Last week we wrapped up week two of the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, and the high court is not making things easier. It all started last week with a letter from Barbara Allen, the interim administrator for the court. She replaced ...
West Virginia Division of Highways officials are absolutely right to view the lack of consensus on a proposal to change the traffic pattern in downtown Wheeling as a concern. Forcing such a change down the throats of the many who oppose it would be a mistake in multiple ways. Mayor Glenn ...
Most of the time when we hear of municipal utility rate increases, they are relatively modest - $10 or $15 a month. So when Steubenville officials unveiled a plan to boost water, sewer and sanitation bills by an average of more than $40 a month, some city residents may have had a one-word ...
Why would an American president make friends with a Russian leader who murdered millions of his own people? Why would a president chum it up with a dictator who meddles regularly in U.S. affairs? And why would a president break the law in an attempt to help a sworn enemy obtain billions of ...
Nearly eighty million dollars for new buildings in a school district with only about 1,800 students seems like a lot of money. It works out to $50,000 per child. St. Clairsville-Richland school district officials are hoping voters will clear the way for such a project, however. They plan to ...
Sen. Joe Manchin insists the numbers he’s using to suggest he hasn’t made up his mind how to vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are accurate. But, he told me in a phone conversation this week, so are mine. Realistically, it doesn’t really matter. Manchin, D-W.Va., is ...
Wheeling City Council members are poised to ask voters to approve higher taxes to construct a $20 million public safety building, make $1 million in fire station improvements and buy a $500,000 fire truck. Council has been told it ended the fiscal year June 30 with a $1,159,000 carryover. ...
I preface my column this week by noting I am not a historian, nor do I clamor for all things old. I have always enjoyed the study of history in school, but I’m no expert on the topic. The History Channel remains a favorite in our home, however. While I respect and acknowledge buildings of ...
Far fewer complaints about the Apex Landfill in Jefferson County were received in July than earlier this year, county health department officials said this week. Well, good. Keep up the good work. Really; improvement needs to continue at the landfill. For some time, the department was ...
For a decade, from 2007-2017, the nation’s population grew. Every state had slow population growth ... well, every state but two — Michigan and, you guessed it, West Virginia, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts study. In fact, West Virginia lost residents faster than Michigan. Our ...
Ohio State University’s energy and openness in investigating allegations of sexual misbehavior by a long-dead physician for some athletic teams has been commendable. Turns out that may have been a sea change, compared to the attitude when the doctor was alive and working at OSU. Dr. ...
So crazy has the lawsuit climate become that a court filing this week probably should have come as no surprise. Still, it is more than a little unsettling. MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay casino-resort in Las Vegas, has filed suit against hundreds of victims of the ...
West Virginia legislators looking into state Supreme Court justices have been accused of engaging in a “fishing expedition.” One wonders whether that criticism was prompted by concern about the Legislature’s role — or about what “fish” lawmakers may net. After suspended high ...
What happened to Emmett Till helped focus many Americans’ attention on the civil rights struggle during the 1950s. Till was just 14 years old when white men in Mississippi tortured and murdered him in 1955. He died because a white woman claimed the African-American lad had whistled at ...
Martins Ferry officials are to be commended for hoping city government can do something to boost economic development in the downtown business district. They should move cautiously, however. Buildings housing several businesses were destroyed in an October 2016 fire. Some business owners were ...
President Donald Trump is accused frequently of shooting from the lip — that is, speaking and tweeting what is on his mind without regard to the potential consequences. This week, he is being criticized harshly for not doing that. After meeting in Helskinki, Finland, on Monday, Trump and ...
Asking questions about personnel issues is by far the surest method of getting government officials to clam up. So it was last week after the Martins Ferry Board of Education voted to place school district Treasurer Karen Blake on paid administrative leave. “I’m not commenting on it,” ...
West Virginians are fortunate that our secretary of state, Mac Warner, is a nationally recognized leader in keeping the voting process secure from tampering. But Warner and his fellow chief election officers from other states, gathered during the weekend for a meeting in Philadelphia, are well ...
The past two weeks have been very interesting if you pay attention to higher education in West Virginia. If you’re not paying attention, you should because it will likely affect your wallet when it comes time to send your kid out to get a degree. When rumors started spreading about what ...
In March, when Wheeling officials proposed construction of a new city public safety building, the price tag was estimated at $15 million. That is a lot of money, we commented at the time. Voters asked to increase their taxes to pay the bill will want to see evidence of need. Now the cost ...