Breaking News

Local News

New guidelines mean more help for women, infants, children through WIC

More low-income families in Monongalia and Preston counties will be able to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children because of new federal income guidelines. According to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services, the program now allows a family of four to earn $47,638 and still qualify for WIC, a $1,203 income eligibility increase from last year. Its income guidelines are updated each year and based on 185% of the federal Poverty Income Guidelines. The average income in West Virginia in 2017, according to the U.S. Census was ...

Suit over where Gov. Jim Justice lives continues

CHARLESTON — The lawsuit over Gov. Jim Justice’s residency has a new legal twist that goes back to 1889. The current case is about whether Justice defies the West Virginia Constitution by continuing to live in Lewisburg, rather than at the seat of government. Kanawha Circuit Judge James ...

School’s out, but the Morgantown Public Library is still very much in session. “We have big things we do at all the locations for the summer,” said Sarah Palfrey, director of the Morgantown Public Library system, which in addition to the downtown location, includes branches in ...

New ESFs aim to make crisis response smoother

Monongalia County will soon have a new set of emergency operation plans that use a flexible framework called emergency support functions. “There’s 15 ESFs, or emergency support functions, and they deal with everything from public works to transportation to medical care, HAZMAT, fire, all the way to 15 and 16 deal with long term recovery and housing,” Mike Fortney, assistant emergency manager for MECCA 911 said. Old emergency plans read like books and could be inches thick while the ESFs are a bullet point list and only a few pages long, Fortney said. Director Jim Smith said ...

Law schools see less interest in energy expertise

The interest is still there, but not like it was five years ago when oil and natural gas was booming in both West Virginia and Pennsylvania. As a result, experts at the three area law schools — West Virginia University, University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University — said interest in energy law has waned somewhat as the industry has matured in West Virginia and in Pennsylvania and is not the economic panacea as hoped. “We have not seen a huge spike,” said Amy Wildermuth, dean of Pitt law. “What we have seen is an uptick in interest in public service and public interest ...