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More issues with FAFSA?

Remember the struggle last academic year as students and their families struggled to figure out the new “simplified” Free Application for Federal Student Aid? Well, the U.S. Department of Education is at it again, this time announcing a phased rollout for the 2025-26 form. That means it will be available to some students on Oct. 1, but not to everyone until Dec. 1. According to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, this is an attempt to fix any issues that crop up while the first batch of students is working on the form. But, it means many other students will be two months behind ...

Residents have a right to know

Those who have been keeping an eye on the aftermath of last year’s Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine will know there is still enormous concern over what short- and long-term health consequences will result from the release of chemicals into the air, water and soil. Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed relatively quickly that some of their workers going door-to-door after the event got sick. But we are just learning they were not the only out-of-town workers to experience symptoms, and we are learning it because The Associated Press ...

Football, other fall sports returning

This is the week that fans of high school football across the Tri-State Area have been waiting for since late last fall. Friday is opening day, and action will get underway in stadiums throughout the region. Steubenville Big Red will host Cincinnati Archbishop McNicholas, Indian Creek will host Cambridge, Edison will visit Shenandoah, Toronto will travel to East Canton, Harrison Central will visit Claymont and Buckeye Local will travel to Bellaire for what will be an historic contest — the first night home game in Bellaire history. On Saturday, Catholic Central will open against ...

Fire departments need volunteers

For many Ohioans, particularly those living in rural communities, a call to 911 for a structure fire or wildfire is answered by the men and women of a volunteer fire department. They stretch to their limits to protect those living outside the service area of larger, professional departments. They make up nearly 70 percent of the departments in the state. Those limits are being stretched thinner by the day, as shortages across the state make it harder for volunteer departments to do their jobs. But last week, Gov. Mike DeWine announced an awareness campaign to address that shortage and ...

Our football edition continues tradition

Our annual football edition will be included with your Wednesday newspaper, marking the return of local high school sports for 2024. The high school football season, which officially opens this week in Ohio and next week in West Virginia, will be the topic of many conversations and will occupy the hearts and minds of fans from all parts of the region for at least the next 10 weeks — and, hopefully, beyond. With all of that in mind, members of our local sports staff, led by Sports Editor Andrew Grimm, have spent much of the last several weeks conducting interviews, taking ...

‘Private’ entities must be transparent

Bureaucrats and elected officials in Columbus have gotten quite good at using public money to create what they want us to believe are “private” entities. OneOhio Recovery Foundation, for example, is registered as a private nonprofit organization, despite having been launched by Gov. Mike DeWine and Attorney General Dave Yost to distribute the public money from settlements of lawsuits related to the opioid epidemic. That organization has rightly received challenges to its attempts to operate with less transparency than would be required of a public entity. Another example is ...