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Effects of the Freeze

Those who took a deep breath and exhaled upon learning a federal Office of Management and Budget memo to pause federal assistance had itself been paused might want to take another look at what happened anyway. According to a report by WCHS, some nonprofits in West Virginia are being forced to scale back and lay off employees, despite the OMB memo being rescinded. The Appalachian Center for Independent Living told WCHS it had to begin staff layoffs Jan. 31. “Despite the withdrawal Tuesday night of the OMB Memo freezing all federal grant payments, the Center has received no ...

Bad News

In one of his first actions as West Virginia’s new governor, Patrick Morrisey ordered an economic “Backyard Brawl” with our neighboring states. That’s a great goal, as the least we can do is be competitive with our border states — Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky and Virginia — when it comes to both retaining and attracting residents and businesses.  But perhaps the place to start if we want meaningful comparisons with our border states would be in public education. According to the latest results from the 2024 Nation’s Report Card, as administered by the National ...

Real ID

It seems like a lifetime ago — back in 2005, as a response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Congress passed the Real ID Act. At the time, the idea was to have the program implemented by 2008, but opposition and other delays pushed the timeline. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic extended more than once the deadline for individuals getting identification documents that satisfy Real ID Act standards. But now, the agreed-upon deadline is approaching rapidly. It is a mere three months away. Across the country, states are urging residents who have not already done so to collect the ...

Mystery

“There’s no question we’re missing something,” said Dr. Marwan Fakih, a gastrointestinal oncologist at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., while lamenting about a cancer mystery that is confounding doctors and other medical researchers. Fakih’s comment was included in an article in the Jan. 4-5 edition of the Wall Street Journal — an article headlined “Focus on young people’s cancer turns to gut.” According to the Journal’s article, cancer rates have fallen for older adults in recent years, but gastrointestinal cancers, across the world, are increasing among people ...

No Reason to Smile

We’ve all heard the jokes — nasty little jabs about West Virginians’ dental health that plenty of us rushed to call unfair and untrue. They’ve been around for generations. The problem is, there is some truth to the idea that we’ve got a problem here. According to WalletHub’s “States with the Best and Worst Dental Health (2025),” the Mountain State is not quite dead last, but close. We are 49th, ahead of only Mississippi and Arkansas. We are 38th for dental habits and care, and dead last (51st) for oral health. West Virginia is 50th for the percentage of adults who ...

Safety

For many young people, the gifts under the tree this holiday season just past included a tech gadget or two — maybe a new phone, maybe a new video game system. Some of them may still be spending time in their rooms connecting to the internet, social media or others playing the same video game half a world away. Parents and guardians must not wait in preparing them for how to make those connections safely, as the virtual world contains many more real dangers than they will encounter in a school library or public restroom. In the virtual world, there lurk individuals such as the ...