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World famous psychic Sylvia Browne is dead at the age of 77, according to her website. Browne, who made appearances on programs like "Larry King Live" and "Unsolved Mysteries," died Wednesday morning in San Jose, California, the site reported. Her son, Chris, confirmed her death to TMZ, saying she passed away while surrounded by family and friends. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/psychic-sylvia-browne-dead-77-reports-article-1.1524107#ixzz2lFGsj590

A mine company executive sued the state Democratic Party over a TV ad that he claims defamed him by quoting him as saying the deaths of 14 miners last year were statistically insignificant. Massey Energy Co. Chief Executive Don Blankenship filed the lawsuit against the West Virginia Democratic Party and party chairman Nick Casey on Friday in Kanawha County Circuit Court. Statements attributed to Blankenship in a Feb. 19, 2006, article in The Herald-Mail of Hagerstown, Md., were misrepresented in the party’s “Not For Sale” ad, he alleged in the lawsuit. A methane explosion at International Coal Group’s Sago Mine...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- The state’s report on the explosion that resulted in 12 deaths at an Upshur County coal mine in January is scheduled to come out Monday, mine safety chief Ron Wooten said Tuesday. Twelve miners died at the mine and Wooten said the report is being released to give them a sense of closure. Gov. Joe Manchin is scheduled to brief the families Monday morning, while Wooten’s Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training will meet with the mine’s owner, International Coal Group. Wooten declined to say what will be in the report, which isn’t finished yet....

Two Sago Mine workers commit suicide By VICKI SMITH, Associated Press Writer MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Two miners whose jobs included watching for safety hazards inside the Sago Mine before the deadly explosion last January committed suicide in the past month. Neither man had been blamed for the disaster that killed 12 of their comrades, and neither one's family has definitively linked the suicides to the accident. But those who knew the men say there is little doubt the tragedy haunted them. "I'm not sure anybody ever gets over it," said Vickie Boni, the ex-wife of one of them. "You live...

"Everything that could go wrong did go wrong,"

With the sole survivor of the Sago mine disaster looking on, President Bush signed into law the first major overhaul of mine safety laws in three decades. "Only one man came out, and he's with us today," Bush said Thursday of Randal McCloy Jr., who is still recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning from the January accident that killed a dozen miners in West Virginia. McCloy received a standing ovation from those attending the White House ceremony. The new law, the first of its kind since 1977, requires miners to have two hours' worth of oxygen on hand while they work,...

Letter from McCloy to the families of the Lost Sago miners. Some details of their ordeal.

Doctors marvel at miner By Allison M. Heinrichs TRIBUNE-REVIEW Friday, March 31, 2006 MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- The sole survivor of the Sago Mine explosion left a West Virginia rehabilitation center on Thursday as a medical miracle, and doctors vowed to learn from his rapid and unexpected recovery. "It's basically almost like he's resurrected," said Dr. Russell Biundo

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- The sole survivor of the Sago Mine disaster visited his home for the first time since the Jan. 2 explosion Tuesday, eating a home-cooked lunch and visiting with his family during a three-hour visit. Afterward, Randal McCloy Jr., 26, returned to the HealthSouth Mountainview Regional Rehabilitation Hospital, where he is going through months of therapy to recover from brain damage and other injuries. The coal miner's wife, Anna, had refused to return to the family home in Simpson until her husband could go with her. On Tuesday, he made the 45-minute drive with Anna, their two children...

Randal McCloy, the sole survivor of the Sago Mine explosion, can now make conversation and joke around, and his doctors are predicting a complete recovery in a year. He knows he is a miracle. "I guess he's just heard us discussing about him being a miracle and one day he looked at me with a puzzled look on his face and said, 'I'm a miracle?'" said Anna McCloy, Randal's wife. Randal, who spent more than 40 hours trapped underground after the Jan. 2 explosion, emerged from a coma on Jan. 26. The extent of the brain damage he suffered is...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Randal McCloy Jr., the lone survivor of the Sago Mine accident, is now able to speak and is eating with assistance. He responds appropriately when asked questions, and is working with speech therapists to improve his articulation. He also has daily sessions of physical and occupational therapy. Some of Mr. McCloy's nutrition is given through a feeding tube into his stomach. According to his wife, the tube likely will be removed in a few weeks.

ELKINS, W.Va. -- A former Sago Mine foreman was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on charges that he falsified inspection reports at the mine in 2004 and was never certified as an underground miner or a mine foreman. The 116-count indictment against Robert L. Dennison, 35, of Wallace is not related to the Jan. 2 explosion that killed 12 miners at the Upshur County mine, U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Johnston said. Dennison was hired in May 2004 by the mine's former owner, Anker Energy, and was fired in August 2004 when the company found out he was not...

GRAFTON, W.Va. — The wife of Sago Mine survivor Randal McCloy Jr. is suing her brother-in-law for taking pictures of her comatose husband and selling them to the National Enquirer. Anna McCloy's lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from Matthew McCloy, the supermarket tabloid and its parent, American Media Inc. The family has said Matthew McCloy was paid $800 for a photograph that appeared in the National Enquirer last month of Randal McCloy on life-support at a West Virginia hospital. McCloy was one of 13 miners caught in a Jan. 2 explosion at the Sago Mine. One miner was killed by the...

Notebook: Starks gives tickets to W.Va. family By Joe Rutter and Rob Biertempfel TRIBUNE-REVIEW Friday, January 27, 2006 Right tackle Max Starks is giving four of his Super Bowl tickets to a family involved in the mining tragedy in Sago, W.Va. Starks said Thursday he wanted to keep the matter private and was reluctant to speak about it, but he did admit it was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to help out the family, which he did not identify. After receiving a letter requesting autographed gear, Starks consulted his mother, Elleanor, and decided to send the family four of his tickets. Each...

With a little help, the sole survivor of the Sago Mine disaster stood for the first time since the accident, and puckered his lips when his wife asked for a kiss, doctors said Friday. Randal McCloy Jr., 26, came out of a coma earlier this week. "In this business of taking care of severe head injuries, little things make us happy," Dr. Julian Bailes said. McCloy can make noises when doctors cover his breathing tube. Whether he will be able to speak when the tube is removed depends on the extent of the brain damage he suffered from carbon monoxide...

The sole survivor of a mine explosion that killed 12 fellow miners emerged from a light coma Wednesday but still cannot speak, his doctor said. Randal McCloy Jr., who had been in a coma since his Jan. 4 rescue, is able to respond to simple commands and follow movements with his eyes, Dr. Larry Roberts said. He is now able to chew and swallow soft foods, but the extent of any brain damage remains unknown. Meanwhile, plans to begin gathering evidence inside the Sago Mine fell apart Wednesday when International Coal Group Inc. refused to let members of the United...

Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, said today that the deaths of 14 miners in three weeks in his state's coal mines "were preventable," and he had harsh words for federal mining safety officials for what he called a lack of leadership. He also asserted that federal budget cuts had led to inadequate mine safety equipment and rescue plans. "These deaths, I believe, were entirely preventable and we owe the families of these deceased and noble and great and brave men a hard look at what happened and why," Mr. Byrd said during a hearing of the Senate's...

NEWS ALERT Sago Mine disaster survivor Randal McCloy Jr. "awakening from coma," doctor says

Families of the Sago miners, Governor Manchin, Mrs. Manchin, Senator Byrd, Senator Rockefeller, West Virginians, friends, neighbors, all who have come here today to remember those brave men who have gone on before us, who ventured into the darkness but instead showed us the light, a light that shines on all West Virginians and the nation today: It is a great honor to be here. I am accompanied by three men I grew up with, the rocket boys of Coalwood: Roy Lee Cooke, Jimmie O'Dell Carroll, and Billy Rose. My wife Linda, an Alabama girl, is here with me as...

"In the sweet bye and bye, we shall meet on that beautiful shore." I last heard that old hymn at my father's funeral and thought I had made my peace at last with the specter of death that had haunted my childhood. I thought so until Monday, Jan. 3, when a coal mine exploded in West Virginia, and in my heart. Suddenly, I was 8 years old, a third-grader in the six-room schoolhouse