Breaking News

Editorials

Asphalt, oil and the high cost of smooth roads

Planning a government budget — large or small — requires a little clairvoyance. Not only does it demand looking back at the history of what was needed, but there also has to be a crystal ball to anticipate the unpredictable. One of the most prominent examples is road maintenance. Clear, usable roads are necessary for everything from economy to education to emergencies. They need to be traversable in winter, which means road salt and functioning plows. They need to be repaired in good weather, which means asphalt and heavy equipment. Planning ahead is smart. It also can be almost ...

People carry burden of Spirit departure

The consequences of war, economic policy and big business make headlines. They get talked about on cable news shows. They are discussed in board rooms and government hearings. Those are big-picture topics. They matter on a macro scale but can be hard for people to connect to their communities. The community felt it in Unity Township last week. Twenty-five workers at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport lost their jobs in the fallout from Spirit Airlines abruptly shutting down operations. Two more employees saw their hours cut. The Transportation Security Administration has informed the ...

Why the Nevada state treasurer race matters

It's challenging enough to pay attention to political races in our home states, much less those in other states. But recent headlines make clear that it's more important than ever that the klieg lights shine on these offices, and that those who occupy them face national as well as regional scrutiny. Remember Tiffany Henyard, the self-proclaimed Democrat "super mayor" of tiny Dolton, Illinois? Her unaccounted-for spending was so bad that the village brought in former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to investigate; Lightfoot's work revealed that the village of Dolton went from having a ...

Israel: A 78-Year-old miracle

On May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. It did so following a United Nations vote to partition British-ruled Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The fact Israel is still here and still flourishing 78 years later is a modern-day miracle. On the very day of its declaration, that beleaguered nation with fewer than 1 million people was attacked by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, a coalition with a combined population more than 30 times greater. Since then, Israel has resisted aggression undertaken by its neighbors in 1967, 1973 and 2023. A loss in any one of ...

Stay calm, vigilant when dealing with scammers

Decent people are assaulted regularly by scammers attempting to gain their personal information, their money, and usually, both. A new round of scam attempts has taken things up a notch by including state seals. Law abiding citizens are used to being able to believe that if something comes with that kind of official imagery, they should pay attention. And because they ARE the kinds of people who want to do the right thing, they are more likely to fall for attempts by those who would prey on their sense of responsibility by using state seals, bank logos and whatever else they can think of ...

Nursing home residents at homeless shelters reflect housing crisis

Public officials well aware of Ohio’s problems with a shortage of accessible, affordable housing might not be aware of a growing problem related to that challenge. Nursing homes are sending patients to homeless shelters at a growing rate. A Signal Ohio report earlier this month looked at nursing homes transferring “older, poorer and medically fragile” patients to homeless shelters. In fact, seven nursing home facilities in Ohio have been faulted in the past few years for efforts to dump patients into homeless shelters. Eastland Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Columbus caught ...