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Opinion

Holidays Are Here

Editorials

If you have been arguing with members of your household about whether the time is right for putting up Christmas decorations (ahead of Thanksgiving), perhaps try mentioning that the bells are already ringing at local retail establishments that host Salvation Army red kettles. The season has begun. It’s hard to ignore the feeling that comes with hearing that familiar jingle as you go about your shopping and running errands. It’s harder to stay grumpy about whether it is too early for a certain Christmas song to become omnipresent or your neighbor’s roofline-high inflatable ...

Broadband

Editorials

Federal money is helping a little when it comes to West Virginia’s broadband internet woes, but despite being one of the most improved states in the country on that front, we STILL are the worst connected state in the nation — worse than even Mississippi and Puerto Rico. That gives some idea of just how far behind we had fallen when it comes to getting Mountain State residents affordable access to the quality broadband internet service that is regarded as a basic utility in most of the rest of the United States. The average for connected households everywhere else is 93.2%. Here, ...

Drawing fire

Columnists

Admittedly, Democrats have problems, but take a gander at MAGA. With the Epstein affair heating up, President Donald Trump has become increasingly testy. So irritated, he has become nasty to some of his earliest and best supporters. One backer that has drawn his fire is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Her crime in Trump‘s eyes was that she signed the discharge petition, which forced a vote on the release of the Epstein files. Now, despite her old status as a heroine of the MAGA movement, Greene is now denounced by Trump as “wacky” and, to put a finer point on his view, “a traitor”. ...

Failure

Editorials

West Virginians knew our state’s child welfare system was a mess — and regularly failing children and families — toward the end of the Justice administration, but a report by the U.S. Department of Human Services Office of Inspector General shows us the situation may have been even worse than we thought. In a 100-case sample, the report showed the state’s Bureau of Social Services failed to comply with child abuse and neglect requirements 91% of the time: 74 reports did not include a required written notification letter; initial assessments were not completed within 30 days of ...

Education

Editorials

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 19, the 323rd day of 2025. There are 42 days left in the year. Today in history: On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the famous Gettysburg Address at the dedication of a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Also on this date: In 1959, Ford Motor Co. announced it was halting production of the unpopular Edsel. In 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made the second crewed landing on the moon. In 1975, the dramatic film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was ...

Charities

Editorials

Charities here and elsewhere across the United States might have experienced a mild “mood boost” in June when the Associated Press reported that, after an adjustment for inflation, charitable giving in 2024 was found to have been up by 3.3% over 2023. But just as the busy “make-or-break” 2025 holiday shopping season is about to kick into high gear, perhaps that less-than-robust mood boost of five months ago might have to be replaced by a sense of caution more significant than any existing a year earlier. Much volatility has impacted the business-industrial climate this year ...