Breaking News

WPD Gives City Good Image Through Show

Here’s a case in Wheeling of boring being something good. REELZ has the Wheeling Police Department among its filming subjects for its “On Patrol: Live” program, where camera crews follow officers and broadcast real-time interactions. The network hasn’t filmed in Wheeling since the start of the year. Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger surmised part of that had to do with film crews focusing on warmer climates during the winter. But he added that those crews weren’t seeing as much action in the Friendly City. “There wasn’t always as much activity in Wheeling as ...

Bringing Down The Gavel

The two leaders of the West Virginia Legislature came under scrutiny last week for different issues, though one is being more transparent than the other one. First, my friend Brad McElhinny with West Virginia MetroNews reported last week that a political action committee connected to Senate President Randy Smith, R-Preston, began putting up ads attacking a rival, state Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, as he faces a contested GOP primary. The PAC, Mountaineer Conservative Coalition, pushed an ad taking Takubo to task for a 2021 vote on the bill now called the Save Women's Sports Act. That ...

Figuring Out Opioid Fund Distribution

There is still what to many West Virginians is an unfathomable amount of money to be spent out of the money entrusted to the West Virginia First Foundation. Nearly $40 million has already been handed out in grants. Now the foundation is planning to spend another $1.5 million to figure out what to do with what’s left. West Virginia University’s Health Affairs Institute, in partnership with the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs, and Data Drive WV, has been asked to spend the next year-and-a-half developing a better picture of needs, opportunities and the gaps that must ...

Pats on the Back

- To the parents, grandparents, siblings and neighbors that have driven youngsters to early morning practices, traveled for games and more. All that effort is part of what helped the Wheeling Central Catholic High School boys basketball team cap an undefeated, state championship season last weekend. It truly does take a village, and too often those that give of themselves so their children can have opportunities aren’t given enough praise. Thank you. - To Ohio County’s two newest sheriff’s deputies — Mason Parsons and Devin Milbert — as they embark on their career of ...

Americans Deserve Clearer Message On Iran War

The United States has joined Israel in opening a war with Iran. For the last half century, Iran has fomented destabilizing terror in the Middle East while violently suppressing voices of opposition by its own people. The world would be a safer place without the theocratic regime of Iran. But is that the goal? It is hard to know the mission because President Trump and his closest advisors have presented shifting narratives, sometimes in the same day, on why the United States is fighting. Regime change? A free Iran? Destruction of nuclear facilities? Elimination of Iran’s ballistic ...

Wheeling Must Seize The Defining Moment

This past Tuesday, 14 ceremonial shovels turning over dirt at perhaps the highest point of Center Wheeling marked the official groundbreaking for the WVU Cancer Institute St. Joseph Regional Cancer Complex. It was encouraging to hear hospital, city and local development officials discuss just what a $122 million investment in Wheeling — perhaps the largest in the city’s history — would mean. But what follows next is perhaps just as important to the city’s future. Wheeling has a unique opportunity to remake itself in the coming years — one that could well define the city ...