Crews working on repaving and other improvements to Bethany Pike in Wheeling were hard at work last week, striving to complete the project as quickly as possible. Their haste was in order to avoid increasing traffic congestion during the Festival of Lights at Oglebay Park, which opened ...

State Board of Education members are considering changes in requirements to obtain high school diplomas in West Virginia. In essence, their proposal amounts to making it easier for students to get A’s and requiring them to take fewer courses to graduate. So, in a world where graduates ...

Selection of Nov. 11 as the date each year on which we Americans honor veterans of military service is significant. It is a reminder that as devoutly as we may wish for peace, we must recognize it can never be a reality. For many years, Nov. 11 was celebrated as Armistice Day, in ...

We West Virginians have had our hopes raised so many times, then seen them dashed, that some may still have their guards up over the announcement Thursday that China will invest $83.7 billion in our state. Slice it anyway you want, however. Put any spin you desire on it. Come up with all ...

For any caring human being, the heartbreak of what happened Sunday in tiny Sutherland Springs, Texas, is agonizing. Twenty-six people in a small church, including some children, were shot to death. Add to that emotion outrage over reports regarding the murderer, Devin Patrick Kelley. His ...

By our count, voters in the four East Ohio counties were asked to approve 61 tax measures during the election Tuesday. Fifty-five were approved, usually by large margins. Voters rejected just six of the property tax proposals. Two of those, in the Buckeye Local and Indian Creek Local school ...

In June, Wheeling City Council members approved a rule requiring that new buildings constructed in the downtown business district must be at least three stories in height. Part of the idea behind that was to ensure that the area has a cohesive feel architecturally. Now, some council members ...

There have to be rules governing how local government meetings are held. Allowing verbal free-for-alls serves no one. But East Liverpool City Council members ought to rethink one of their restrictions. A news report the other day noted that a building contractor, who wanted to complain ...

The 26 men, women and children massacred in a Texas church Sunday might be alive today if existing laws on firearms ownership had been obeyed. They were not — and the full extent of government’s failure in that regard is both horrifying and angering many Americans. Devin Patrick Kelley, ...

Environmental remediation has become big business — perhaps too big, in a way. Ask Belmont Village Council members about that. Last Thursday, council members approved spending $20,000 to hire a company to manage asbestos abatement at the old elementary school building, which is owned by ...

In 2012, an Air Force court martial found Devin Patrick Kelley guilty of assaulting his wife and child. He served a year of confinement before receiving a bad conduct discharge. That should have disqualified him from purchasing firearms. Yet he was able to do so. He used them to massacre 26 ...

Most residents of East Ohio appear to have reliable high-speed internet service. But, as a story we published Sunday explains, the region’s hilly terrain deprives many people of broadband access. Several state legislators, with state Rep. Jack Cera, D-Bellaire, in a leadership role, want ...

Local public education officials plan to look at Ohio County’s elementary and middle schools, with an eye to adjusting the areas they serve. “We have some schools overpopulated, some underpopulated,” county Board of Education member Tim Birch told our reporter. That is true. ...

Mass shootings invariably produce calls for stricter limits on access to firearms. They fall into two basic categories: ∫ Some people want to ban all ownership of certain types of guns, including many that are very popular. Such restrictions have little or no chance of being enacted, in ...

What if Stephen Willeford had not noticed what was going on at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday — and sprung into action? We can never know with certainty. But there is reason to believe that the man Willeford confronted would have gone on to kill more ...

West Virginia is full of small towns and counties in which it can be difficult for public officials to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. Sometimes, the best person for a local government job may be related to a municipal or county official. Sometimes, the best, cheapest way to ...

President Donald Trump has been accused of discriminating against Puerto Rico in terms of U.S. aid to help the island recover from devastating hurricanes. Far from it. Trump appears to be discriminating against U.S. states with big disaster recovery bills. Trump previously had told the ...

Many of the functions of local and state government in West Virginia could be handled just as well as they are now — or better — with fewer people and less expense. That seems obvious. Slimming down the size of government takes both political power and courage, however. That is why no ...

Ohioans helped elect a president last year. Races for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will be decided next year. So why bother going to the polls for statewide balloting this Tuesday? Because it’s important. Races for local government posts including mayor and council members ...

You may remember that when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was holding hearings on its Clean Power Plan, the agency was at pains to avoid giving people in coal states opportunities to comment. The 2015 hearings were held in Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. Now the ...