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Rulli’s loyalty to Trump on display in resolution

The 6th Congressional District is a Republican stronghold. In last year’s presidential election, Republican Donald Trump got 66.4% of the district’s vote to 32.8% for Democrat Kamala Harris with other candidates picking up 0.8%. So Trump beat Harris by 33.6%. In that same election, U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, got 66.7% of the vote to 33.4% for Democrat Michael L. Kripchak of Youngstown. Rulli won by 33.3%. Kripchak said he will again challenge Rulli in the 2026 election and Democrat Malcolm Ritchie of Dover has filed a statement with the Federal Election Commission to run ...

AI is upending the job market but this industry is hiring

Today’s college graduates face a startling reality. Many of the jobs they were hoping for are rapidly disappearing because of AI (artificial intelligence). As Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” fame recently observed, “We’ve been telling kids for 15 years to learn to code. Well, AI is coming for the coders.” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg agrees. He predicts that most Meta code will be written by AI in the next 12-18 months. The great disruption is here. Many entry-level office jobs—from coders and analysts to researchers and writers—are being eaten by AI. The unemployment rate ...

Speaker of Ohio House endorsing Ramaswamy

In 2012, I was invited to a conference held by the Milton Friedman Institute in Indianapolis. The Institute invited 20 or so legislators from around the country to discuss school choice issues and how much progress had been made to that point. Like most conferences we heard from a variety of speakers, one of whom was Tony Bennett (not the singer and not the basketball coach), the Superintendent of Education from the State of Indiana. Bennett oversaw the institution of educational reforms including expanding School Choice options for then Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. Bennett made a ...

Closing the digital divide across Ohio

In today’s digital age, access to high-speed internet is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. Yet, Ohio lags behind much of the U.S. in broadband availability. According to a study last year by BroadbandNow, which collects and analyzes internet service provider plans to help consumers find and compare options, Ohio is ranked 30th among states for internet coverage, speed and availability. For more advanced services, the picture worsens. The study shows that only 34.2% of Buckeye State residents have access to 1G broadband—that ranks 47th among states. Digging down further, a ...

Ohio Democrats are in a holding pattern

With Sherrod Brown, a former U.S. senator, considering a return to politics by either running for a seat in the Senate or for governor next year, both races on the Democratic side remain up in the air. Actually the entire Democratic ticket for 2026, unlike the Republicans, is uncertain. When Brown will make his decision on whether to run for Senate, governor or at all isn’t known, but it should be in a few months. Dr. Amy Acton, the party’s only declared candidate for governor, told me during a recent visit to Youngstown: “Sherrod Brown will probably be making some decisions ...

Lawmakers: Please avoid this first, which will hurt our industry

Being the first is normally a good thing. Ask Ohio natives Thomas Edison, Neil Armstrong or the Wright Brothers. But first isn’t always best. And if some Ohio lawmakers have their way, the Buckeye State will be the first in the nation to assess a sales tax on newspapers. House Bill 96, ...