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Opinion

Time to check your voter registration

Editorials

While some states are fighting back against U.S. Justice Department requests for access to their voter registration lists and other elections information, Ohio has begun the four-year process of ensuring voter rolls here are as clean as they can be. Among the states that have received requests from the federal government so far, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin have simply said “no.” Officials there say they have questions about the legality of the requests and how the information will be used. After all, state (and, really, county) elections officials are responsible for ...

Every dollar matters

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: Active and retired military personnel and senior citizens command profound respect. Trying to keep up with Social Security changes can be a lot to digest. Check this out: In May, the average benefits for Social Security are around $1,903. This was increased from $1,783 in 2024. That means the typical senior can expect around $24,000 in annual benefits. The provisions of Social Security have been changing since the 1930s, shifting in response to economic worries as well as coverage for the poor, dependent children, spouses, survivors and the disabled. Senior ...

W.Va. proactive on workers’ comp

Editorials

West Virginia employers may be getting a little good news for next year, as the National Council on Compensation Insurance has filed a proposed workers’ compensation loss cost decrease of 13.5 percent, to begin Jan. 1. The change, pitched by the state’s rating and statistical agent, would mean another possible $20 million kept in the coffers of Mountain State employers. In fact, it would mean 21 years in a row of decreases since the state workers’ comp program was privatized. That’s more than half a billion dollars in savings to employers compared with workers’ comp levels ...

Let’s put an end to political games

Editorials

The story is becoming too familiar. Lawmakers who support spending cuts, then call for their reversal. Lawmakers who want to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse, just not in the program that is politically beneficial to them. U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., has joined several Senate colleagues in a letter that seeks the disbursement of already-approved Community Development Financial Institutions funds. To be fair, some of the federal actions seem designed to force elected officials to beg for the help they pledged to their constituents. In this case, $324 million from the ...

Action needed on rail safety

Editorials

With Congress on its August break, there are a number of important things not getting done. A couple of recent incidents in West Virginia remind us rail safety reform continues to be one of them. Last month, a minor train derailment in downtown Parkersburg closed a street, and had residents asking questions about the contents of the tanks that were leaning. Belpre Industrial Parkersburg Railroad officials responded quickly with information (the tanks were safely sealed and empty), and a crew to get the train back on track. There were no injuries. On Aug. 3, the St. Albans Fire ...

Timmons shows there’s much to do

Editorials

Eric Timmons wanted to prove a point. For many months now, the Jefferson County commissioner has been expressing his frustration at hearing numerous area residents complain that there weren’t enough activities in the region to keep them busy. A Steubenville resident, Timmons knew that isn’t the case. But, rather than just sitting back and getting caught up in the back-and-forth discussion, he decided that the best way to show the doubters they were wrong was simply to get out there and get involved. He did that during June, when he said he would attend 30 events around the ...