Scores of bills passed by West Virginia legislators during the session that ended March 9 have not yet been acted upon by Gov. Jim Justice. Midnight tonight is the deadline for him to sign them into law, veto them, or allow them to go into effect without his signature. One important measure ...
What does a megalomaniacal president of the United States do when he’s cornered? We’ll soon find out. House Democrats are beginning a series of investigations and hearings into Donald Trump. Senate Republicans have begun to desert him. Twelve defected on the wall; seven refused to back ...
For many years, coal mining was a major employer, not to mention a key part of the tax base, in many eastern Ohio counties. Now, in large measure because of federal government action, the industry is struggling. Meanwhile, abandoned mine land throughout the region needs to be reclaimed. ...
It makes no sense at all for schools, corrections institutions and other public entities to throw away food when there are those in our communities who would be delighted to get it. U.S. Rep. David McKinley is absolutely right about that. As he does frequently when not needed on Capitol ...
Justice was long in coming for some women raped in West Virginia decades ago. For many, it may never happen. In 2015, Mountain State residents were upset to learn of a terrible backlog in testing of rape kits, which include physical evidence collected in sexual assault cases. As many as ...
Many Ohio legislators are concerned enough about the lives of the unborn pushing for a ban on abortions performed after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Surely such compassion extends to protecting the health of children after they are born. Lawmakers can do that by enacting state Senate ...
Among the duties compassion dictates we West Virginians take upon ourselves is paying for interment of indigent people who pass away in our state. We set aside a substantial amount of money each year for the purpose. But early last year, state Department of Health and Human Resources ...
Think about this: There may be speech teachers in West Virginia who began their careers after the Wheeling Park High School Speech Team won its first state championship, are preparing now for retirement and have never seen WPHS lose at the state Speech and Debate Tournament. When the ...
I don’t know what I was expecting last Tuesday when Gov. Jim Justice brought every Division of Highways district engineer and county supervisor to Charleston, but I expected a lot more than a 15-minute speech asking for a list of bad roads. It is clear Justice’s communications staff ...
Public school teachers are educators, not professional psychologists or sociologists. They have their hands full dealing with children’s intellectual needs, without having to worry about other roles involving students’ well-being. Increasingly, educators are finding themselves the first ...
For years, West Virginia legislators have suffered from a headache that just would not go away. Taxpayers feel the pain, too. It is from the Public Employees Insurance Agency, which provide health care coverage for about 220,000 active and retired West Virginians. Though they pay a portion ...
As Mountain State legislators plan for a special session on improving public schools, everyone involved seems to be determined to address one criticism of the “omnibus education bill” that failed earlier this year. It is that lawmakers did not obtain enough input before writing the ...
During the past four years, one of the Legislature’s top priorities has been to modernize West Virginia’s laws and to take outdated and burdensome regulations off our books. We have succeeded in making West Virginia friendlier to businesses and in adopting policies that are competitive with ...
For the fifth straight year a group of baseball fans arrived in Brandenton, Florida, the spring training site of the Pittsburgh Pirates to take in five pre-season games, three of which involved the Buccos. In addition to the Pirates, the other Major Leaguers where the Tampa Bay Rays, the ...
The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) wants to hear from you. Governor Jim Justice and legislative leaders have called a special session to address education betterment. It is a cause that we can rally around because we all agree that there is room for improvement in public ...
Editor, News-Register: Disparaging a deceased war hero and statesman — who gave 60 of his 81 years as dedicated service to his country — is utterly deplorable! David J. Thomas Wheeling
Editor, News-Register: In Mike Myer’s March 21st piece, In West Virginia, We Should Just Let Teachers Teach, he is correct that there are “mountain of rules and regulations by which teachers, principals, superintendents and boards of education must do their jobs.” I have attached a ...
Editor, News-Register: I read an article in the Wheeling Intelligencer about the passage of legislation making home rule permanent. I know that the cities currently covered by home rule lobbied hard to see that this bill was passed. Unfortunately, again the citizens of West Virginia came out ...
Editor, News-Register: I will never go to a benefit in a church or building where I can’t control who gets the money. I want my money to go to the person who needs it. I have been donating for a long time and still am donating, but I want my money to go to the person who needs it. I want ...
Editor, News-Register: The Youth Services System Inc. Winter Freeze Shelter served 197 different individuals this season, a 23 percent increase over last year. Inviting our homeless neighbors to sleep in our administrative building during the winter was a matter of life and death when we ...