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WASHINGTON — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that starting to trade with Cuba "is probably a good idea" and that the lengthy economic embargo against the communist island "just hasn't worked." Paul became the first potential Republican presidential candidate to offer some support for President Barack Obama's decision to try to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba. The president's surprise announcement on Wednesday was slammed by several potential GOP candidates, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who said it amounted to appeasing the Castro regime. Paul said in a radio interview with Tom Roten of...

Sen. Rand Paul broke with the field of Republicans considering a 2016 presidential run on Thursday, calling President Barack Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba a "good idea" since the American embargo against Cuba "just hasn't worked." Paul, a likely presidential candidate, made the remarks in an interview with News Talk 800 WVHU's Tom Roten, just a day after his potential competitors for the Republican nomination -- former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz -- slammed the decision to normalize relations as a dangerous move. Rubio and Cruz are sons of Cuban immigrants. Paul...

Rand Paul Breaks With Rubio and Bush Over Cuba Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is the latest potential presidential candidate to weigh in on policy changes to Cuba and the libertarian leaning Republican's position splits from other Republicans who are also considering a presidential run. Paul told Tom Roten of News Talk 800 in West Virginia that the 50-year embargo "just hasn't worked" and normalizing relations with the island nation is "probably a good idea." "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working and probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime...

Six moderate Democratic senators are asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to give states more time to comply with its climate rule for power plants. The moderate Democrats said that states should be responsible for developing their own “glide paths” toward the 2030 goal. The senators signing the letter were Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.).

A lawsuit against a former Ohio abortionist could reveal violations of the state abortion clinic law, so he set up shop in Michigan while the suit moves forward. A West Virginia woman traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, to a clinic owned by Martin Ruddock for a second trimester abortion which didn’t turn out the way she expected. Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue says that the woman later filed suit for a number of reasons. “The patient had undergone part of the abortion — he had actually started it,” Sullenger explained. “She found it too painful and frightening.” The terrified woman then...

What do you have going on tomorrow?” asks Craig, who is himself a state senator and was his daughter’s campaign manager. “I might see some friends. I have to write those thank-you letters.” The letters are to her supporters, some of the 18,000 West Virginians Saira will be representing in the 59th District — a mostly rural, mostly Republican region two hours from Washington. She won the election in November by beating her opponent, a 44-year-old attorney, with 63 percent of the vote, and since then she has become the most famous state legislator in the country, as well as...

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The youngest elected state lawmaker in America has just arrived home for the weekend. “I’ll open the garage door so her laundry can roll on in here,” says Craig Blair, father of Saira Blair — 18 years, 4 months, 10 days. “She’s always got some.” He peeks out the window to the approaching headlights of his daughter’s new Jeep, which she purchased a few weeks earlier after winning her seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates, knowing the position came with a $20,000-a-year salary and would require a lot of driving. “I didn’t bring any laundry...

Among Democrats, fighting is breaking out all over. The Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is hurling criticisms toward the White House over Barack Obama’s handling of the recession and his myopic and politically ruinous obsession with reforming the nation’s health care system amid that economic downturn.In response, the White House took what Reuters called the “unusual step” of publicly pledging to veto an overdue plan to reform the nation’s tax code which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has been in the process of negotiating with House Republicans. When Obama announced his intention to extend legal status to...

Democrats hope to take back control of the Senate in 2016, but their plans could be complicated by potential retirements. The two Democratic senators most likely to retire are Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who represent both sides of the party’s ideological spectrum. Boxer, whose fourth term expires at the end of 2016, has a paltry $149,000 in her campaign account, less than almost every other senator facing election next year. As the nation’s most populous state, California is expensive to cover with advertising. If Boxer decides to run for reelection, she would face a major fundraising...

Jeane Briggs and her husband, Paul, have five biological children and 29 adopted ones. Taking in orphans, especially those with health problems or disabilities, is ‘what my husband and I feel called to do by our faith,’ the 58-year-old told The News. And there are plans to continue to expand the family.Think the holidays are chaotic at your house? Imagine celebrating with 34 children — all of whom are your own. Jeane Briggs, 58, and her husband Paul, 59, have five biological children and 29 adopted ones. The Briggs kids are between ages 35 and 4 . While they don't...

The Senate narrowly rejected legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday, handing a defeat to the oil industry and dealing a major blow to Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, who staked her political career on the outcome. The Senate voted 59-41 for the legislation, falling one vote shy of the 60 needed for passage under the deal bringing it to the floor. But Keystone supporters insisted the defeat would be short-lived. Republican leaders are vowing to try again after they take over the chamber in January — when they will have more than enough votes to get a measure...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A lawsuit is blaming a restaurant's bad meatloaf for the deaths of a former West Virginia state lawmaker and her husband. Former Delegate Virginia Starcher's family filed the lawsuit last month against New Albany, Ohio-based Bob Evans Farms in Jackson County Circuit Court. Bob Evans spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell said Friday the chain will vigorously defend itself in the matter. Starcher and her husband, Harold, ate part of their meatloaf meals from a Bob Evans in Ripley in October 2012. Their takeout dishes included meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli and a roll, the lawsuit says.

So who the hell is Jill Upson? She is from California and 11 years ago, her husband's job had the family relocate to Jefferson County, West Virginia. “When we got to this area, I just fell in love with it, and I just decided I’m done, that’s it, I’m going to stay here," Jill Upson told Liz McCormick of West Virginia Public Radio. "And so he continued to receive orders, and move every two years, and I still stayed put. He’s been all over the place, but I stayed and raised my children in Jefferson County.” She was apolitical until...

In the wake of two federal court rulings striking down West Virginia’s marriage protection amendment, which had previously defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman, the state tax department has announced starting next year, it will remove the words “husband” and “wife” from all tax forms and informational materials, replacing them with the more gender-neutral “spouse.” Until then, the agency says same-sex couples can use the current tax forms with the understanding that a married household may have two “husbands” or two “wives” under the new definition of marriage in the state. According to a notice...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The former CEO who oversaw the West Virginia mine that exploded in 2010, killing 29 people, was indicted Thursday on federal charges related to a mine safety investigation that followed the blast.

Documents obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) from the Department of Justice provide "hard evidence" that former Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) should have been prosecuted after NLPC exposed his questionable financial dealings, and triggered a Justice Department investigation. CREW executive director Melanie Sloantold Politico yesterday, "It was clear the Justice Department should have indicted Mollohan." Mollohan was defeated for re-election in 2010 in a Democratic primary. His ethics woes were a key issue in the campaign. Although we have not yet had the opportunity to study the underlying documents, CREW has released a very concise...

How many people alive today can say that their father was a Civil War soldier who shook hands with Abraham Lincoln in the White House? Fred Upham can. Despite sounding like a tall tale and a mathematical impossibility, it's documented truth. Fred's father, William, was a private in the Union Army's Second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was severely wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run, in 1861, and later personally appointed by President Lincoln to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Fred's in exclusive company—the dwindling group of children of soldiers who fought, North against South, 150...

Mark Maynard owns a used car lot, runs a towing business and spends his spare time on a professional drag racing pit crew. And despite not raising a dime for his Republican campaign, he defeated West Virginia's longest-sitting state senator. That was the kind of election it was for West Virginia Democrats. As voters took out their disgust with President Barack Obama, Maynard defeated Sen. Truman Chafin, a lawmaker Republicans previously had bothered to challenge only once in three decades. Not a single campaign check came Maynard's way, nor did he report spending anything. Potential donors told Maynard he didn't...

Dems Realize “War on Coal” Cost Them Coal Country by Daniel Greenfield People are funny that way. They cling to their bibles and guns. And then if you declare war on them, they don’t want to vote for you. Coal-heavy districts in West Virginia, Kentucky and Illinois that had been steadily moving away from Democrats in recent elections appear to have completed that shift Tuesday, when they overwhelmingly backed Republicans who vowed to oppose what they call President Barack Obama’s “war on coal.”In West Virginia, once a long-time Democratic stronghold, Republicans will take control of both houses of the state...

On Tuesday night, Republicans won big: They picked up governorships in blue states like Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois, and they held House seats in competitive districts with embarrassing incumbents like Michael Grimm of New York, who physically threatened a reporter and is under indictment for tax evasion. But their biggest win by far was taking control of the U.S. Senate. As of this writing, Republicans had already secured 52 Senate seats, thanks to knocking off Democratic incumbents or replacing retiring Democrats in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Another GOP pick up is probable in...