The San Francisco Police Department announced last week it will stop releasing mug shots of people arrested unless those people pose a threat to the public. The decision comes in an effort to stop perpetuating racial stereotypes, police Chief Bill Scott announced. He said the department no ...
“It’s a murder hornet,” the headline in Monday’s Vindicator warned. Sure, that might sound frightening, but “only if you’re a bee,” it continued. The story detailed the recent arrival of native Asian “murder hornets” to America’s northern Pacific coast and what it ...
The thought that kept flashing through my mind Monday was, “And I thought things were tough here.” I was reading a shocking Associated Press story about award-winning journalist Maria Ressa who apparently had been critical of the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration and ...
In Ohio, like most states, residents may easily access a public database of disciplinary records involving any educator licensed to teach our youth in the state of Ohio. Same goes for medical doctors, psychologists, dentists and even lawyers who practice here. Easy public access to this ...
By now, we’ve all seen the hard-to-watch video depicting former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin calmly kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed George Floyd. Chauvin remains in the position for several minutes, appearing undaunted by Floyd’s pleas and even when Floyd falls ...
Little did we know when my eldest son, a senior at Youngstown State University, headed off in March to Fort Lauderdale for a last hurrah during spring break with his college friends that it REALLY would be a last hurrah for college. I recall my mother asking in the early days of the ...
Scotch-taped to the computer monitor in my very messy newsroom office are a few things critical to my daily routine that I have collected through the years. There’s a list of the telephone extension numbers for members of my staff. There is a photocopy of the AP Stylebook page delineating ...
For as long as I can remember, we’ve had a light-hearted saying in our newsroom: “All roads lead to the Mahoning Valley.” It originated because reporters and editors here always have marveled at how every big national news story seems to have some amazing connection to our Valley. ...
I noticed on Facebook last week a longtime friend’s post linking to a national news story discussing censorship in America. According to the Fox News report and host Tucker Carlson, YouTube, a worldwide online video sharing site owned by Google, recently removed a video posted by two ...
Undoubtedly, the most used buzzword today is “social distancing.” Until about two months ago, I can’t say that I ever had heard the term. And if I had heard it mentioned out of context, I might have assumed it referred to people like my mom who has never once engaged in any form of ...