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Plan would help with child care

Editorials

For many families, finding affordable child care is one of the bigger obstacles to being able to be full participants in the workforce. Sometimes it just makes more sense for a parent to stay home with the kids than to go out into a job that perhaps doesn’t even cover the costs of child care. With the launch of Ohio’s Child Care Cred Program, funding is now available for a program that helps split the child care burden. “Ensuring a stable workforce for Ohio’s growing economy encourages us to support our working families,” said state Sen. Tim Schaffer, R-Lancaster. “By ...

Keeping everyone safe should be goal

Editorials

Every once in a while, politicians will float the question of whether drivers should have to retake their tests as a requirement for license renewal after a certain age. With age comes the possibility of reduced vision, perhaps hearing loss, reduced reflexes and other changes we all laugh about as a fact of life until someone mentions them in the context of affecting a person’s ability to drive safely. Then pride kicks in. Well, pride and a little stubbornness as most of us bristle at the idea of the government telling us it’s possible we are less able to do something we’ve ...

Glimpse inside the mailbox

Local Columns

There are few constants in a newspaper office. But that’s the very thing that always has made them a great place to be. While you can come to work with a pretty solid plan of how you’ll spend most of your hours, the reality is something will always come up that will force you to go in a different direction — sometimes in many varying ways all at the same time. It’s the kind of work that isn’t for everyone. If you are the type of person who always has to be in a structured environment, you will be better off in a different profession. Something that never seems to ...

More questions about diocese

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: The disassembling of the Diocese of Steubenville looks to be nearly complete. Thanks to the efforts of Bishops Daniel Conlon (2002-2011) and Jefferey Monforton (2012-2023), the agenda has been to scatter faithful parish communities by closing their churches. The hierarchy for the Diocese of Steubenville — Archdiocese of Cincinnati Archbishops Daniel Pilarczyk (1982-2009) and Dennis Schurr (2008-2025) — along with apostolic nuncios — Cardinals Gabriel Higuera (1998-2005), Pietro Sambi (2005-2011) Carlo Vigano (2011-2016) and Christophe Pierre (2016- present) ...

Guest column/A. Eileen Cozart’s extensive works being digitized

Local Columns

(Editor’s note: Alan Hall, the longtime director of the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County, was a frequent contributor to the Herald-Star. His writing continued after he retired and became director emeritus. This column was written before his death on Sept. 12 at the age of 71.) A. Eileen Cozart was her name, and we first met in 1983 when I was named the new director of the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County. She entered the Main Library several days a week, and went directly to the microfilm reader located on the balcony in those days. She ...

Guest column/The original AI: Newspapers run on accurate information

Local Columns

Artificial intelligence is going to transform everything we watch, hear and read. You can already see it happening. Asking an AI search engine a question about an obscure fact can yield quick and surprisingly detailed responses. Type in a cellphone model number and you’re suddenly a highly informed consumer. And when it comes to transforming legendary television show casts into babies, AI is world-class. But news? AI-fueled news poses problems. The first is that news is about reality. AI provides tools to bend reality. We’re seeing a wave of AI-abetted falsehoods and ...