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Baseball’s back — enjoy the games

There’s a certain magic about the start of the baseball season. It’s fitting that the game returns in the spring, the season of beginnings. It’s a time for optimism, as fans in cities across the United States and Canada are certain that their team will get to the playoffs, and even the World Series. Baseball is a game that brings people together. It offers the chance for a family to enjoy a day at the ballpark. It provides the opportunity for friends and neighbors to spend a warm summer evening on the deck, enjoying each other’s company while listening to or watching a game. ...

Remember to help those who help

When the Red Cross of the Ohio River Valley needs our help, it is often in the form of blood donations and filling volunteer opportunities. But Wednesday is Red Cross Giving Day — a chance for us to support this vital organization with financial donations, too. “This year’s disasters have set a whirlwind pace, displacing thousands of people from their homes across the country and disrupting the nation’s blood supply for patients,” said Erica Mani, chief executive officer for the American Red Cross Central Appalachia Region. “As we enter spring disaster season, families are ...

Affordable housing work must continue

Efforts in Columbus to address the shortage in affordable housing appear to be making a difference, though the momentum must be maintained. According to the 2025 Gap Report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, there is a deficit of 264,083 rental units that are affordable and available to the 438,108 extremely low-income households in the Buckeye State. That’s an improvement over last year, when the shortage was 267,382. “The new housing programs that Ohio created in the last budget bill are having a positive ...

A closer look at the numbers

U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, can be forgiven for his enthusiasm over a recent report. After all, the good news being proclaimed by the Ohio Natural Energy Institute’s “The Essential Facts on Essential Ohio Energy” are a re-polished version of the shiny proclamations we’ve been hearing for about 15 years now. Rulli was first elected to the state Senate in 2018. But well before that, organizations similar to the Ohio Natural Energy Institute were touting (then the Marcellus and Utica shales) as our region’s savior. “Our region has been blessed with an extraordinary ...

Ohio’s food banks need your support

As part of Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget proposal, food banks across Ohio could see a significant reduction in the amount of state funding they receive. Most of this is due to the loss of what had been a one-time $7.5 million appropriation in the previous budget. But that decrease has food bank organizers worried. “It’s about 3.4 million Ohioans who live in households that are under that income limit (200 percent of the federal poverty line),” Joree Novotny, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, told the Ohio Capital Journal. “SNAP in Ohio, there’s only ...

Grandstanding inappropriate

Mountaineers — always free, sure — but also, always willing to be good sports, take responsibility, accept when things don’t go their way without whining about it and focus on what is really important for the state and its families. They don’t run to legal action and investigations every time they’re disappointed in the way things have turned out. In fact, West Virginians frown upon frivolous legal action and wastes of time and taxpayer dollars. There’s difficult work to be done, after all. There are needs upon which those who have been elected to serve must be focusing. ...