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180th Canfield Fair basks in deserved national spotlight

Longtime residents of the Mahoning Valley have recognized for decades that the Canfield Fair truly is something to crow about. Now, however, its proud blue-ribbon status has been shouted out for the entire nation and world to recognize. A recent issue of Business View, a national and international digital magazine, featured the upcoming 180th Canfield Fair as its featured profile of May 2026 with a 10-page color-illustrated spread. It rightfully trumpeted Canfield’s status as the largest county fair in the Buckeye State, the third largest in the nation and for the whopping $30 ...

Groups must rebuild trust

In April 2020, San Clemente, Calif., dumped 37 tons of sand into a skate park to keep teenagers out of it. Down the coast, deputies arrested a man for paddle boarding alone in the Pacific Ocean. Towns unbolted basketball rims. The mayor of Los Angeles told Angelenos that snitches get rewards, and, God help us, people snitched. Then Gavin Newsom went to dinner at The French Laundry. All that explains two fights now burning down county commission meetings, fights that look like they have nothing to do with COVID: data centers and Flock cameras. In March 2020, Americans closed their ...

Trump is mad — in both senses of word

WASHINGTON — The city takes a deep breath after the president’s IndyCar auto races came and went without crashing a precious Smithsonian artwork, and before Congress returns. Cicadas and tennis balls make background music. Thank god we didn’t lose a Cezanne or Renoir as IndyCar drivers circled the National Mall. Some diplomats were uninvited. I’m proud 100,000 people flocked to the daylong National Book Festival across town, outnumbering the sparse crowds at the races. We are a city of readers, the event covered by C-SPAN. Authors love to come here, and we have quite a few ...

Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To the Youngstown Fire Department for reigning supreme over other public safety forces in that city and from Warren in a recent Battle of the Badges softball tournament at 717 Credit Union Field at Eastwood. The Youngstown firefighters defeated their city police department in the opening round and then squared off against the Warren Fire Department, which had defeated that city’s police force in an earlier game. As an added bonus, the YFD plans to donate proceeds from the victory to a worthy local charity. But regardless of the results, members of all of the safety-force teams ...

Restore death penalty in Ohio, then expand it to rapists of children

The pendulum on the hypercontentious death penalty in Ohio shows promising signs toward swinging clearly in the direction of growing popular support for its application. Consider: • A July 2026 Pew Poll of 3,354 Americans found 68% of respondents view the death penalty as morally justified for those committing murder while only 28% viewed it as wrong, reversing a decadeslong general trend of majority support for its abolition. • The pace of executions across America is accelerating. The U.S. carried out 47 death-penalty sentences in 2025, nearly doubling the 25 executions from ...

Find your purpose, work your gift

During the opening week of the fall semester, I had the honor of giving the convocation remarks for The Ohio State University’s Lima campus incoming freshman class. It was a perfect autumn morning, even though I still find northwest Ohio a little nippy during this time of year. The students were engaged, appearing eager to get college underway. I began by telling them to reflect on their key life milestone of graduating from high school as they start the next chapter with their beginning courses and eventually declare a major to prepare for their future careers. I then shifted my ...