Free Republic

KENOVA -- Two men are charged with the rape of a Wayne County girl. Arana Neftali, 38, and Henry Isaac Rucuch Beletzuy, 26, were both charged with second degree sexual assault, according to a complaint filed with Wayne County Magistrate Court. The report states an officer was on patrol at 3 a.m. July 30 in the 400 block of 9th St. The officer said he heard screaming and found several people in the parking lot to the Hollywood Motel claiming their family member had been raped. The victim was taken to the hospital then later identified the two men that...

CHARLESTON — Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler hopes to send a strong message to the Big Apple and any others outside West Virginia: Hands off when it comes to entrapping residents with illegal firearms purchases. In fact, he dubbed his proposed new legislation Tuesday “the Bloomberg bill” after the New York mayor and his zest for rounding up guns. “They’ve been sending folks across state lines, outside the jurisdiction of his city, so I call it an entrapment bill,” Kessler said. “Basically, it would make it a felony for them come out and try to purchase guns illegally in the...

WASHINGTON -- America's growing diversity has reached nearly every state. From South Carolina's budding immigrant population to the fast-rising number of Hispanics in Arkansas, minority groups make up an increasing share of the population in every state but one, according to figures released today by the Census Bureau. "This is just an extraordinary explosion of diversity all across the United States," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "It's diversity and immigration going hand in hand." West Virginia is the exception, with its struggling economy and little history of attracting immigrants. Frey said states...

Westport's Martha Stewart has been ordered to report to a prison in West Virginia to serve her five-month term, a source close to Stewart said today.Stewart had hoped to serve her time in Danbury so she could be close to her 90-year-old mother, or in a prison facility in Florida where there are good transporation links.The U.S. Bureau of Prisons told Stewart last week to report to jail by Oct. 8. The source said Stewart had been told to report to the federal prison camp for women in Alderson, W. Va.Stewart's lawyer, in a Sept. 15 letter to a federal...

<p>A West Virginia man was nabbed for allegedly having sex with a sheep - that was part of a live nativity scene.</p> <p>Joey Armstrong, 29, broke into a shed that housed animals used in the holiday scene at the Bartlett-Burdette-Cox Funeral Home in Charleston at about 5:50 a.m. Saturday, police Sgt. Brent Webster said.</p>