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Resistance

As West Virginia state officials have been doing for several years now, Secretary of State Kris Warner pushed back against federal overreach this week when he announced the Mountain State “will not volunteer the release of personally identifying information of every registered West Virginian to the U.S. Department of Justice. Warner said the Department of Justice has sent requests to almost every state seeking registered voters’ information such as ID numbers, Social Security numbers and other identifying information. His office was having none of it. “West Virginians entrust ...

New Office?

A 99-yard kickoff return touchdown would be nice for West Virginia, in the economic Backyard Brawl, but the state needs to get a few first downs, too. One idea for helping make some of those smaller plays successful is the formation of an Office of Entrepreneurship, through state House Bill 5200. The bill is sitting in the House Government Organization Committee, and has some big supporters. Among them is West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner, who on Wednesday encouraged lawmakers to support the measure. “Entrepreneurship has always been a cornerstone of strong, resilient ...

Hopeful Sign

Are you tired of the cold and snow? Have you had it with experiencing, day-after-day, weather forecasts that call for overnight temperatures that start close to zero and afternoon temperatures that are consistently below freezing? Have you resorted to cursing the groundhog and started to wonder out loud how the woolly bear caterpillars you so carefully studied last fall could have been so wrong? Relax — spring is on the way. And while we haven’t seen the grass in a couple of weeks and the trees are still waiting for their first buds, we would remind you that there’s an even ...

Good Health

As a few attempts to address West Virginia’s woeful health indicators and perpetually bottom-of-the-barrel quality of life rankings have made their way into public policy over the past year, lawmakers have continued to look for new ways to address the matter. As it seems these days everything must have a call back to some other well-known political slogan, the Make West Virginia Healthy Act of 2026 is meant to get ahead of some of our state’s worst health challenges. “We all know the numbers … West Virginia leads the nation in chronic disease, disability, preventable ...

Income

West Virginia stands alone among the states for a host of positive reasons. But a recent Urban Institute study shows we stand alone for a distressing reason: We are the only state in the country for which inflation-adjusted median household income has DECREASED since 1970. “Over this period,” the study reads, “Utah households’ incomes gained the most, with the median income rising 78 percent, or $40,820. The states with the next largest increases–Colorado, New Hampshire, California, Arizona, and Virginia–all experienced more than 60 percent growth in median household ...

Debate

COVID-19, beyond sickening many millions of people in this country and, in fact, worldwide, as well as exacting a heavy death toll, greatly ramped up a broad debate about the safety of vaccines, including those developed to try to end the pandemic. That safety debate continues today, despite the successes and knowledge that have emanated from medical science’s battle against the coronavirus. Recent years seem to have verified that as long as mankind exists, some skepticism about vaccine safety will continue to walk side by side with the complete confidence that others hold in ...