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Brenda J. Linert

Success of local Relays not likely to slip away

We all know someone who has experienced cancer in some form. Along with the pain and fear of the unknown that we’ve come to recognize, we also likely have seen courage, fight and hope stemming from new treatments, drugs and other experimental options increasingly producing new successes in the cancer battle. While much of the experimentation is occurring in big-city research hospitals and high-tech laboratories, we must never underestimate contributions to that work that originates, in part, from our little hometowns. For 26 years now, the Warren Relay For Life has been among ...

With more information comes growth

Criticism comes frequently in my business, sometimes from people accusing journalists of going too far in reporting details that they believe border on sensationalism or cross the line of what should be considered public information. Nowadays some critics simply take to social media to share anger with the media with their online friends and followers. It often appears their goal is not to confront the journalist in any real attempt to get answers about why we do what we do, but rather they somehow hope to “win” by creating a forum to commiserate or turn people against the ...

Planning is key in high school education

I can’t count how many times I’ve lectured my sons on the troubles that come with school work procrastination. Sure, my boys still would put off until tomorrow school work that they could have done today. But then again, they were in high school! So what’s the excuse for the grown-ups in Columbus running Ohio’s education system? Why is it that Ohio’s legislators and state education leaders feel the need to constantly change the rules on high school graduation requirements? And even worse, why do they do it at the last minute? State lawmakers just in December passed ...

Body camera law brings limits to access

A new Ohio law took effect April 8, creating specific guidelines for openness involving police body camera videos now being recorded by officers in many Ohio jurisdictions, including some in Trumbull and Mahoning counties. While the new guidelines were sorely needed, the law, Ohio House Bill 425, creates new exemptions to the ever-growing list of previously open public records that now are closed to the media and, hence, to the public. The new body camera law exempts from disclosure body camera footage that captures dead or grievously injured bodies (unless the death or injury was ...

The dangers of being a good Samaritan

As the cynics say, no good deed goes unpunished. That became abundantly clear in an editorial I read this week published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The story detailed how the opioid crisis impacted the life of Sharon White of Delaware County, in eastern Pennsylvania, beginning in 2012. Here is the Inquirer’s commentary: White saw loved ones suffering from addiction and struggling to find resources to get better. She scaled back her commercial real estate business and decided to become a recovery specialist. She became involved in the effort to expand access to Naloxone ...

It took only little more than three months into his term for new Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to make good on his promise to sign into law Ohio’s so-called “heartbeat” bill. Under the legislation — among the toughest anti-abortion laws in the nation — it will be illegal in Ohio to terminate a pregnancy by the time the fetus’s heartbeat can be detected — normally around six weeks into a pregnancy. The law will take effect in July. The law will punish doctors and other practitioners who perform abortions after they detect a heartbeat or if they fail to perform an ...