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Commentary: The largest electric utility in West Virginia has entered into an agreement with an environmental group that coal industry officials fear could lead to the shutdown of two major coal-fired power plants in the state. Under the agreement between the Sierra Club and Appalachian Power, the utility will conduct “retirement analyses” for the John Amos power plant at Winfield and the Mountaineer power plant near New Haven. Appalachian Power serves 465,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the state, and those two power plants provide about 70 percent of the power generated by the utility in West Virginia. Jeri...

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin slammed religious criticisms of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a front-runner for President Trump's nomination to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. During an interview on Fox and Friends Wednesday, the centrist Democrat decried the attacks against Barrett's Catholic beliefs, which some outlets have linked to the dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale that has been converted into a television series. "I have heard your colleagues in the Senate query her about her religion, which makes you wonder should a person’s religion disqualify them from a job on the Supreme Court? Because...

Total victory is upon us, folks. And some Republicans have managed to get on a path towards redemption with conservatives. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said he wouldn’t block the nominee. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is a ‘no,’ but as we’ve said before—Maine is an oddball state. She gets a pass. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a runner up in the biggest pain in the a** contest among the GOP, did initially say that she’s opposed to filling the Supreme Court vacancy left by Ruth Bade Ginsburg, but is now changing her tune. The last justice passed away last Friday making the...

The latest voter registration figures from Secretary of State Mac Warner’s Office show that Raleigh and Greenbrier Counties now have Republican majorities. It is still close; Republicans outnumber Democrats by just 321 voters in Raleigh County, while in Greenbrier County there are just 78 more registered Republicans than Democrats. However, the numbers are reflective of the ongoing shift of voter registration in West Virginia from Democrat to Republican. Just four years ago, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 7,800 voters in Raleigh County and 4,500 voters in Greenbrier County. Raleigh and Greenbrier are the 22nd and 23rd West Virginia counties where the...

the Washington Examiner is hosting "Examining Trade" featuring key lawmakers Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who chairs the Senate Banking subcommittee focusing on international trade. 7:55 a.m. Opening 8 a.m. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance 9 a.m. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va. 9:30 a.m. Expert Panel Tori Whiting, Heritage Foundation Scott Paul, Alliance for American Manufacturing Neil Hare, Global Vision Communications Clark Packard, R Street Institute

As a freshman senator in 1975, Joe Biden joined Sen. Robert Byrd (D., W.Va.) in opposing legislation allowing 130,000 Vietnam War refugees asylum in the United States, including thousands of children. President Gerald Ford proposed a Vietnam refugee relief program that would settle thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodian families in the United States. The bill was met with resistance from a Democratic majority in Congress. Sen. Byrd cited fear of admitting "undesirables" such as "barmaids, prostitutes, and criminals" to the country. Biden also took issue with Ford's proposal. During a Foreign Relations Committee hearing with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,...

CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) — Gov.Jim Justice said West Virginia will pay 25% of any new federal unemployment benefits that come from Washington. President Trump signed an Executive Order to give the unemployed an additional 400 dollars per week, with the states paying 100 of that.

From Frank Sinatra's hometown in Hoboken, N.J., to LA's Skid Row, dozens of mail-in, absentee and ballot box fraud cases have emerged. Many news media, political activists and social media giants have gotten on the bandwagon that voter fraud is fiction. It is not. A review of court cases and recent indictments – including one this week in Philadelphia against a former congressman – finds there have been at least four dozen cases in criminal and civil court since the last presidential election in 2016 in which voter fraud has led to charges, convictions, lawsuits or plea deals. The schemes...

When a university police chief hosted an online diversity event, students and faculty were outraged to see a pro-law enforcement flag in his office. Shortly after the event, the chief issued a public apology and promised to remove the flag.

Unlike the long-dead figures whose statues and other honorifics have been assailed in recent weeks, Robert Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan organizer, remains basically untouchable. CHARLESTON, W.Va. — While monuments and building names said to be stained by racism are being erased across the country, one former Ku Klux Klan organizer remains virtually untouchable.The late Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat and Senate majority leader who organized a Klan chapter in 1941 and filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is celebrated in the state, his name gracing over three dozen public works projects, including two federal...

A West Virginia woman who served in the Air Force planned to offer top-secret information from the National Security Agency to the Russian government, prosecutors said Monday. Elizabeth Jo Shirley pleaded guilty as part of a plea agreement to one count each of willful retention of national defense information and international parental kidnapping, the U.S. Justice Department said. Shirley, 46, of Hedgesville, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the national security charge and up to three years and a $250,000 fine on the kidnapping charge.

Gov. Jim Justice followed through on an order for West Virginians to wear face coverings when they enter buildings that aren’t their own homes, but he also said there will be no penalties for those who don’t comply. “If you don’t take heed, we’re going to have funeral after funeral after funeral,” Justice said. An executive order goes into effect at midnight Monday. The order falls under the emergency declaration from the Governor’s Office that was first established a few months ago when the state began taking coronavirus precautions. Justice strongly hinted late last week that such an order would...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -Dominion Energy and Duke Energy announced Sunday the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline due to ongoing delays and increasing cost uncertainty which threaten the economic viability of the project. According to a news release, despite last month’s 7-2 victory at the United States Supreme Court, recent developments created a layer of uncertainty and anticipated delays for ACP. U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, released the following statement on the announcement that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project has been cancelled. “I’m disappointed to learn plans to build the...

A Racist's Name Is on a Senate Office Building. Here's Why BLM Won't Want to Change It Why is a Senate office building named for a racist? While the secular Taliban of the Left has been busily destroying statues like they’re ISIS in Palmyra, scrubbing American history and reducing Founders, such as Declaration of Independence authors, to racist caricatures, they’ve missed one big, glaring target: the Russell Senate Office building. But there’s big reason why groups such as antifa, Black Lives Matter, and other professional protesters probably don’t want to touch the issue. The building, previously known as the Old...

As Hillary Clinton’s mentor Robert Byrd confirms, Democrat outrage over Klan connections is a new development. Virginia governor Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist, had barely finished publicly touting infanticide last week when a page from his 1984 medical school yearbook suddenly went viral. The page showed a photo of a man in blackface standing beside a man in a Ku Klux Klan robe. The Virginia Democrat acknowledged he was one of the men but didn’t say which. Northam then denied that he was in the photo but acknowledged he once darkened his face to look like Michael Jackson. Northam apologized...

Summary:  The President and Vice President both speak with great sadness on the death of their former colleague in the Senate. This morning the President issued the following statement on the passing of Senator Robert Byrd: I was saddened to hear this morning that the people of West Virginia have lost a true champion, the United States Senate has lost a venerable institution, and America has lost a voice of principle and reason with the passing of Robert C. Byrd.Senator Byrd’s story was uniquely American.  He was born into wrenching poverty, but educated himself to become an authoritative scholar, respected...

Vice President Biden Eulogizes Senator Byrd

If accepted at the time, the design would have likely revolutionized architecture. ======================================================================== In the early 1500s, Leonardo da Vinci designed a hypothetical bridge for the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. It was rejected. Over 500 years later, an MIT team has recreated the design with a model and have showed that it would have worked. Da Vinci's design incorporates architectural techniques that would have not been seen for another 300 years. ========================================================================== Gretchen Ertl ========================================================================= Researchers at MIT have proven Leonardo da Vinci correct yet again, this time involving his design for what would have been at the time...

Robert C. Byrd's name has been removed from the Bethany College Health Center. The move was prompted by the ongoing national conversations about race relations in America. "The last few weeks, and well before the conversations and calls for change took hold, we recognized as a campus that the name of our Robert C. Byrd Health Center created divisiveness and pain for members of Bethany community, both past and present." According to a letter, posted on the college's website, from President Tamara Rodenberg, Ph.D., the move is "to demonstrate Bethany College’s capacity to change, to listen, and to learn." Byrd,...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — WorkForce West Virginia has received 35,000 fraudulent claims for unemployment since June 1. Gov. Jim Justice and WorkForce West Virginia acting Commissioner Scott Adkins detailed the fraud during Justice’s coronavirus media briefing Friday at the state capitol. According to Adkins, the fraud is coming through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program that was created the CARES Act. The program provides unemployment benefits for residents who usually aren’t eligible for unemployment like those who are self-employed. Adkins said the scammers are using personal information obtained earlier this year from national data breaches. He said they’ve been able to...