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Late-arriving ballots will not be counted

Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican responsible for overseeing elections in Ohio, often says that in this state “it’s easy to vote and hard to cheat.” Yet Republicans continue to follow President Donald Trump’s lead by restricting voting despite the minuscule instances of fraud in Ohio. The latest law, approved Nov. 19 by the General Assembly and signed Dec. 19 by Gov. Mike DeWine, requires all mail-in ballots to arrive at county boards of elections no later than the same day as the election. Before that, voters had to have their ballots postmarked by the day before ...

Wrinkles can be brought on quicker with UV light exposure

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published Nov. 14, 2020. 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 for ...

AG Yost highlights 2025 human trafficking wins

Reducing the demand for human trafficking remained a top priority for Attorney General Dave Yost in 2025, as evidenced by task force successes and changed lives. Following is a press release from his office that we present as a guest column today on criminal activity we should all be aware of and on the look out for during our day-to-day lives: “Our message is simple: Don’t buy sex in Ohio,” said AG Yost. “Every time we arrest a trafficker, raid an illicit massage parlor or free a victim from a tormentor, we move closer to the day when no human is bought or sold in our ...

Gov. DeWine’s statement on anti-fraud measures for public-funded childcare

To avoid Ohio’s publicly-funded childcare system from becoming an absolute disaster like Minnesota, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued a statement. We laud his leadership in doing so. The waste of tens of millions of taxpayer-dollars was — and who knows? — still likely going on in Minnesota is pathetic and all involved including the fraudsters and those in public service who neglected oversight should be fully prosecuted. Right, go ahead and chuckle now. The governor’s statement reads: “People are rightfully concerned about what is happening with state-funded childcare facilities ...

What can we do to make what we want to happen?

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’” — Alfred Lord Tennyson, British poet 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 ...

Annual New Year’s don’t drink and drive message

The message is one we feel obliged to repeat this time each year. There are some people across our country, across our state and across our own area who will awaken today with a brand new year in the offing helped along with a drink or more. There will be so much promise and anticipation for 2026. These folks will celebrate and share good times tonight with family and friends as midnight beckons the fleeting hands of 2025’s clock. They will sing — or slur — along to “Auld Lang Syne.” Even if they don’t know all of the words. Which, actually, most of us couldn’t recite ...