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Assistant Majority Whip Scot Heckert defeated in landslide

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK) – It’s Election Day in West Virginia, and the polls close at 7:30 p.m. As the results come in, WOWK 13 News will keep you up-to-date with the latest results on air, online and on WOWK+, including on a special 2.5-hour On the Record with Amanda Barren at 8 p.m. on WOWK+. After the polls close, you can check this page below for the latest updates on results. All County Boards of Education race results can be found at the end of this article, listed alphabetically by county.

West Virginia has for years led the nation in several unfavorable categories, having recorded both the highest rate of per-capita drug overdose deaths and the highest number of babies born with drugs in their system of any state. But in July, the Mountain State finally made it to the top of a positive list, recording the largest reduction in fatal overdoses over a 12-month period of any state in the country... It was welcome news for the state that has long been considered ground zero for the American opioid abuse and overdose epidemic... Experts who spoke with National Review attributed...

About a month ago, Senator Jim Justice hosted the owners of the Omni Hotels & Resorts chain for a meeting at The Greenbrier Hotel to explore possibilities for working together. The meeting, by all accounts, had moments of strain, and lawyers for the Omni owners now allege the senator threatened his leverage over West Virginia’s courtrooms. Justice, a two-term Republican governor now serving in the U.S. Senate, and the Texas billionaires who own Omni are in conflict over control of The Greenbrier, its 710 guest rooms, four golf courses and casino. [snip] “At that meeting, the Senator and his counsel...

A West Virginia prosecutor dismissed charges Thursday against a librarian who allegedly tried to recruit assassins to target President Donald Trump, a local TV station reported. Morgan L. Morrow of Ripley, West Virginia, was charged in January with one count of making a terroristic threat, the agency posted on its Facebook page. Prosecutors, though, elected to dismiss the charges “without prejudice,” Clarksburg-area TV station WDTV reported Thursday, less than a week after Trump was targeted by a would-be assassin at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. ADVERTISEMENT Meet Morgan L. Morrow, a librarian at Jackson County Public Library in West Virginia....

A wave of party switching in West Virginia is reshaping the state’s political landscape, with tens of thousands of voters — including more than 16,000 Democrats — registering as Republicans since early 2024, according to new data released by the secretary of state. West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner reported that 68,235 voters have changed party affiliation since Jan. 31, 2024, signaling a significant shift ahead of the state’s May 12 primary election. Among the biggest changes, 16,910 voters switched from Democrat to Republican, while another 20,003 unaffiliated voters also moved to the GOP, according to the data. At...

NSTITUTE, W.Va. — A chemical leak at a West Virginia silver recovery business on Wednesday killed two people and sent about 30 others to hospitals, including one in serious condition, authorities said. The leak occurred at the Catalyst Refiners plant in Institute as workers were preparing to shut down at least part of the facility, Kanawha County Commission Emergency Management Director C.W. Sigman said. A chemical gas reaction occurred at the plant involving nitric acid and another substance, Sigman said at a news briefing. He added that there was "a violent reaction of the chemicals and it instantaneously overreacted." "Starting...

Democratic House candidate Sarah Trone Garriott's campaign is on the defensive after a resurfaced video showed her recounting her role in the marriage of a pair of satanists while serving as a minister-in-training. Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister running in a battleground House district in November’s midterm election, participated in the wedding of a satanist couple in 2006 while serving as an intern pastor in a West Virginia parish. Trone Garriott is vying to unseat Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, for a "toss-up" congressional seat in the southwestern part of the state. Throughout the campaign, she has been criticized for expressing...

RAINELLE, W.Va. (AP) — Every month, Rebecca Michalski takes a deep breath before opening her electric bill. She lives on a fixed income, and heating her small house this winter has been staggering: Her February charge was $940.08 — more than her check. It makes no sense. She turns the lights off during the day and only burns one lamp with an energy-efficient bulb in the living room at night, but she keeps falling further behind on payments. In desperation, she took out a loan after getting a cut-off notice during an extended arctic blast that kept the state’s heaters...

MONTROSE, W.Va. — Two West Virginia men face felony charges after authorities said one of them shot his younger brother multiple times at a home in Randolph County on Feb. 12, and the other helped restrain the wounded man as he tried to get away. Investigators say the shooting began inside a home on Mule Hollow Road in Montrose at about 9:15 p.m. and left Brett Lee Arbogast, 31, with gunshot wounds to the head, arm and hand. Derek Justin Arbogast, 36, is charged with first-degree attempted murder. Larry Brian Talkington, 63, is charged as a principal in second-degree attempted...

Hundreds of West Virginia teachers held walk-outs and protested at the state Capitol on Friday over low wages and proposed rules that eliminate teacher seniority. Schools in Logan, Mingo and Wyoming counties closed for Friday over the teacher shortage as many were expected to protest in Charleston, according to The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Several more counties are expected to follow suit. In solidarity with the protests, other teachers in Kanawha and Berkeley counties staged a "walk-in," standing outside of their schools with signs supporting public education for about one hour before starting the workday.  ADVERTISEMENT The West Virginia state Senate is expected to take a vote...

CDC Update: Tularemia Outbreak in Prairie Dogs in Texas Tuesday, August 06, 2002 4:15 PM Eastern US http://www.videonewswire.com/CDC/080602/event.html?id=7237

The government in West Virginia, instead of trying to thwart federal immigration officers, formed a partnership with them that helped put over 600 illegal alien criminals in handcuffs.While Democrat-run California could be on the cusp of releasing 33,000 illegal alien criminals, Republican-run West Virginia is now prioritizing the safety of its citizens. If only more state governments would work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), there would not be so much violence against ICE and it would be much more straightforward to arrest and deport foreign criminals.In just two weeks in January, the state-federal authorities’ partnership resulted in 650 arrests,...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia already has strict abortion laws compared to some of its blue neighbors. But if passed, one bill could make them even stricter. It's called Senate Bill 173, and it would prohibit the mailing of abortion pills to a person in West Virginia. It's being backed by at least six senators, including Chris Rose and Laura Wakim-Chapman, who say it's a chance to crackdown on pill trafficking. "A lot of these websites, we don't know where they're operating from,” Chapman said. “Some of them are operating outside of the United States. We don't know what kind...

PHILADELPHIA — From Jan. 5 to Jan. 19, ICE Philadelphia conducted a statewide surge with 14 of its 287(g) partners in West Virginia, arresting over 650 illegal aliens, including several with serious criminal histories and prior removals. ICE Philadelphia deployed surge teams to Martinsburg, Moorefield, Morgantown, Beckley, Huntington and Charleston as part of the operation. Together, federal, state and local law enforcement officials identified and arrested hundreds of illegal aliens who present dangers to national security and risks to public safety, as well as those who entered the United States illegally or have otherwise undermined the integrity of U.S. immigration...

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. – Today, Governor Patrick Morrisey announced that the West Virginia National Guard, the West Virginia State Police, and the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation have received signed Memorandums of Agreement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to participate in the 287(g) Program, enabling designated local officers to perform certain immigration officer functions under ICE’s direction and oversight. “The Biden administration’s border policies allowed millions of people to unlawfully enter our country as massive amounts of deadly fentanyl flowed across the southern border and into West Virginia,” said Governor Morrisey. “We are proud to partner with...

Meet Morgan L. Morrow, a librarian at Jackson County Public Library in West Virginia. She appears to call for someone to ass*ssinate Trump while other commenters call to also kiII Stephen Miller, Larry Ellison, and Peter Thiel. Our tax dollars pay her salary.BREAKING UPDATE: West Virginia librarian Morgan Morrow has been ARRESTED following our reporting of her post appearing to recruit individuals to ass*ssinate Trump. She is charged with one count of t*rroristic threats.

PUTNAM COUNTY, W.Va. (WCHS) — West Virginia State Police and federal immigration officers detained eight men during a traffic stop and subsequent investigation at a home in Hurricane, according to State Police. According to a news release from State Police, troopers and ICE officers conducted a traffic stop on a red 2024 Ford F-250 around 12:30 p.m. on Friday near Sleepy Hollow Drive and Oakmont Drive for equipment violations. Troopers said the driver was identified as Miguel Angel Alvarado Molina, a native of Honduras. "Mr. Molina is a native of Honduras and was determined to be unlawfully present in the...

It started out as a joyous Christmas Eve at the Sodder home on December 24, 1945. George and Jennie Sodder were spending the festive holiday with nine of their ten children, ages 2 to 18, at their home in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Then a devastating house fire broke out and five of their children - Maurice, 14; Martha Lee, 12; Louis, 10; Jennie, 8; and Betty, 5 - mysteriously perished. Four of their children had escaped; the tenth child - one of their sons - was away in the service at the time. The bodies of the five missing children...

An amateur sleuth and self-taught cryptography expert is convinced he’s cracked the notorious unsolved Zodiac and Black Dahlia murders — and that the killer is the same man. Alex Baber — a 50-year-old West Virginian with autism — used AI programs and his codebreaking prowess to whittle down the Zodiac killer’s infamous 1970 clue he sent to newspapers and identify a single suspect with an overwhelming connection across all the murders: a late Chicagoan named Marvin Margolis. “It’s my autism. Once I start on something, I have to see it through. The deeper I go, the harder I push. My...