UP: To Parkersburg Development Director nominee Ryan Barber. In Mayor Tom Joyce’s recommendation that City Council confirm the nomination, he said “His background and performance demonstrate his qualifications and motivation for this important position, and I am confident his confirmation ...

Perhaps the most unsettling recent reminder of the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic came Monday when the Federal Emergency Management Agency unveiled its new funeral assistance program hotline. More than 1 million callers tried to get through, creating busy signals and “technical issues” as ...

Some of those who have read the news about unemployment rates dropping and business booming — even right here in West Virginia — might be forgiven for wondering when the rebound will reach them. According to the numbers, our state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has dropped ...

Though a few politicians would like us to believe West Virginians are by and large coal miners, the Mountain State has always been an agricultural state, too. We don’t often do enough to encourage young people to explore those career opportunities. To that end, Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., ...

West Virginians are sometimes numb to the wonders that surround us in this incredible state. When we seek adventure, we don’t often turn to our own backyards. But people from across the country do; and state Tourism Secretary Chelsea Ruby wants to take advantage of that love for our state’s ...

Though it may not have been their intention, West Virginia lawmakers sent a clear message to West Virginians and those looking in during this year’s legislative session: Education is not a priority — unless we’re talking about being able to control it from Charleston. As the session ...

UP: To Williamstown City Council’s decision to create an animal control position, to build on work already being done by organizations such as the Save a Kitty Feral Cat program. Mayor Paul Jordan is right. “I think we can create a position not only with animal control, but also to fill a ...

A small group of West Virginia lawmakers spent much of this year’s legislative session behaving as though they would have been among those opposing our state’s secession from Virginia (and therefore the Confederacy) nearly 160 years ago. Perhaps, then, those folks will look to what Virginia ...

We know the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected our state in a myriad of ways. Add to the list children who are experiencing abuse and neglect and find themselves in need of an advocate during legal proceedings. According to the Court Appointed Special Advocate program, there are 300 such ...

In case we were looking for something else to worry about, the West Virginia Division of Forestry is reporting it has had to respond to 312 fires with nearly 3,000 acres burned since Jan. 1. Compare that with the previous year, when during the same period there were 158 fires with only 632 ...

As federal officials are being brought on board to address an HIV outbreak in West Virginia, a warning in February by Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the Centers for Disease Control’s chief of HIV prevention, rings through: “It is possible the current case count represents the tip of the ...

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has suggested a 90-day moratorium on immigration to give Congress time to make the issue a priority. He is right to try to inject a sense of urgency in tackling the issue. Most Americans cannot fathom living in a place where it seems preferable to live in ...

UP: To the celebration of Easter, as churches and other organizations throughout the Mid-Ohio Valley found ways to safely observe the holiest of Christian holidays yesterday. The weekend was filled with Easter egg hunts and other events to get us into the spirit of the season — a time of joy, ...

Lawmakers know they have tough choices to make when it is time to cut spending. They are supposed to look for fraud, waste, incompetence, redundancy and all the items for which no one can explain why, when they are simply “the way it has always been.” Instead, state senators who approved a ...

For most people, the word “compromise” conjures images of meeting in the middle, taking good components from two ideas and blending them into a new idea that works well for as many people as possible. It appears as though the West Virginia state senate thinks of compromise as introducing a ...

Facebook and other social media giants have demonstrated rather handily they can control the content that appears on their platforms when they choose. It is absurd, then, for the likes of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to pretend they can do nothing about the continued use of their platforms to ...

Given the enormous sums of money promised by the federal government over the past year, it is understandable if our state’s municipalities are feeling over their heads when it comes to the millions upon millions headed their way. As part of the American Rescue Plan signed in March, $677 ...

State Sen. Rupie Phillips, R-Logan, may have thought he was scoring extra points with a little distraction when he told another media outlet “I think this is a very good chance for us to STAND OUR GROUND (emphasis ours) on our 2nd Amendment rights,” while discussing Senate Joint Resolution ...

DOWN: To West Virginia lawmakers who appear to have lost their minds in Charleston this year, focusing on backward-looking and unnecessary legislation that conveys an appallingly narrow-minded and exclusionary message about what West Virginians represent. Mountaineers are always free, remember? ...

We regularly forget the lessons we learned as children from the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. But politicians have been rewarded for ideas that are big, exciting —and immediate. Instant gratification makes a better impression with voters than having to play the long ...