×

Opinion.

Belmont County Offers Plenty to Celebrate Season

Columns

Belmont County is filled with all the joys of the season! The holiday season is, without a doubt, the most awaited time of the year. When the air turns cold, the day turns dark, Christmas lights start twinkling, and jingle bells are ringing there is no better place than Belmont County to ...

Ed Marling’s Service Lifted Communities

Editorials

In an era where public service too often feels transactional and overshadowed by political noise, the retirement of Bellaire Mayor Ed Marling serves as a reminder of what steady, local leadership can mean to communities. For 24 years, Marling has been a presence in eastern Ohio civic life ...

When Did We Allow a ‘Kill Them All’ Stance?

Columns

“Does anyone know where the love of God goes When the waves turn the minutes to hours?” — Gordon Lightfoot (1938-2023), “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” As we learn more about the events on Sept. 2, 2025, in international waters 1,500 miles from the United States, the ...

New Tech Creates Demand for Materials

Columns

Generative artificial intelligence has become widely accepted as a tool that increases productivity. Yet the technology is far from mature. Large language models advance rapidly from one generation to the next, and experts can only speculate how AI will affect the workforce and peoples’ daily ...

Preserving Ohio’s Nature

Editorials

Work to preserve our region’s incredible natural treasures and the environment that sustains us all is most effective at the local level. Through the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, that work gets done with the help of grant funding for “locally led conservation and environmental ...

Politicians, please drop the creepy smiles

Columns

It seems half the country’s political figures have been instructed to grin like a theme-park greeter. Supposedly, that makes them seem friendly, approachable, relatable. When I want humanoid patter, I turn to chatbots. They’re more convincing. Why this epidemic of wax museum smiles? ...