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Officials should rethink loan caps

Editorials

U.S. Department of Education officials missed the mark badly when they decided, purportedly in a revision that is part of the Big Beautiful Bill, to eliminate nursing, physical therapy, public health and other fields from those graduate study fields in which students are able to borrow loans up to the cost of their degree. Those programs are not, in the opinion of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., “professional.” In fact, only the following fields are now defined as professional programs, according to the Education Department: Pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, ...

Moreno proposal makes little sense

Editorials

U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, is proposing a change in U.S. law that would eliminate a freedom that has been cemented since 1967. His proposed Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025 would eliminate dual citizenship and “establish that citizens of the United States shall owe sole and exclusive allegiance to the United States.” Moreno was born in Colombia. His family immigrated to the U.S. when he was 5 years old. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen at 18, and at that time, renounced his Colombian citizenship. “One of the greatest honors of my life was when I became an American ...

Bipartisanship and forever wars

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: The shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., has left one of them dead and the other critically injured as of this writing. The apparent shooter worked for the CIA in Afghanistan. He was allowed entry into this country by the Biden administration and granted asylum by the Trump administration. This is the kind of bipartisanship that brought us the forever wars. This is only the latest in a long string of incidents of unintended consequences following the stupendous misuse and abuse of the U.S. military by politicians and well-placed private ...

Guest column/Shortage of rural vets endanger nation’s food supply

Local Columns

America is faciang a food system shortage. Livestock veterinarians are the new endangered species. Farmers are losing access to the experts they need to keep our food supply safe. More than 500 U.S. counties across 46 states are federally designated veterinary shortage areas. Just 1.3 percent of registered veterinarians specialize in food animal practice. This frontline workforce is fraying at a time when U.S. farms produce more than 94 percent of all red meat and poultry Americans consume. Addressing this growing concern will require sustained industry investment in education that ...

Some interesting thoughts

Local Columns

Catching up: • Their missions, the goods and services they provide and the way they look to the future might vary widely, but businesses and organizations that have served the region for decades all share at least one thing in common: They are committed to putting a quality effort into everything they do. A reminder came on Nov. 15, when Valley Hospice held its recognition and dueling pianos fundraising event at the St. Florian Event Center in Wintersville. “Forty years ago, Valley Hospice began with one promise: We do the right thing, for every patient, every family and ...

I remember a time, not so long ago ...

Local Columns

I remember a time, not so long ago , when the church pews didn’t just hold people — they overflowed with them. It was a specific kind of closeness unique to Christmas Eve. Families were pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with coats piled high. Voices rose in unison to the holiday favorites we all knew by heart. I remember a time, not so long ago … The way the candlelight flickered across the faces throughout the congregation. The profound hush that fell across the church just before the first notes of “Silent Night” were sung without hymnals. Those lyrics carried a ...