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Orchids & onions

Editorials

ORCHID: To Mary Ann Franklin, the compassionate grand dame of Warren, for her years of devoted and selfless community service to the city. Franklin, at a spry 99 years young, rightly received a key to the city and a proclamation of honor last week from Mayor Doug Franklin (no relation to Mary Ann). Over the years, she has worked tirelessly in instilling pride in the city, beautifying urban areas with community gardens, reinvigorating Quinby Park to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, serving on city boards and advocating strongly for Juneteenth observances in the community ...

A word from the other side

Editorials

President Trump and Vice President Vance spent most of last week trying to convince Americans the “Memo of Understanding” (MOU) with Iran is a good deal for the United States and world peace. That’s not what Iran believes. Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has hailed the MOU as a major “victory” for Tehran. The “greater jihad” would now begin, he promised, according to a speech aired by Iranian state media last week. You read that correctly. The greater Jihad. To some this might sound like the same ...

Taking a deeper dive into Trump Reflecting Pool mess

David Skolnick

There are two variations on an old saying about the Mahoning Valley and news. One is “All roads lead to the Mahoning Valley,” and the other is “There’s always a Valley connection.” While it’s certainly not the case, it does happen considerably more times than you’d expect — and rarely is it good news. The latest, of course, is the controversial project by President Donald Trump to the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which ended up turning it green because of algae blooms. The federal government gave two no-bid contracts for this project. The smaller of ...

Democratic Socialists on the rise

Editorials

The story of the year in American politics so far, after Donald Trump ’s falling popularity, is the rise of the Democratic Socialists. Their influence bears watching as the next generation tries to fulfill Bernie Sanders’s goal of taking over the Democratic Party. Avowed Democratic Socialists of America candidate Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic nomination for mayor of Washington, D.C., last week, and it wasn’t close. The 38-year-old won 53.5%-35.9% over mainstream black Democrat Kenyan McDuffie, and she did better in some upscale white areas than in the city’s black ...

The MOU with Iran is just awful

Editorials

Last week, my column dealt with President Donald Trump’s declaration that the “Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete” — it isn’t — and the release of the White House’s “Talking Points” related to the already infamous “Memorandum of Understanding” that has been signed and is now being sold (unconvincingly) by Vice President JD Vance who has suddenly reappeared on the scene. And as we expected, the MOU — which was supposedly so amazing that the Trump administration refused to publish it until after it was signed — is just awful, demonstrating in ...

Technology is only great when it works

Editorials

Companies that jump on the latest trendy technology a little too early are often stuck with the bill when it doesn’t turn out to fulfill all its promise. In Dublin, Ohio, taxpayers had to foot the bill for a K5 autonomous security robot the police department called “DubBot,” after it failed miserably at its job. According to a report by the website Futurism, which cited a Columbus Dispatch report, DubBot helped make no arrests and issued no tickets during its less-than-a-year on the job. Or, as the department spokesperson put it, it “wasn’t meeting operational ...