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Editorial

Most of us try to shop responsibly, but for some items, we don’t know what we don’t know. For example, how many use coyote urine to keep deer out of gardens? How many think about how the key ingredient is acquired? “People don’t know that when they buy products that they might be endorsing a fur farm, including myself,” Susan Vogt, founder and president of Red Riding Hood Rescue Project in Middletown, Ohio, told WCPO in Cincinnati. Vogt was speaking to the news station after having helped save hundreds of animals from an Ashtabula County fur farm in January. Vogt ...

Gap remains in health care coverage for Ohio veterans

Taking care of our veterans is a priority for Ohioans. But despite our best efforts, there is still a health care coverage cap that leaves thousands of them without the resources they deserve. According to a report by WCPO in Cincinnati, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says there are approximately 29,200 veterans in Ohio — those who served in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan — who are not registered for health care coverage. The U.S. Census Bureau reports there were more than 602,000 veterans living in the Buckeye State in 2022. With that perspective, it’s ...

Ohio Senate Bill 19 would address math comprehension

Ohio lawmakers digesting the results of the latest National Center for Education Statistics report card are right to be scrambling for ideas. One pitched by state Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, is nothing new, but very much worth considering. Senate Bill 19 would require school districts or individual schools to develop math achievement improvement plans if they don’t have at least 52% of students receive a proficient score in math comprehension, according to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal. It would also require math improvement and monitoring plans for individual students who ...

Data: Childcare challenges overwhelming some parents

Ohio lawmakers have a lot to navigate lately, but recently released data from Groundwork Ohio should give them new tools to understand where working families need them to focus. According to a report based on responses from nearly 500 Ohio parents, Groundwork Ohio says approximately one-third choose to stay home rather than pay high childcare costs. WBNS reported 66% of those parents said they were struggling — an astonishing increase from the 10% who answered similarly in 2023. Approximately one million parents have been forced to reduce the number of hours worked to help care for ...

Lawmakers’ attention to RR safety doesn’t amount to a hill of beans

Norfolk Southern has suffered another derailment — although this one, thank goodness, was more an inconvenience than a disaster. Monday morning, at the company’s rail yard near Portsmouth, Ohio, eight cars of a train carrying several thousand pounds of soybeans derailed. Three of those cars turned over completely. Scioto County Emergency Management Director Larry Mullins told WCHS the derailment was caused by extreme weather, which led rails at Norfolk Southern’s yard to freeze, thaw, become brittle and break. It’s enough to make one wonder whether knowing such damage was ...

Make sure you will be good to vote in the next election

As we catch our breath and settle in to the new normal of a political landscape changed by the November 2024 general election, there is not much time before we must turn our attention to the May 2025 election in Ohio. Eligible voters must not sit this one out, believing the heavy lifting is done for a while. In fact, decisions that have a much greater chance of affecting our everyday lives will be made this spring — city councils, ballot issues affecting our schools … there is a lot on which we must weigh in. To that end, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has issued a reminder ...