Restaurants and bars in Ohio will be permitted to reopen for inside serving on Thursday. They were cleared for outside service last Friday. Both steps are parts of a gradual reopening of all sorts of businesses across the Buckeye State. Many eateries had remained open for carryout and ...
When residents of the Bridgeport area perceived that an injustice was occurring earlier this school year, they quickly rallied behind the man they saw as the victim. The Bridgeport Exempted Village Board of Education sought to solve a problem that had been plaguing the district for a couple ...
Would that government officials were as conscientious about ethics as they seem to be inventive about trying to skirt the rules. Ohio Inspector General Randall J. Meyer’s office reported last week that about 40 state employees and some legislators accepted a free charter boat fishing trip ...
A plan being considered by St. Clairsville officials to resolve longstanding water system challenges sounds promising. Unless significant drawbacks are identified, it should be pursued — and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency should go along. Expensive repairs and upgrades to the ...
It appears that fewer people participated in the Ohio primary election than usual, at least in the local area. In a way, that is understandable. After all, our lives have been turned upside down in recent weeks as we have responded to the novel coronavirus pandemic. In another way, though, ...
Prisons, as well as nursing homes, are high-hazard sites for COVID-19. Belmont County has become a hotspot for the coronavirus, with 107 cases by Sunday. County Health Deputy Director Robert Sproul said many of the cases are in nursing homes — and a prison. Thiry-one inmates at the ...
A reasonable plan to play football at a field within the Bridgeport Exempted Village School District seems to be taking shape, and we believe the public and state and local officials should get behind it. Since 2018, the Bulldogs have been unable to play on their home field, because of flood ...
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine -- like most residents of the Buckeye State -- is eager to get the state’s economy moving again. He has pledged to do that, in a measured manner. Although he is optimistic most of the time, he has cautioned the people of our state that there may be setbacks in the ...
No reasonable person can blame public school teachers and/or officials for not being ready for the COVID-19 shutdown. For years, in a much different context, many of them have been recommending two steps that, had they been implemented fully, would have helped students and teachers deal with ...
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gained an enormous amount of credibility by the way he handled the COVID-19 outbreak in its early stages. Beyond any reasonable doubt, the Buckeye State approach, led by the governor, has saved lives. As of Friday night, the state had recorded 9,107 cases of COVID-19, ...
Ohio’s primary election, postponed until April 28 because of the COVID-19 epidemic, will be historic. It will be the first in memory that most votes will have been submitted by mail. Election Day has been set for April 28 — but the in-person voting to which most people are accustomed ...
Gov. Mike DeWine has handed a difficult situation well as he has led the Buckeye State through the novel coronavirus pandemic, but we believe he made a misstep last week. DeWine acted early and decisively to close schools, halt large gatherings and, ultimately, to instruct people to stay at ...
When pubic schools reopen in August, or perhaps even later this spring, a significant number of students are going to be far behind their classmates. That may prompt some teachers to wonder if there is some way they can hand out a few F grades — to parents. Public schools in Ohio have been ...
One would hope that nursing home administrators would inform potential residents and their families of the presence of COVID-19 in the facilities. No doubt most would do that. Apparently the practice is not universal. A few days ago, The Associated Press reported that, “A woman in the ...
It’s time to change our focus a bit, so that we don’t forget to do a couple of things that are very important. Of course we must continue to keep the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease always at the fronts of our minds. But we should not allow it to preoccupy our minds to the ...
Telling a fellow who has been on a strict diet that he needs to tighten his belt seems cruel. Ask Steubenville City Council members. Finances have been tight in Steubenville for several years. City officials have had to watch nickels and dimes carefully to keep municipal budgets in ...
COVID-19 has forced most units of government to alter how they interact with the public. No reasonable person questions the necessity of using technology to avoid in-person gatherings of people who may help the coronavirus spread. But the trade-off between public health and the public’s ...
We in the Ohio Valley have had our first death from COVID-19, a 92-year-old Belmont County man. Public health officials noted the man had underlying medical conditions that put him more vulnerable to the coronavirus. The tragedy occurred as the emotional drain of confronting the virus ...
During the past decade, the population of the 10-county region including Eastern Ohio and the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia has dropped by 21,324 people, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. That is only slightly less than the total number of people who live in Brooke ...
The biggest concern on the minds of public officials now should be how to keep their constituents and employees safe from COVID-19. Complying with mandates from higher echelons of government ought to be put on the back burner unless, of course, they involve immediate matters of public safety or ...