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Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To Dr. Robert Ricchiuti and Phyllis Ricchiuti for their prestigious and deserving honor as winners of this year’s Friends of the University Award from Youngstown State University. The high honor shows appreciation for their extraordinary leadership, philanthropy and lasting impact on YSU and the Mahoning Valley. More specifically, the Ricchiutis financed and launched The Paula and Anthony Rich Center for the Study and Treatment of Autism 31 years ago in memory of family members. Since then, it has grown into a formidable and nationally recognized institution that transforms the ...

Add muscle to Ohio laws on sexual assault

Most Ohioans likely will find little solace in knowing the official scope of rape and sexual violence in the Buckeye State has declined ever so slightly in recent years. According to a recent report from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services, the statewide sexual assault crime rate dropped 4.3% between 2016 and 2023 in Ohio. That slight ray of hope, however, is completely overshadowed by other data that clearly illustrates sexual violence remains a painful, powerful and destructive cancer on our state. Consider: ● The Incident-Based Reporting System within the Ohio Office ...

Lesson in economics for AOC

I am not an economist, but I do have some personal experience with the principles of economics and the rules that allow Americans to prosper while becoming more self-reliant and less dependent on government. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., aka AOC, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, graduated from Boston University cum laude, and then returned to the Bronx and worked as a bartender and waitress to help her mother fight foreclosure of their home. Nothing wrong with that, but her life experience apparently has taught her little. In some recent comments she claimed that ...

What’s so bad about a stable population?

Back in 1969, President Richard Nixon warned Congress against the rapid growth of the American population: “When future generations evaluate the record of our time, one of the most important factors in their judgment will be the way in which we responded to population growth.” If the American headcount continued rising at the current rate, Nixon said, the nation’s “social supplies — the capacity to educate youth, to provide privacy and living space, to maintain the processes of open, democratic government — may be grievously strained.” Since 1969, America’s ...

When killing becomes commonplace

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” — Voltaire (1694-1778) Last week, when the Pentagon resumed its attacks on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, the media barely noticed. The U.S. military has now destroyed 56 vessels and killed 190 people. The killings began in September 2025 and have continued to this month. The attacks caused a stir a few months ago when one of the strikes disabled the boat at which the attack was aimed but failed to kill all the passengers. ...

Has Trump’s Republican Party become a criminal enterprise?

Last Saturday, Trump took revenge on Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy for Cassidy’s vote five years ago to convict Trump, in his second impeachment, for instigating an attack on the U.S. Capitol. Cassidy thereby became the first GOP senator defeated by a Trump-endorsed candidate in a Republican primary. (Other Republican senators who have stood up to Trump — such as North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and Utah’s Mitt Romney — saw the writing on the wall and didn’t seek reelection.) Trump’s purge of Cassidy comes in the wake of Trump’s purges of House Republicans who stood up to ...