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For special session, pick jails over roads

Legislative forecasters predict a special session of the Legislature will be called when lawmakers meet for committee interims Aug. 6-8. The current direction of Gov. Jim Justice’s winds — sorry, whims — suggests the special session will be to push surplus funds toward highways, but the low pressure system — pardon, low employment situation — hovering over West Virginia’s correctional system could cause a shift in focus.   Since predicting what politicians will do is a lot like predicting the weather, we couldn’t resist some bad weather puns. Analogies aside, there ...

A highway river and a whitewater rollercoaster

A throwback to when ‘shipping’ meant ‘by ship’   The City of Morgantown and the Port of Pittsburgh — with the sponsorship of the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization — have submitted a joint application to have the Monongahela River designated as   one of the nation’s marine highways (“M79” instead of I-79).      We like this idea for a few reasons. First, it could help greatly reduce truck traffic on the interstate and on local roads. That’s one of the advantages of Morgantown: It can be reached by river, ...

Huggins vs. WVU: A bad look for both, but worse for players, staff

The ongoing disagreement between Bob Huggins and his representatives and West Virginia University and its representatives is certainly a spectacle, to say the least.  We won’t say who is right and who is wrong (because it looks like everyone is a little of both) and we won’t speculate as to the outcome of the dispute.  All we’ll say is that this fight isn’t a good look for either Huggins or WVU.  There is no denying what Huggins did: In mid-June, he drove under the influence and was caught. Pittsburgh police arrested him and, at that time, his blood ...

Morgantown PD’s best new asset: a social worker

We’re excited to see the Morgantown Police Department has added its first police social worker to the force — something for which we have previously advocated.  Kelly Rice is a licensed clinical social worker who earned her master’s degree in social work from West Virginia University. Her credentials more than speak for themselves: She has a background working with victims of mental health issues, domestic violence and addiction, and she also has experience with compassionate releases, criminal thinking, victim impact and crisis intervention. Rice previously worked as a ...

No ‘critical needs’? Look again

West Virginia ended Fiscal Year 2023 with a $1.847 billion surplus — which is a lot less impressive when you consider the “surplus” is the result of artificially low budgets, unpaid salaries from still vacant positions in government agencies and a massive-but-temporary surge in fossil fuel taxes that’s already declining.   We’ve made clear our stance on these artificial “surpluses” Gov. Jim Justice and Republican lawmakers like to tout: You can’t brag about “excess” revenue when critical agencies and projects are chronically underfunded and therefore can’t ...

Who gets fooled by fake news?

In not-so-breaking news: The University of Cambridge reports that people who primarily get their news from social media are less likely to be able to distinguish real headlines from fake headlines.  Which shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, though some of the demographic breakdowns did surprise us.  The University of Cambridge created a two-minute(ish) quiz comprised of 10 real headlines and 10 fake headlines that asked participants to decide if a headline was real or fake and then asked for certain demographic information, such as age, political affiliation, time ...