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Editorial

Candidates for gov. are anti-trans. What else?

Remember the good ol’ days when political attack ads discussed real issues facing potential constituents? Based on the current state of Republican campaigning, those days are long behind us. Three of the top GOP candidates for West Virginia governor have been running almost exclusively anti-transgender ads for well over a month. Patrick Morrisey and Chris Miller — and their not-technically-associated PACs — have been trading televised blows trying to paint each other as pro-transgender and themselves as anti-transgender; then Moore Capito put himself in the fight with an ad ...

Is civilian review board best one to conduct survey?

The Morgantown Civilian Police Review and Advisory Board is looking into conducting a community survey, expected to cost around $10,000 to complete. The purpose, according to the review board, is to get a better idea of how the whole community — not just specific stakeholders or groups — perceive policing in Morgantown. That would include members of the police department itself. We have no problem with the idea of the survey. In fact, we think it’s a good idea to take the temperature of the broader community and to get feedback from people who wouldn’t normally show up to a ...

Make sure measles case stays an outlier

Monongalia County has the first measles case in West Virginia in 15 years. That alone could stand as testament to the effectiveness of West Virginia’s vaccination policies over the years. So far, this seems to be an isolated case, with no indication that it’s the start of an outbreak like we’ve seen in other states. The last we heard, the adult patient didn’t require hospitalization and was quarantining at home. We hope they recover quickly and only experience mild symptoms. If there is any silver lining in this case, it’s that the afflicted is an adult; in general, ...

Federal dollars invested in W.Va. will pay dividends

The new acid mine drainage treatment plant, which will filter and neutralize the tainted water from Richard Mine before it flows into Deckers Creek, came online last week to much fanfare. The facility filters the water for containments and neutralizes the acidity with a lime slurry before sending it back out to join with Deckers Creek. The vast majority of West Virginians are all too familiar with “legacy pollution,” as Steve Feldgus, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Interior’s Land and Minerals Management, put it. Barren streams where no fish can ...

Home-schooled girl found dead. When will enough be enough?

Last week, a 14-year-old girl was found dead in her Boone County home. Her body was “skeletal” and “emaciated,” and it’s reported she starved to death. Her mother has been arrested on charges of child neglect resulting in death. Family members have identified the teen as Kyneddi Miller. According to the criminal complaint, a family member told police Kyneddi had an eating disorder; the state of her body suggests she hadn’t received any medical treatment in at least four years. She also hadn’t been to school in that same amount of time — since 2019 or 2020 — ...

From coal mine to solar farm

Tomorrow is Earth Day: a celebration of our planet and a call-to-action to help take care of it. This often involves community-wide clean-up efforts and education outreach. The former tends to include things like litter pick-ups or recycling events. The latter usually includes reiterating the “3 Rs of Waste Management” — reduce, reuse and recycle. It’s a pithy reminder to reduce the amount of waste we create (not buying more food than we can eat or using more electricity than necessary), to reuse whatever we can (repurposing containers or textiles for new projects) and to ...