Breaking News

Editorials

Local schools just need to keep getting better

Ohio’s Department of Education has released this year’s School Report Cards, and results are underwhelming. Still, the ODE points out “Report Cards are designed to give parents, communities, educators and policymakers information about the performance of districts and schools — to celebrate achievement and success and identify areas for improvement.” In other words, they are a tool that should help us do better for our kids. Nobody is out to bash a particular underachieving district. Just to cast light on a need for betterment. In each of our county newspapers we have been ...

Redistricting process keeps running an obstacle course

What a mess. Ohio’s redistricting process just keeps running up against one political obstacle after another. Late last week there was a double hit, as Thursday night Gov. Mike DeWine canceled a planned Friday meeting of the Ohio Redistricting Commission because Republican lawmakers still cannot agree on who to appoint as their party’s co-chair on the commission. And, state Attorney General Dave Yost again rejected petition language for a constitutional amendment that would change the system for making political maps. Though representatives of Citizens Not Politicians maintain ...

Nazi gesture is a consequence of a poor choice by voters

In a stunning reminder that too many of our politicians have very little understanding of our nation’s (and humanity’s) history — and aren’t embarrassed to display it, Tipp City (Ohio) Board of Education member Anne Zakkour gave a Nazi salute and proclaimed “Sieg Heil” during a school board meeting earlier this week. To be clear, she said the hand / arm gesture and repetition of the Nazi victory salute was meant to be “a sarcastic” gesture because she did not like the way then-board president Simon Patry ran meetings, according to a report by WCTI. Perhaps part of what ...

Redistricting Commission needs to get it together

It’s getting harder to ignore the Ohio Redistricting Commission’s regular, blatant declarations that they are unwilling to do their job for Ohio residents. Last time the process was kicked off to redraw statehouse voting maps with a meeting in which the commission did precisely nothing. Wednesday, the first meeting in a renewed attempt at the process ended with once again not a thing accomplished, and the revelation that members of the commission can’t even be trusted to agree upon co-chairs. According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, the seven members of the commission met for the ...

So, what happened to the sense of rail safety urgency?

Federal lawmakers who have been quietly ignoring calls to reform railroad safety regulations and enforcement appear to have given at least one rail giant the courage it needed to continue to ignore safety in general. It has been more than seven months since a Norfolk Southern train derailed and caught fire in East Palestine. In the wake of that disaster, a brief sense of urgency gripped a few in Congress. But the results of a recent Federal Railroad Administration inspection of Union Pacific locomotives and railcars in a Nebraska railyard indicate that sense of urgency was not ...

Today is the anniversary of a horrific day in history

Today marks the 22nd anniversary of one of the most horrific days in the history of the United States. Yes, it has been that long already. If you need to be told exactly what significant, nation-altering event we are observing then, well, you are not much of an American. Period. Tributes and memorials will mark today — two decades and two years since the acts of terrorism across our skies with planes plunging to earth and creating mass casualties. We remember the tragedies of that day. We remember the sacrifices and acts of heroism. Local tributes will be paid throughout our region. ...