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Opinion

Lawmakers, parents must protect children

Editorials

A Pew Research Center study shows approximately 20 percent of teenagers report social media has damaged their mental health. Interacting with online platforms (this includes video games and chats) can create a host of ways for young people to endanger not just their mental health, but their physical safety, too. Republican U.S. Sens. Jon Husted of Ohio, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and John Thune of South Dakota are joining Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. and Chuck Schumer of New York in supporting the Kids Online Safety Act, which would help protect the personal data of ...

2026 looks to be interesting

Editorials

With the beginning of every year comes a sense of hope and the feeling that the future ahead of us is at least a little brighter than the past that is behind us. That’s the case as we say farewell to 2025 and welcome to 2026. Education and health care have played significant roles in our region’s economy for many years now, and that figures to continue, with major changes coming. The property where the former Eastern Gateway Community College sat along Sunset Boulevard in Steubenville will be taking on a new look, as Youngstown State University is preparing the building and ...

Our lives remain touched by many

Editorials

It’s likely that you lost a cultural icon who meant something to you during 2025, whether from the world of religion, politics, the arts or sports. Whether they helped to entertain us, on stage, on film or on television; whether they dazzled us through their accomplishments in athletics; or whether they helped to change the course of the world, each served as a reminder about the importance one person can have on countless numbers of lives. At least one of those deaths had a connection to Steubenville. Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who jumped onto the back of President John ...

No excuses for impaired driving

Editorials

New Year’s parties are about to get under way, and it is a good time to again remember not to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking or using any impairing substance at one of those events. National statistics offer a sobering look at the dangers of driving while impaired. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 12,429 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in 2023, the latest year for which statistics are available. And, NHTSA adds, about one third of traffic fatalities involve drivers with a blood-alcohol content of .08 or higher. ...

Illegal aliens break the law

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: There is no such thing as a law-abiding illegal alien. If you sneak into America, you break the law — period. I’m going to confound many Democrats: Define a man. It’s amazing how many liberals who can’t define a woman are suddenly experts on fishing boats and the economy. Liberals claim Robert Kennedy is anti-science, yet there are some liberals who tell us men can have babies. It seems like President Donald Trump holds more press conferences in one week than Joe Biden had in four years. As of the 2025 Center for Immigration Studies report, 54 percent ...

Sharing your opinions

Local Columns

No one is quite sure when the first letter to the editor appeared in a newspaper. While opinion pieces have been around since the first words were recorded, the letter to the editor in the form we recognize today has been a part of printed publications since, well, the beginning of printed publications. They seem to really have caught on in the mid-1700s, as printing presses became more common and writers looked for ways to share their thoughts with a wider audience. Whenever they actually started, they’ve continued to grow and evolve, even as the way we communicate with each ...