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From mountains to Mars: W.Va.’s brightest stars

Shooting for the stars  West Virginia University’s robotics team is out of this world — almost literally.  Team Mountaineers faced off against dozens of teams from 10 countries to take first place in a Mars-themed competition early this month.   The 2023 University Rover Challenge was hosted in Hanksville, Utah, at the Mars Desert Research Station, where teams from colleges across the globe competed to build the best next-generation Mars rover. The student-led team is made up of more than 75 undergraduate students and five graduate student mentors across ...

Here’s why there’s nothing new on TV

If you watched the Tony Awards Sunday night and thought the ceremony was a teensy bit less polished than usual, it’s because the whole thing was unscripted. As a show of support for (and part of an agreement to not be picketed by) the Writers Guild of America, the Tonys did not use any scripted material for its night of pageantry, music and recognition.  The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since May 2 (roughly 40 days) as Hollywood writers petition for higher base pay, higher residuals and better protections as the film landscape rapidly changes. In the midst of ...

‘Regulated’ utilities not working anymore

Recently, Mon Power and Hope Gas both filed with the Public Service Commission for rate increases — requests that were met with public indignation.  Figuring out how utilities get paid is complicated, but we’ve done our best to figure it out for you. In the simplest possible terms, regulated utilities — like Mon Power and Hope Gas — are given a monopoly and guaranteed a certain amount of profit in exchange for providing essential products and services (e.g., electricity, heat and water) to customers at a “reasonable” cost that must be approved by the ...

The difference between news and opinion

Someone recently said to a member of the Editorial Board that all news is opinion because it’s someone’s perspective. While not exactly wrong, such a sentiment is overly simplistic. And the confusion likely results from the way cable news-entertainment channels and social media mix fact-based news and opinion-based commentary with little to no delineation between the two.  It’s a known problem. Take this exchange between two cable news industry experts on The Problem with Jon Stewart:   “Cable’s moved to opinion. What’s the difference between opinion and ...

Mooney votes for disaster; Manchin votes for pork

A debt ceiling crisis and global financial disaster was avoided late last week when the House of Representatives and Senate passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023; President Joe Biden signed it into law on Saturday, 48 hours ahead of the x-date the U.S. Treasury had set for running out of money.  Of West Virginia’s D.C. delegation, three voted in favor of the bill and one against. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Rep. Carol Miller voted along the (moderate) Republican Party line. Rep. Alex Mooney proudly voted against raising the debt ceiling, taking the extremist stance, ...

Do Justices always pay their debts?

Early last week, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against James “Jay” Justice II (Gov. Jim Justice’s son and current CEO of Bluestone Coal Sales Corp.) and 13 of the Justice family’s coal companies for roughly $7.6 million unpaid fines and fees.   From 2018 to 2022, the Justice family’s coal companies racked up 130 citations from the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement for environmental and safety violations. The SMRE also issued the companies 50 cessation orders (to stop operations until violations are fixed) that the companies ignored. ...