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Another day, another mass shooting

Another day, another mass shooting: 208 in 130 days. Likely more by the time you read this.  Seven, in fact, on Sunday alone, with 12 total over the weekend. One of the shootings on Saturday qualified as a mass murder: eight dead — including three children, ages 3, 8 and 11 — and seven injured in Allen, Texas, when a gunman opened fire at an outdoor mall.  The Gun Violence Archive is a data collection group dedicated to tracking gun deaths, mass shootings and mass murders. It defines mass shooting as an incident with “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured ...

Consequences for Huggins: What will WVU decide?

West Virginia University finds itself in a … predicament.  Bob Huggins’ inappropriate comments on a Cincinnati radio show have put the otherwise beloved basketball coach in hot water: He referred to University of Cincinnati’s crosstown rivals, Xavier University, as “Catholic f--s,” using a homophobic slur. (See yesterday’s Sports coverage for the full story.)   At the time of this writing, Huggins has issued an apology and said he will accept whatever consequences come his way, and WVU said in a statement that the situation is under review. By the time you ...

Warner’s ‘secret’ and ‘nefarious’ meeting

Secretary of State Mac Warner claims “there was nothing secret or nefarious about” the February meeting of select Republican top election officials hosted by the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing think tanks.  Then why did Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Heritage and one of the event’s moderators and presenters, tell a Texas official, “This is not a public event. It is a private, confidential meeting of the secretaries. I would rather you not send out a press release about it.”   “Confidential,” by the way, means “secret.” So ...

Sen. Capito is right: Emergency mental health care needs help

We may not always see eye-to-eye with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, but we wholly agree with her that emergency mental health care needs reform, and we applaud her bipartisan legislation, the Improving Mental Health Access from the Emergency Department Act.  The bill, which she cosponsors with Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), would create a grant program for emergency departments (EDs) to help acquire more resources or connect with local psychiatric services to help people who come to the emergency room while experiencing a mental health crisis.  As we reported earlier this ...

Are May primaries the perfect time for city elections?

Elections are still on our minds, with Morgantown’s council election just last week and Westover’s recent announcement it intends to move the town’s municipal election to coincide with May primaries. Star City recently voted to put its future elections on the county’s primary ballot as well. (Even though voters will be going to the polls in May, it will still be the towns’ “general” election.)  Westover and Star City seem to be moving in the right direction, and we hope Morgantown will follow suit.   The City of Morgantown made a huge push — and invested ...

Council and a manager or a mayor?

We would like to thank everyone who participated in our survey from last Sunday. We received 26 responses and eight comments. Only one person chose to have their response be considered for a letter to the editor, but we’ll share some of our other respondents’ thoughts.  (A quick disclaimer: This was not a scientifically sound survey, so it shouldn’t be taken as representative of all Morgantown city residents.)  A slight majority (15 of 26, or roughly 58%) of respondents favored a mayor-council structure of city government. One person said they used to live in ...