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Priorities facing legislative scrutiny

Gov. Mike DeWine hit the right notes on several priorities in his State of the State address, legislators from the Mahoning Valley said, but how many of them will survive scrutiny and be funded after review by the General Assembly? During last year’s State of the State, DeWine listed several priorities with some getting passed, such as clamping down on driving while texting and investing in Appalachia. Others went nowhere, like increasing penalties for “dangerous felons.” The Valley’s state legislative delegation had largely positive things to say about DeWine’s speech and ...

Fentanyl: No compromise

My family welcomed the arrival of a new baby a couple of days after Christmas. As Alex was passed from one to another, I watched the care and love on each face, the gentleness in the way they held him, the easy smiles that lit up eyes and uplifted hearts. It is so natural to trust, to allow ourselves to be vulnerable to a young child. Parents still hold their new babies and dream dreams for them, to make the children’s lives special, better than what they had when they were children. We all want wonderful things for the tiny babies we snuggle against us so protectively. It is good ...

Rebuilding our nation’s mineral supply chains begin with permitting them

An American mining renaissance is within reach. Congress and the Biden administration have worked to support development of the secure, reliable, and responsible mineral supply chains that our economy, energy future, and national security demand. But for all the momentum to rebuild and modernize our industrial base, a failure to address the nation’s broken mine permitting process threatens to undercut the entire effort. Permitting challenges are ubiquitous across American infrastructure. In fact, they’ve become outsized obstacles to modernizing and building the roads, electricity ...

Positive wall building

Build a worry wall. Replace it with an optimism wall. In case you hadn’t noticed, I tend to promote positive-thinking and hope. You may or may not recall Pandora’s box. According to Greek myth, Pandora was the first woman on Earth, created by the gods. (By the way, her name means “the one who bears all gifts.) Each of the gods involved gave her a gift, each one “beautifully evil.” But she was not allowed to open the box. The long story short, Pandora’s curiosity got the best of her. She opened the box. Before she could close it back up, all of the gifts escaped but one. ...

Good for older adults to make resolutions

Editor’s note: The following column was originally published Jan. 1, 2022. ——— Thanks to breakthroughs in medicine and nutrition in recent years, we are living longer than ever before. But this increase in life expectancy also brings an increase in the number of diseases, injuries and impairments that affect older adults. With this in mind, we at the local Visiting Angels office in Salem have created this series of articles to keep our older population and their families informed and to offer some practical advice for meeting the challenges faced by seniors and those who care ...

Looking back over the year

We are on the other side of the Deep Freeze of December 2022. We are ready to close the book that was written over the year. And do you remember Y2K and the fear that the world was coming to an end? How much has changed in the last quarter of a century! But babies continue to be born. Children still go to school to learn. Everyone continues on their life journeys including loving old friends, making new ones and making plans for the future as they also live in the moment. This seems like a good opportunity to review the information, the outreach to readers who come to this place week ...