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Disgusting

A group of lawmakers who repeatedly try to earn cheap political points by talking about how precious West Virginia children are to them showed their true colors Saturday in ugly fashion. Legislators had a chance to pass House Bill 5537 — Raylee’s Law, which would have prohibited county boards of education from approving a request for home school instruction for an enrolled public school if there is a pending child abuse or neglect investigation against that child’s parent or guardian. There is already proof the law is necessary. Raylee Browning died in 2018 as a result of child ...

Food For Thought

Look at what you’re eating today. Did it come from a machine? A drive-through? How much fresh food is part of that meal? We’ve all been there. The hustle and bustle of everyday life keeps us moving and we have to make sacrifices somewhere. Unfortunately, those sacrifices often come in the quality of what we eat. March is National Nutrition Month, and its a perfect time to take a look at what and how we eat, so we can all push through those crazy days. Food is our fuel. Put substandard fuel in a car, and it doesn’t run correctly. Do the same with your body and it’ll experience ...

Seat Belts

Most sensible West Virginians have made it such a habit to buckle their seat belts when they get into a vehicle that they don’t even think about leaving it off. Still, there are some who fail to understand what the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration calls “the potentially fatal consequences of not wearing a seat belt.” Those will be the targets of a statewide seat belt enforcement campaign that begins today, according to the Governor’s Highway Safety Program. The Click It or Ticket initiative runs through March 23. Sure, those who continue to ignore common ...

Clean-Up

Did warmer weather have you flinging open your windows and getting a jump-start on spring cleaning recently? If you’ve already started planning for that annual home reset, it’s time to start planning for how to help West Virginia’s highways get a clean start to the spring/summer travel season, too. Registration is open for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s annual Adopt-A-Highway Spring Statewide Cleanup, which will be April 25. No, you don’t have to tackle a stretch of highway by yourself. This is an opportunity for individuals, yes, but also ...

Vaccines

The stability of the U.S. vaccine market rests on an obscure $4 billion fund known as the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., long a critic of the fund, now appears intent on dismantling it. Vaccine production can be a fickle business. Unlike other pharmaceutical products, which are designed for the sick, vaccines are meant for healthy people. To meet high safety standards, trials are large and development is costly. But whereas drugmakers typically can price their products to offset such expenses, vaccines are ...

Have a Plan

One of our state’s biggest holidays for cultural appropriation (suddenly everyone is Irish) is just around the corner as many of us make our plans for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. The Governor’s Highway Safety Program has rightly chosen March 13-17 for a “Buzzed Driving Is Drunk Driving Campaign” to remind us to observe the holiday responsibly. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data showed between 2019 and 2023, nearly 38% of traffic fatalities on St. Patrick’s Day involved a drunk driver. Two hundred eighty-four people were killed. The excess of many ...