Beginning January 2022, it will be significantly easier for West Virginians to claim exemptions from employer COVID-19 vaccination mandates. That raises all sorts of red flags.
-
-
RE/PRINT: Only 7 states have passed the CROWN Act. Could West Virginia be next?
While advocates of the CROWN Act promise they'll be back for the 2022 Legislative session, they're also looking beyond the WV Capitol to make change to confront white beauty standards in West Virginia.
-
RE/PRINT: Community Seeks Police Reform After Shooting On Charleston’s West Side
On April 30, Charleston Police officers shot a 33-year-old Black man, while attempting to make an arrest on Charleston’s West Side. The incident has left many in the community wondering why police resorted to shooting the man who had brandished a knife.
-
SPOTLIGHT: Who is saying what as the Opioid Trial begins
If the first day of a landmark trial involving the nation’s three largest opioid distributors is any indication, a lot of fingers will be pointed elsewhere by those distributors in the coming weeks.
-
SPOTLIGHT: To do or not to do? What the 2020 WV Legislature passed—or didn’t
The West Virginia Legislature has concluded its 60-day session after passing nearly 300 bills. What were they doing — and not doing this session? Erin Beck of Mountain State Spotlight details what got done and didn't.
-
SOCIAL/MEDIA: Recalling a life ended too soon in WV’s capital city
The shooting death of an 18-year-old student-athlete killed April 7, cast a pall over West Virginia's capital city, as yet more senseless gun violence robbed a family and community of a bright light.
-
Overdose deaths soar amid pandemic in West Virginia, which already had the highest rate in the U.S.
Drug overdose deaths are up more than 40% in West Virginia, an increase likely driven by the coronavirus pandemic. "People are dying at mass rates," says one Boone County administrator.
-
SPOTLIGHT: Of Black Hair & Confederate History in the WV Legislature
Legislation is moving quickly to allow Confederate monuments to remain on the West Virginia Capitol grounds while the Crown Act to ban Black hair discrimination stalls.
-
CDC says Kanawha County WV HIV outbreak is the most concerning in America
A top U.S. government health official says the rise in HIV cases in Kanawha County WV linked to injection drug use is currently the “most concerning [outbreak] in the United States," rivaling all the cases in New York City in 2019.
-
What happened when WV Gov. Jim Justice charged ‘broadband’ expenses to the CARES Act
What happened when Gov. Jim Justice promised this Fall to expand broadband and hook more families, schools, and industries to the Internet in rural West Virginia, using COVID relief funding? Not much, reports Mountain State Spotlight.
-
West Virginia’s minor league baseball teams suffer major league disappointment
West Virginia has a rich baseball past, with affiliated pro teams going back over a century, but Major League Baseball just cut its ties to the state's four minor league teams.
-
With deadline looming, critics question WV governor’s CARES Act priorities, unspent funds
Mountain State Spotlight takes a deep dive into WV Gov. Jim Justice's confounding inaction in allotting $1.25 million in CARES Act Covid relief funding to businesses and families in need in West Virginia, as a deadline looms for disbursing the funds.
-
AUDIO: When Clean Needles Disappeared, People Turned To Used Ones
The City of Charleston WV's attempts to quash the distribution of clean needles to users on the streets—which has constrained efforts undertaken by a group called SOAR—has had the consequence of increasing the dangers and hazards of addiction, reports WVPB.
-
ATTENTION, TEACHERS: And students at home—A chance to learn more about racism
Our documentary, “WHAT’S IN A NAME: A West Virginia Community Confronts a Confederate Legacy,” will screen 7 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 13, 2020 on WVPB. The documentary and resources we've gathered lay the groundwork for a better understanding and even more thoughtful discussion of the history of racism in America, and how institutional racism continues to affect our daily life.
-
Homeless in Huntington WV: A View From the Street
Homeless on the streets of Huntington WV in a time of pandemic is as difficult as it ever was. Douglas J. Harding hears first-hand about life on the streets of West Virginia's second largest city as cold weather sets in.
-
What now, West Virginia?
Want a shopping list of the challenges West Virginia faces in addressing Covid-19, the future of energy, poverty, a Legislature full of white guys, and beyond? This Mountain State Spotlight post-election roundup has you covered.
-
EDITORIAL | “Pills & Suits,” a Justice Project Video
In an illustrated excerpt from Pulitzer-winner Eric Eyre's "DEATH IN MUD LICK," he describes WV Attorney General's Patrick Morrisey's entanglement with one of the huge pharmaceutical companies that helped spawn the opioid crisis, and the devastation that continues to affect families.
-
EDITORIAL | A Shelley Moore Capito Reader
We present for your reading and viewing interest a selection of three items pertinent to the candidacy and further office-holding of the Republican senator from West Virginia, Shelley Moore Capito.
-
POEM | “The Greats” by PJ Laska
‘The Great Tower/ The Great Wall/ The Great Power/ Conquering All/ The Great Look/ The Great Weave/ The Great Assets/ Of Make-Believe … ‘ | A Poem by PJ Laska
-
EDITORIAL: The Art of the Trumpian Limerick
As Donald Trump's first term limps towards its end, we drop in on a Trumpian chronicler. West Virginia poet and writer Colleen Anderson has been chronicling Trump's misrule for four years now—in limericks.
