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Our anthem’s question: After 250 years, how are we doing?

Editorials

After hearing and singing our national anthem throughout our lives, we may miss the grammatical twist at its heart. Its entire text is a question. When Francis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled Banner in 1814, its question was literal for him: “O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light; What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming…?” Captive on a British ship during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, he could see our flag still flying in the flashes of artillery that lit up the dark. Come dawn, however, he wondered who won the battle. America had, and the Battle ...

JD’s foreign policy directives invite great harm

Editorials

There is a coherent world view behind the vice president’s foreign policy and that is exactly the problem. J.D. Vance does not stumble into the outcomes he produces. He believes in them. He sees a tripartite world with America secured in its own hemisphere, Russia dominant across its near abroad and China supreme in Asia. He appears willing to trade away 70 years of American primacy to build it. The retreat is the design. Start with Iran. Vance made himself the public face of a memorandum of understanding that reopens the Strait of Hormuz toll-free, lifts the naval blockade and ...

Pete Hegseth’s vaccine policy has backfired

Editorials

An influenza outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas has sickened almost 160 people in the past few weeks and might have even killed one person going through basic training. If it wasn’t already clear why Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to eliminate the military’s universal flu vaccine mandate was an exceptionally bad idea, it should be now. Hegseth announced the policy change in April, and since then, fewer than half of Air Force trainees have opted to get the shot. The vaccine does not provide perfect protection, but it reduces infections, lessens the severity ...

The next American century can be built here in Ohio

Editorials

Ronald Reagan understood that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Preserving it requires more than resolve. It requires the willingness to build. As Ohioans celebrate America’s 250th birthday, we face a test Reagan would have recognized. We confront a rising authoritarian adversary, a technology race with profound consequences for both prosperity and security and a question of whether this generation has the will to compete. The answer must be yes, and Ohio has a vital role to play. The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI’s 2026 AI Index makes ...

East Palestine residents still dealing with toxic exposure

Editorials

While lawmakers continue to sit on their hands and pretend they don’t know railroad safety reform is necessary, a new report by The Guardian focuses on research that indicates exposure to the chemicals released in a 2023 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine DID damage the bodies of those who were exposed. According to The Guardian, a peer-reviewed pilot study showed some East Palestine residents’ immune systems still are “responding to toxic chemical exposures” by fighting off an attack, or repairing their bodies. “Compared with a control group, East Palestine ...

Immigration program won’t go away

Editorials

The last two decades have been a continuous adventure in redefining the phrase “white supremacy” to include less and less pertinent things. The latest is that the Supreme Court has allegedly joined forces with President Donald Trump to “advance an authoritarian, white-supremacist agenda” — in the words of Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez — by saying he can end so-called Temporary Protected Status for immigrants. A headline in the left-wing magazine The Nation read, “The Supreme Court Once Again Endorses Trump’s Racism.” The court decision is facially ...