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Keeping shopping local

If it took you several days to dig out, clear your driveway and sidewalk, maybe even wait for the roads closer to your home to be safe enough to drive on, you’re not alone. Last week’s winter storm was likely an inconvenience for you AND your employer, with various levels of emergency being declared to keep as many people off the roads as possible. Now, stop and think for a minute about what the loss of those precious days has meant to many of our small, locally owned businesses — particularly retailers and restaurants. If you thought you were done worrying about whether to shop ...

Time to improve credit scores

Some of us may have shied away from looking at our credit scores once we finished our holiday shopping, but WalletHub took a look anyway and found we’d better do a little work. In “States With the Largest Credit Score Decreases,” West Virginia ranked 11th in the country. The average credit score in the Mountain State fell by 0.61% between the third quarters of 2023 and 2024. In fact, by the end of Q3 2024, the average credit score in the state was 647. Ohio is doing a little better, with a rank of 22nd. In the Buckeye State, the average credit score fell by 0.58% in the same ...

Public record access crucial

Last week, the Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments in a years-long case in which state Attorney General Dave Yost has been trying to avoid complying with public records requests from the Center for Media and Democracy. The center is seeking records from a time period in which the Republican Attorneys General Association (which accepts corporate donations) put together a letter opposing clean air restrictions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The center initially requested documents regarding the RAGA letter in March 2020. At the time Yost couldn’t be bothered, saying there ...

Cheers & Jeers

CHEERS to Joe’s Tire in Barnesville for hosting a community sledding event that gave kiddos something fun to do while they were missing school due to wintry weather. JEERS to the fact that local police cruisers were damaged as a result of a pursuit that ended in the arrest of a Bellaire man who was wanted for crimes in two states. CHEERS to multiple agencies across the area for opening their doors to the public to serve as warming centers during the winter season. You never know when people will need shelter from the cold. JEERS to the dangerous conditions that have resulted form ...

More help needed for homeless

“No American should face homelessness,” reads the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s news release accompanying the January 2024 Point-In-Time Count Report. Yes, the data is a year old, but each year’s snapshot gives us a better understanding of how many in our communities are facing just that. During the look at the number of individuals in shelters, temporary housing and unsheltered settings, researchers found more than 770,000 people were experiencing homelessness on that one night in January. That was an 18 percent increase from the same point-in-time in ...

Prevention efforts need support

Whether it be willful ignorance for the sake of scoring political points or a genuine misunderstanding of the strategies necessary to tackle a dual public health crisis in Appalachia, elected officials and policymakers are handicapping efforts against one of the major dangers spawned by our region’s substance abuse epidemic. A KFF Health News report followed up on federal health officials’ effort a few years back to assess an outbreak of HIV in central Appalachia. The outbreak has been fueled by shared use of needles among those who inject opioids or methamphetamine. But syringe ...