by a county resident who expressed continued concerns over the status of U.S. 22, which, despite various attempts at “fixing” its crumbling surface over the years, continues to present unevenness, with a variety of cracks, craters and bumps. State Route 27, also known as Washington Pike, is another road of concern, with ...

Taking a hacksaw through recent news

Local Columns

We have another alleged case of hacking of a lawmaker. Last Monday, Del. Charles Sheedy, R-Marshall, posted on the Marshall County WV Republican Club Facebook page that he sent a letter to Gov. Patrick Morrisey and the state congressional delegation regarding the lack of a federal disaster declaration for Ohio and Marion counties. The following is taken directly from that letter as he (allegedly) wrote it: “Constituents in District 7 are asking why President Trump has not issued a FEMA Disaster Declaration for Ohio and Marion Counties? My constituents are also yours and they ...