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2026

Editorials

Every time the calendar changes from one year to the next, a new agenda of hope emerges — hope built upon the desire to fix things that are wrong, make improvements where adjustments will be beneficial, pursue general betterment of one’s own community, including on behalf of the other people living there, at all times trying to exercise exemplary judgment and superior intentions on whatever the roads toward successful endeavors and outcomes. A baby symbolizes the arrival of a new year and hope, but a better example of that arrival might be success achieved during the often ...

Still pampering Pelosi

Columnists

Nancy Pelosi may be retiring from Congress, but no one should expect the DNC media to stop treating her as a most glorious political figure. She draws deep bows wherever she goes. She’s always the Best Ever. On CBS’s “Sunday Morning” in early 2024, substitute host Tracy Smith announced Pelosi “has a new book out, ‘The Art of Power’ — an art which Nancy Pelosi is something of a master.” After Pelosi bizarrely suggested Joe Biden could go on Mount Rushmore, Stahl just had to follow up with flattery: “If there were a Mount Rushmore for Speakers of the House, Nancy ...

Look Ahead

Editorials

As we wrap up one year and look hopefully ahead to the next, most in our region are looking forward to the possibility of peace, prosperity, success … all the good things that are possible when the blank slate of an entire year stretches out before us. Sure, we take some accountability by assigning resolutions to ourselves — improvement plans to which we say we will stick for 365 days. (On the other hand, some eat their pork and sauerkraut and hope for the best knowing they’ve done their part.) But it is worth asking ourselves: What do we truly want for ourselves, our families, ...

Politics in 2026

Columnists

To project onto the New Year, political prognostications are always hazardous. Unless one has a crystal ball handy, one can never be sure what will develop. However, you can speculate based on past events about what might happen in Congress and at the White House. Donald Trump faces a critical period, particularly in the first quarter of 2026. Before Christmas, he received good news in that the economy grew at a healthy 4.3%. But at the exact moment, the Supreme Court ruled that he acted unconstitutionally when he dispatched National Guard troops to Chicago. Additionally, the ...

Safe Driving

Editorials

Winter can make driving more challenging anyway in our region, but West Virginia Department of Transportation officials suggest drivers are also having a hard time navigating work sites and the presence of non-civilian vehicles. Between Dec. 12 and 19, the department reported five separate accidents in which civilian motorists were at fault when they hit DOT vehicles. “If you’ve been out in the last couple of weeks you’ve seen the traffic, you’ve seen the congestion. If you couple that with any kind of impaired driving, reckless driving, speeding, or distracted driving, it ...

Going back to the future

Columnists

By the end of this week, we will all travel forward to the future, to the year 2026, and we will have moved past the first quarter of the 21st century. It wasn’t until last week putting together my roundup of top West Virginia statehouse stories that I stopped to think about us getting through the past 25 years. It seems like yesterday that I was part of the Class of 2000 preparing for all of the computers to crash. I was born in 1982, so it’s weird to think that I have lived longer in the 21st century than I had in the 20th century. Yet, still no flying cars, still no ...