Breaking News

Editorials

Giving Tuesday

You’ve made it through Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Artists Sunday and Cyber Monday. It’s a long series of days on which businesses big and small and even some individuals are hoping you’ll be spending some (or all) of your holiday shopping budget with them. Now we have reached Giving Tuesday, a day organizers say “unleashes the power of radical generosity around the world.” Sure, there’s a financial component to this, too. Those who have the resources should, indeed, take advantage of today to give what they are able to nonprofits that support the most ...

NOPAIN

While the acronym might have been a bit of a stretch, the Non-Opioids Prevent Addiction in the Nation (NOPAIN) for Veterans Act is still a long-overdue piece of legislation, introduced recently by U.S. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Given all this country — and particularly our region — has been through because of the substance abuse epidemic, it is a bit of a surprise no one has worked toward such a measure for those who have served. This one would expand veteran access to non-opioid alternatives by creating pathways for Food and Drug ...

Professionals

U.S. Department of Education officials missed the mark badly when they decided, purportedly in a revision that is part of the Big Beautiful Bill, to eliminate nursing, physical therapy, public health and other fields from those graduate study fields in which students are able to borrow loans up to the cost of their degree. Those programs are not, in the opinion of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., “professional.” In fact, only the following fields are now defined as professional programs, according to the Education Department: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, ...

Small Business Saturday

Those who have endured the madness of Black Friday and still have plenty of holiday shopping to do should consider using this Small Business Saturday to explore retailers (and gift ideas) that will help add a personal touch to your giving. Since 2010, the annual event has celebrated small, independent businesses in our communities. American Express estimates as much as $22 billion was spent on Small Business Saturday in 2024. For the 99.9% of businesses in the U.S. that qualify as “small,” according to Forbes, that kind of spending is essential. It helps employ more than 62 ...

Gratitude

While the origins of our modern Thanksgiving Day are more a matter of many traditions eventually running into a single idea than the straight line from familiar paintings of the Plymouth Colony’s observance more than 400 years ago to our holiday tables today, there is a common theme: gratitude. Thanksgiving is a day on which we celebrate with friends and family (for which, presumably, we are grateful) with an abundance of food, parades, football and other traditions that also help us remember how richly blessed many of us are, here. It is a day on which many can be grateful there ...

Economy

Something about the relationship between Toyota and West Virginia should be studied by those hoping to expand and diversify our state’s economy. Since the days of former U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s encouragement of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing project in Buffalo, W.Va., the partnership between the state and Japan has been rock solid. Now, Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia is expanding with a nearly half-billion-dollar investment in increasing the assembly of four-cylinder hybrid-compatible engines, sixth-generation hybrid transaxles and rear motor stators. “What really ...