A bill that makes it illegal for public employees to strike is now law. Governor Justice let the bill sit on his desk, and became law without his signature. The bill is in response to a nine-day teacher strike in 2018 and another two-day strike in 2019.
West Virginia is joining twenty other states in a lawsuit against the Biden administration for revoking the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline. State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey says, “Shutting down pipeline construction does not bode well for West Virginia’s economy.”
St. Francis Hospital is closing its COVID-19 surge facility, saying it’s no longer needed. That comes amid an uptick in COVID numbers. Hospitalizations are just under two-hundred, and there are over three-hundred new cases of the virus this week.
Governor Justice says West Virginia needs to get more shots in arms. More than seven-thousand people ages eighty and older are still waiting for the vaccine. The state has vaccinated more than sixty-five-percent of the elderly population, but Justice says there’s more work to do.
A Clarksburg man is charged with domestic battery in a fight over stimulus money. The victim says forty-year-old Chad Hitt hit and kicked her and pushed her down the steps. She’s expected to be okay. Hitt has two prior domestic battery convictions.
Ashland police arrested a man and a woman for abusing a fourteen-month-old toddler. Police say the child was suffering from health concerns attributed to abuse and neglect. The pair is charged with first-degree criminal abuse.
No one spoke in favor a bill designed to block the removal of Confederate statues at the state Capitol. Almost twenty people spoke against the measure at a public hearing, and only one legislator was on the Zoom call. The bill will go to the full House today.
The state Senate passed a bill to create the Hope Scholarship program. The bill would give students a 46-hundred-dollar-a-year voucher to leave public school for private or home schooling. The Department of Education estimates the bill could cost the state an additional one-hundred-million-dollars by 2027.
Thousands more people in West Virginia are now eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The governor introduced a new list of essential workers. Now with more than 240,000 West Virginians fully vaccinated, Gov. Justice has opened the door to restaurant employees and grocery store workers. More than a dozen groups are newly deemed essential in … Read more
Wednesday was West Virginia State University’s Founders Day and it celebrated with a day-of-giving challenge. Money was donated for student resources, like scholarships, academic programs and athletic teams. In the past year, 82% of students at West Virginia State University received either a scholarship, loan, or grant support, and the donations received will help students … Read more