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Wheeling Right To Say No More Camps

Editorials

You’ve likely seen the photographs and aerial videos of the unacceptable mess that was made at the former exempted homeless camp on the city’s Peninsula. Following the release of those images to our reporter along with a full accounting of the cost to the taxpayers associated with the site’s cleanup, it has become much more clear that city leaders had no choice in their decision to close the camp. By the time the camp was closed on Dec. 1 and cleanup began the next morning, it was, in the words of City Manager Robert Herron, “an absolute mess.” And if there’s one ...

Time for Notre Dame To Put Some Fight in Irish

Letters to the Editor

Editor, News-Register: A Tell it to Sweeney editorial cartoon shows the poor children who have their noses pressed up against the bakery window. Those children, who never have the chance to enjoy the frosted Shamrock treats, cannot fathom why the players would give up chance to play Notre Dame Football. The College Football Playoff Committee’s decision to leave Notre Dame out of the 2025 playoffs’ 12 teams has brought out the schools’ eggs against the wall coaching philosophy. We will take the ball and go home and sit in the dorm room and mope and pout. I did not get my own ...

Thank You for Support of Steubenville-Jefferson County Library

Letters to the Editor

Editor, News-Register: Thank you to those who took the time to vote yes for the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County’s 1-mill, five-year operating renewal levy once again. The Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County is a county-wide library system with branches in Adena, Brilliant, Dillonvale, two in Steubenville, Tiltonsville, Toronto and bookmobile service. We look forward to the opening of the Bergholz branch next year. Our mission is simple. A public library serves all people of all ages and all viewpoints. It is the library’s commitment to provide ...

West Virginia Is Subsidizing Instead of Treating Addiction

Local Columns

West Virginia spends enormous sums on Medicaid-funded drug treatment, yet overdose deaths remain the highest in America. Addiction-driven homelessness is rising and our workforce participation is the lowest in the nation. Last year alone, the state spent more than $240 million on Suboxone and methadone-based programs. A system this expensive should not produce results this poor. It is time the state of West Virginia demanded accountability. And yes, there will be pushback from the industry. The truth is unavoidable: our treatment system is failing, and we are paying for failure. ...

Eliminating Safeguards Puts Animals at Risk

Letters to the Editor

Editor, News-Register: The Marshall County Animal Shelter’s decision to eliminate essential safeguards — such as background and veterinary checks — puts animals at grave risk. This change was apparently made at the behest of Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS), a multimillion-dollar Utah-based group that pressures shelters nationwide to adopt reckless policies aimed at meeting arbitrary “no-kill” targets. In Indianapolis, a BFAS partner shelter fired two employees for trying to prevent convicted abusers from adopting animals. The facility had started conducting criminal ...

Finding a New Approach to Homelessness

Local Columns

On Dec. 1, the city of Wheeling withdrew its only legal encampment zone’s exempt status, continuing to employ restrictive actions against people suffering from homelessness. As updates continue to emerge about Wheeling’s homelessness issue, it is safe to say: encampment bans do not solve the issue of homelessness. It only makes the path to escaping homelessness even harder through criminalization. Because one in three people experiencing homelessness have substance abuse issues and two-thirds of those people have a history of drug or alcohol abuse, barriers to accessing housing and ...