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Natural disasters unnaturally severe

At the time of this writing, there were 21 fires burning over 11,000 acres in West Virginia, according to the Fire, Weather and Avalanche Center. The four largest are the Steep Valley fire in the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, which has burned over 2,000 acres; the Coal Creek fire in Kanawha County, near the Boone County border, roughly 2,500 acres; the Left Fork of Long Bottom Creek fire, due north of the Coal Creek fire, around 2,400 acres; and the Glen Alum fire in Mingo County, near the Kentucky border, over 1,000 acres. The Steep Valley fire is the one garnering the ...

The war’s second front

As the wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas rage on, there is a secondary war being waged — on information and truth. As Kyle Chayka, a staff reporter for The New Yorker, recently noted, this is the second so-called “TikTok war” in recent years. The first was when the war in Ukraine started and everyday people became citizen journalists, reporting on the bloody conflict in real time. But as Chayka points out, social media and technology have changed drastically in the last year and a part. First, the major social media companies now intentionally deprioritize ...

Today, we honor those who served

Veterans Day is both for the living and the deceased. As we thank our service men and women for their service, courage and sacrifice, we also pay homage to the memory and legacy of veterans who are no longer with us. Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, in recognition of the armistice reached at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 that halted the fighting in World War I. In 1938, Nov. 11 became an official holiday to honor the surviving servicemen of the “war to end all wars” and remember those who had passed. But then there was World War II. And the Korean ...

State-mandated campus carry is a terrible policy

Last week, MetroNews’ Mike Nolting caught up with college officials around the region as they prepare to implement campus carry next July. So now seems as good a time as any to reiterate that state-mandated campus carry is a terrible policy. As a reminder, the West Virginia Legislature passed the West Virginia Self-Defense Act during the last legislative session, which will require all publicly funded colleges in the state to allow concealed carry on campus, with limited exceptions. If we’re reading the legislation correctly, concealed carry will be allowed in: residence hall ...

Start the holiday season with a visit to the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree

One can hardly blame us if we’ve begun to sing “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas …” under our breath. Between stores making the instantaneous switch from spooky season to holiday cheer and certain cable networks already running Christmas-miracle romances, it really is beginning to look like “the most wonderful time of the year.” Especially since the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree will be in our own backyard tomorrow afternoon. The 63-foot Norway Spruce was harvested from the Monongahela National Forest last week and has made several stops throughout the state as ...

Richwood Avenue: A new kind of neighborhood?

It’s exciting when projects finally move from the ephemeral world of planning to the tangible world of doing. And the Richwood Avenue development is finally ready to make that transition. By the end of the year, the 55 structures spread across 9.5 acres along Richwood Avenue should either be down or in the process of coming down, clearing the way for a new development. We hope construction on the new structures follows soon after. The most exciting thing about the Richwood development is that it’s likely to be the first one that reflects the priorities laid out in the ...