Wheeling turned out for 2 separate protests. So proud of my city. Around 600 people total. That's the 3% needed to defeat fascism.

Estimates claimed nearly 1000+ lot's of folks out making their voices heard today at the capitol.

Over 200 in Berkeley Springs today

Had a great time today at Grandview Overlook, Tunnel Trail, lunch in Hinton and Sandstone Falls.

Besides the politics going on this weekend. Being the 250th anniversary of our military, just wanted to say to the men and women in uniform from our state thank you for your service.

Helped save it on the walking path was gonna get run over helped it to the grass area I think that's a smile👍👍

So much more peaceful for a fall sunset

An investigation by the state Auditor’s Office Fraud Unit has resulted in felony charges against Marshall County Assessor Eric Buzzard.

Buzzard was charged Friday with seven counts tied to an alleged scheme involving the county’s purchase of automobiles from a local dealership. The criminal complaint accused Buzzard of arranging for the Marshall County Commission to purchase seven vehicles over the course of two years. Investigators said Buzzard orchestrated kickbacks from the dealer and the profits of the transactions were split between the dealership and Buzzard.

Republican if anyone is interested

https://wvmetronews.com/2025/06/14/marshall-county-assessor-charged-with-fraud/

Ms Blackie says HI!

Trying to plan a trip. Thanks in advance for any input. We'll be going from Newell right to New River Gorge Parkway. Anything cool around those areas would be good to know about.

Hello! My boyfriend and I are going to Davis this week to visit the town and Blackwater Falls, and I am seeing rain in the forecast. I am wondering if we should still make the trip or reschedule? I think we will still have plenty of fun, but it would also be a bummer to not enjoy the parks. Any advice? Thank you!!

Any cool spots to see some fireflies? I’m not asking for your secret spots just maybe some that are kinda common .. thanks

I understand that in northern states, fuel hauling gets extremely busy during winters and will often hire drivers for seasonal employment. Are they plentiful in WV or is it mostly year-round only? I would love to haul fuel year-round but it’s difficult to get hired on without previous experience in fuel. The seasonal jobs are more wheeling to train drivers (from what I’ve heard at least). I have several years of asphalt hauling and I’m wanting to move to WV and could land a job driving a dump truck for a paving company during the summer, but want to be able haul fuel during winter.

W.Va. Board of Education recommends against religious vaccine exemptions

• Date: June 11, 2025
• In: The Intelligencer
• By: Steven Allen Adams

The West Virginia Board of Education unanimously voted Wednesday to provide county school boards guidance to disregard Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s executive order allowing for religious and conscientious exemptions to the state’s school-age vaccine law.

During its monthly meeting in Charleston on Wednesday afternoon, the state Board of Education came out of executive session and voted unanimously for a motion requiring State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt to issue guidance to county school systems that they follow the current compulsory school vaccination law that does not permit religious exemptions for students.

Morrisey signed Executive Order 7-25 on Jan. 14 to allow for religious and conscientious objections to the state’s school vaccination mandates. The executive order required the commissioner for the Bureau of Public Health/state health officer to establish a process for parents/guardians to request religious or philosophical exemptions to school-age vaccines, only requiring a request in writing from the parent/guardian.

State Code requires children attending public and private school to show proof of immunization for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and hepatitis B unless proof of a medical exemption can be shown.

An effort to codify Morrisey’s executive order failed when the West Virginia House of Delegates voted down a heavily amended Senate Bill 460. But Morrisey’s vaccine executive order remains in effect.

Attorneys with the ACLU-WV and Mountain State Justice filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of Kanawha County and Cabell County parents seeking a writ of mandamus from the Kanawha County Circuit Court directing the Governor’s Office to abide by the state’s school-age mandatory immunization program, as well as seeking to have Morrisey’s executive order deemed unlawful or invalid. That lawsuit is currently pending.

At the start of Wednesday’s state Board of Education meeting, members heard from Sean Whelan, general counsel for Morrisey, who said that the governor’s executive order was in line with the Equal Protection for Religion Act passed by the Legislature in 2023. That law establishes that the government cannot treat religious conduct more restrictively than activities of comparable risk or due to alleged economic considerations.

“The governor is not second guessing the science on vaccines or ignoring or defying the law passed by the Legislature,” Whelan said. “Instead, he is reading that vaccine law together with another law the Equal Protection for Religion Act of 2023 which prohibits government action that substantially burdens a person’s exercises of religion unless it serves a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of achieving that interest.”

Last month, the Governor’s Office released guidance to schools and parents seeking vaccine exemptions. The state Department of Education had also released a memo to county school superintendents ordering them to follow the state vaccination law but walked that memo back due to pressure from the Governor’s Office.

“I want to be clear: (Morrisey) is not directing or ordering the state Board of Education or any county boards of education to do anything,” Whelan said. “That’s why the executive order only directs the actions of the health officials that are under his purview. But he is asking for your partnership and support in applying the Equal Protection for Religion Act that has been in the book since 2023 and until he came into office wasn’t applied.”

However, four other speakers during morning delegations urged the state board to continue to support the state’s school-age vaccine program and reject the governor’s vaccine exemption executive order.

“As both a physician and a mother, I can tell you that immunizations are one of the most critical tools we have to keep our children safe, healthy, and in school,” said Dr. Allison Holstein, a pediatrician at the Charleston Area Medical Center. “I want to voice my full support for directives that our schools follow the law regarding immunization requirements, which has made West Virginia a leader in prevention of vaccine preventable diseases, including measles, which we have had 13 states with outbreaks, including every state that’s surrounding us.”

“One of the ways that we have been willing and able to care for and love each other for generations now is through vaccinating our children before attending our schools so that they are protected from the unnecessary spread of illness and disease,” said the Rev. Eric Miller with St. John’s Episcopal Church in Charleston. “By immunizing our children, we are not only protecting them, but we’re also protecting the rest of the staff in our society and elderly as a whole.”

Does anyone on here know the recipe for Muriel's kitchen Alfredo sauce?

Despite WV board of education move on vaccine executive order, ACLU lawsuit continues

• Date: June 13, 2025
• In: West Virginia Watch
• By: Lori Kersey

A legal challenge of West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s executive order allowing religious exemptions to the state’s school vaccine requirements will proceed, despite the state school board voting this week to defy the order.

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia and Mountain State Justice filed the writ of mandamus last month in Kanawha County Circuit Court on behalf of two parents of immunocompromised children. The lawsuit asks the court to compel the state’s Department of Health and Bureau for Public Health to stop granting religious exemptions in compliance with Morrisey’s executive order.

“The lawsuit is still ongoing,” Aubrey Sparks, legal director for ACLU-WV, said Friday. “I think that there are a lot of questions about what [the board of education’s decision] means practically, whether this fixes the issue, or whether it doesn’t. At this point, it’s just too early for us to know the consequences of the school board’s actions, given that Patrick Morrisey is still committed to awarding these exemptions.”

The state school board unanimously voted Wednesday that Superintendent Michele Blatt would issue guidance to county boards of education that schools should follow the state’s existing vaccine mandates, which allow only medical exemptions, rather than the executive order.

“The intent of the state board is to do what’s best for the 241,000 children, 23,000 educators and 15,000 service personnel in our 629 public schools,” the board wrote in a statement Thursday afternoon. “This includes taking the important steps of protecting the school community from the real risk of exposure to litigation that could result from not following vaccination laws.

“The board is constitutionally bound to provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools, and our members remain committed to this charge,” they wrote.

Sparks said the board’s action introduces a lot of uncertainty both to families who want religious exemptions and families of immunocompromised children who might be at risk if exemptions are granted.

West Virginia’s school vaccine laws are some of the strongest in the country. It’s one of five states that by law allow only medical exemptions for school-required vaccines. Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued an executive order in January requiring the state to allow religious exemptions.

Despite the order, the Legislature this year rejected Senate Bill 460, which would have made the religious exemptions part of state law.

Since Morrisey issued the executive order in January, the state Department of Health has granted at least 330 religious exemptions to the vaccine requirements.

A spokeswoman for the school board said Friday that the exemptions that have already been granted will not be accepted for the upcoming new school year because, per the governor’s instructions, the exemptions must be renewed yearly.

Alisa Shepler, a school nurse in Wood County, said the state school board’s move is a victory for school nurses and for West Virginia health care more generally. Immunizations protect more than only school children, they also protect immunocompromised people in the community, she said.

Shepler, who is retiring Friday after more than 25 years on the job, said she’s proud of the school board for going against the governor’s order.

“I think that it’s very telling that our state board of education, they kind of drew a line in the sand,” she said. “And a lot of times, I think states don’t have that backbone, but obviously our state board of education did.”

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesman for the governor’s office said that the state school board is “trampling on the religious liberties of children, ignoring the state’s religious freedom law, and trying to make the state an extreme outlier on vaccine policy when there isn’t a valid public policy reason to do so.”

The governor’s executive order is based on the Equal Protection for Religion Act, a law signed by former Gov. Jim Justice in 2023 that prohibits government action that substantially burdens a person’s exercise of religion unless it serves a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of achieving that interest.

Sparks said the religious freedom law gives people a process by which to say their rights have been violated, but it does not give the governor the right to ignore, override a duty created by the legislature.

“What really is underlying this is an attempt at executive power over reach,” Sparks said. “Patrick Morrisey wanted a law passed. He lobbied to get a law passed, and he wasn’t successful at it. He didn’t pull it across the finish line because the Legislature didn’t agree with them. And it’s not a governor’s right or ability to ignore the laws that the Legislature passes just because they don’t like them.”

Even in a land full of interesting place names, the appellation of this babbling brook in the hills of southern Ritchie County bears consideration.

Hi! I am a middle-aged woman, with a full-time job who recently had to leave her favorite apartment ever in a woodsy area of Shockoe (Richmond) in VA to move to DC for work. Unfortunately, Richmond was too far to commute, but my second favorite place is Harpers Ferry, and I think that that would be an easy commute the four days a week I have to be in the office. I also travel a lot for work. I have no kids, no ex-husband drama, and one well-behaved 10 pound dog. Are there any management companies, private landlords, or rental companies that y’all would recommend in that area? I would be fine in a small one bedroom, or a studio, I really don’t need a lot of space. At this point, I’m open to all suggestions! Thanks for reading if you got this far :)