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Opinion

Make Sure Kids Are Safe Online

Editorials

Parents and guardians cannot receive reminders often enough about the urgent need to prepare kids for staying safe online. Local residents got an alarming one this week with news that Steven James Boose, 35, of Littlestown, Pa., had been arrested after allegedly traveling to Parkersburg to meet with a person he believed to have been a 14-year-old girl, with whom he’d been corresponding online. Parkersburg Police met up with him, instead, and Boose has been charged with one count of soliciting a minor and six counts of use of obscene matter with intent to seduce a minor. And the ...

Keep Our Coal Miners Safe

Editorials

As West Virginians watched for news of the trapped foreman of a mining crew in an Alpha Metallurgical Resources mine in Nicholas County, just days after learning of the death of another miner in an accident at a Mettiki Coal mine in Tucker County, the health and safety of our coal miners was brought back into our collective minds. For the miners themselves, a renewed fight over their health has been brewing for months, as an Associated Press report over the weekend delved into the fight to get the Trump administration and the U.S. Department of Labor to stop rolling back or delaying ...

Washington Avenue Bridge Fix Needed

Editorials

Starting very soon, getting around the Washington Avenue area of Wheeling will get more complicated, but those complications are necessary. As early as this month, the Washington Ave. Bridge will close down for replacement. That bridge is one of the busier paths in the city, connecting National Road to the area around WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital, as well as providing an exit and entrance to Interstate 70 from that part of National Road. The replacement for that bridge should take several months, officials say, which will make travel in that area tougher. But an inconvenience for ...

Honoring the Bravery of Military Veterans

Editorials

For more than seven decades, Americans have done on this day the least they can do in thanking those who have gathered arms to fight for their freedom and safety. Since 1954, we have taken pause on Veterans Day to show our gratitude to the men and women who have selflessly put their lives on the line for our well-being as part of the U.S. Armed Forces. Think about that sacrifice: young men and women saying good-bye to their loved ones to travel to all corners of the earth. Many of them over the years have placed themselves in the middle of armed combat, fighting so that the horrors ...

Life of the Party

Local Columns

Political prognosticators are always trying to find meaning in off-year elections. And while I think there are some indicators one can glean from Tuesday’s elections, it would be a mistake to read the tea leaves too closely. Last Tuesday saw a person with links to the Democratic Socialists of America — Zohran Mamdani — win election as mayor of New York City over former Democratic New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Former Democratic congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a known moderate and former CIA case officer, won her election for governor of Virginia. There are other elections ...

Protect Working Kids

Editorials

Gov. Mike DeWine has legislation on his desk that should not be difficult to reject. State Senate Bill 50 would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work until 9 p.m. during the school year. According to a report by the Cincinnati Enquirer, the law would require permission from a parent or legal guardian and a work permit from a school, but it would allow students (some of whom could be in the eighth grade, based on their age) to work 18 hours a week or three hours a day during the school year, and 40 hours a week when school is not in session. The most surface-level reason to reject the ...