What in the hell is wrong with the legislators in West Virginia? Read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave all schools across the country a general outline and guidance on Friday, urging them all to fully reopen this fall by tailoring their public health measures to local coronavirus data. And in West Virginia, where vaccination levels lag… Read more

To a West Virginia Department of Education grant that enabled a school-run, no-fee STEM Camp in Summers County, which has ignited a firestorm of enthusiasm in its 107 student participants. So far this summer, campers have built oceans in a bottle, redesigned the Titanic to make it safer and … Read more

The city will be celebrating this Thursday, as it should, the retirement of the 30-year note on Historic Black Knight Municipal Park more than 26 years ahead of schedule. But those who gather should also applaud leaders who had the foresight and the temerity to envision the purchase for what… Read more

Teeth. They’re gross, yet there is such an importance placed on them. It might seem like basic hygiene but it’s a luxury that some are left out of. The fact is, caring for teeth and going to the dentist can be costly even with insurance. Read more

I miss lawn darts. It was a game of skill, laced with luck. And there was always the chance of impaling a sibling’s toe. Read more

There is renewed hope for federal and state funding for the long-delayed King Coal Highway and Coalfields Expressway projects in southern West Virginia. Read more

As politicos in D.C. debate the odds of President Biden seeing infrastructure legislation pass the Senate – via bipartisanship or reconciliation – there can no longer be any doubt as to the need to go big or go home. If you have not heard, climate change is not just knocking at the front doo… Read more

Blue meets green in a valley of Appalachian accents, mountain hospitality and hot biscuits on a Sunday morning. Read more

We have heard some reservations about Mayor Rob Rappold’s proposed purchase of the Zen’s building in downtown Beckley, but the multi-faceted deal hits many winning notes for us. Read more

Newsrooms, long ago, were a pretty noisy, fast-paced environment, humming with activity, front to back, through the ranks and eccentricities of reporters and assigning editors, assistants and deputies, and back into the photo department – always located closest to the exit so they could grab… Read more

Walking through the door and up a ramp I get a view of Bluefield’s former grandeur. Read more

This is the first year that Juneteenth on June 19, 2021 will be an official holiday in West Virginia. Read more

Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, is correct to shine a light on needed investments in flood mitigation efforts to prevent future disasters – especially at a time when substantial federal aid is flowing into the state to address infrastructure issues of this very nature a… Read more

Maybe a little state Democratic Party drama that played out in a contentious Democratic Executive Committee meeting this past Thursday is yet another reason why Del. Mick Bates switched political parties, joining the supermajority Republicans in the state Legislature. Read more

Apparently, there’s a new mascot for the vaccine in West Virginia and, really, he couldn’t care less if you get a shot or not just as long as there is food in his dish. Read more

The bend in the river just past the bridge was one of Billy’s favorite fishing spots. Read more

As we rush headlong into summer, eager to leave the pandemic behind, unlock the shackles of indoor solitude and leave the mandatory mask order in the glove box, please take care to be safe out there. Read more

I think I woke up and realized that parents and those older than me are humans. I mean, real life, breathing humans who are good at adapting and have lived the same life as I have. And sometimes, most of the time, they’re right. Like how they said that tomato sandwiches are good on a summer … Read more

As municipalities around the state and nation compete with one another in trying to attract remote workers to relocate to their communities, it is a fair and easy argument to say that there remains much work to do before the city is ready to strut its stuff. The state, with its Legislature l… Read more

As a young child in the ’70s, the annual showing of “The Wizard of Oz” on television was always a big deal. I’m sure it aired on NBC Channel 6, as that was the only station we picked up with any consistency. Read more

Sen. Joe Manchin’s hopeful view of Congressional bipartisanship is going to be put to a severe test in the months ahead as big pieces of legislation coming from the Biden administration will wind their way through the sausage making to critical, narrow votes where our state’s senior senator … Read more

The 10-speed bike was a blue beacon of what I knew would be immeasurable summer fun. It represented freedom to be spent on quiet country roads surrounded by friends from our neck of the woods. Read more

At some point after his election as president and prior to his inauguration, there was some hope that Joe Biden’s long service in the Senate and prior working relationship with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., could prove beneficial to moving the two to craft and pass legislati… Read more

Voltaire, the 18th century French writer-philosopher, preferred an enlightened aristocracy to democracy yet he eloquently embraced one of the latter’s most sacred tenets, the right to free speech. Read more

The next culture war is making itself known in state legislatures around the country, on one side strengthening vaccination requirements for school children. But on the other, efforts are headed in the opposite and wrong direction, to an off-ramp from sound medical practices. Families would … Read more

As April’s sunbeams stream through windowsills and ornery greenbrier bushes display a first blush of scratch-worthy thorns, I am feeling a hint of a seasonally induced malady. Read more

Gov. Jim Justice, somewhat belatedly, has come around to admit that the state’s vaccination effort has hit a wall and that, at its current pace, we will not reach herd immunity anytime soon.  Read more

From basement to back porch, I make my way through a timestamp of history. Decades are traversed with each step – old coins uncovered beneath basement floors; pop culture headlines unveiled in newspapers stashed in the back of a closet. Read more

If Congress is ever to take up gun control legislation with any hope of putting a dent in the number of senseless gun deaths recorded each and every year in the United States, any proposal will have to appeal to a cross-current collection of lawmakers on Capitol Hill with common sense soluti… Read more

About two weeks ago, I worked on a story for one of my classes about the remote worker project that is going to be happening in three parts of the state – Lewisburg being one of them. It had a multiple-word name that I sometimes forgot – called the Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative,… Read more

Our governor and West Virginia’s supermajority Republican legislators, from backbenchers to those wearing the mantle of leadership, ignored too many of the state’s myriad problems to debate, instead, ideological and cultural hot button issues that they believed, we can only imagine, would pl… Read more

Of all times for our country to be engaged in a political fight over providing citizens with easy access to the ballot box, now, less than a year from the death of civil rights icon, John Lewis, who was beaten to within an inch of his life fighting for voting rights, seems to be an especiall… Read more

To the West Virginia Division of Culture and History’s announcement of the 2021 West Virginia History Heroes. The award gives statewide recognition to individuals for their service to an organization’s program or for a contribution to state and local history. Chosen were: Read more

No one likes the blame game – except the blamer. Now that Covid-19 is spiking again in the midst of massive vaccination efforts, the blame machine is running at full throttle. Read more

The state Senate, despite overwhelming evidence and expert testimony from doctors and public health officials begging them to avoid a certain crisis on our streets and back alleys, passed a bill this past week that places greater restrictions on community syringe exchange programs. Read more

In the spring, my grandma and I used to sit outside. We did nothing but be there, on the porch. But, if her nose started itching, she’d glance over at me. We both knew what that meant. She had taught me well. Someone was going to pay an unexpected visit. So, best put something on the stove j… Read more

We have learned many lessons over the past year. One of the most pressing lessons is that access to quality, high speed internet is essential for modern living. Our children have relied on it to learn, our seniors have relied on it for telehealth, and our families have relied on it to stay i… Read more

Gov. Jim Justice’s proposed legislation to eliminate the personal income tax in West Virginia cannot find a friend – for myriad reasons – on either side of the political aisle or out here in the real world among business types in suits and overalls. His proposal, at least for the moment, see… Read more

My crocuses are tired and worn. Read more

With up to 300,000 people falling sick every day and up to 4,000 people dying daily from Covid-19 (New York Times), the U.S. is at war with the virus. One hundred fifteen thousand West Virginians have already gotten Covid-19 and almost 2,000 have died. Millions of Americans struggle to make … Read more

Gov. Jim Justice had every right to call out fellow Republican governors for playing political football with mask mandates. And we are glad that he did because it was a good look for the state. Read more

As we age, several things occur: Death is no longer a curiosity; “old” becomes older and older; and people younger than 50 all seem like teenagers. Read more

Before Senator Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, goes off on a 30-minute ill-informed, self-righteous harangue in a committee debate about the threat that needle exchange programs pose to communities across West Virginia, he might want to brush up on the research, first. Decades of research. Read more

Can the brain freeze? Not like the ice cream inducing phenomenon that causes a serious case of the willies. Read more

At the tail end of his pandemic press briefing on Friday, Gov. Jim Justice broke stride and jumped into a terribly misinformed rant about what caused millions of Texans to go without power, heat and running water when a major winter storm out of the Arctic traveled south into the Lone Star S… Read more

Republicans like Sen. Shelley Moore Capito need to dry their crocodile tears about a lack of bipartisanship related to the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill that was approved by the Senate in the wee hours Friday morning. We saw plenty of shared political ingredien… Read more

To Chief Deputy Clerk Cecilia “Sally” Chapman who, today, is spending her last day of 31 years of service to Raleigh County. Chapman will be retiring at the end of her shift and plans to focus on serving her church, Beckley Praise Church, which her husband Paul Chapman pastors. Given all the… Read more