West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, we'll hear about what's being done in the Ohio Valley to fight food insecurity among veterans. Napoleon famously said that an army marches on its stomach; troops must be fed in order to fight. But what happens when that army fights hunger back home?

On this West Virginia Morning, we hear the next chapter in The Struggle to Stay. Lately, we’ve been following 21-year-old Derek Akal, a native of eastern Kentucky. We’ve met several generations of his ancestors, and heard the stories of how they moved to and from the coal-camp town in Harlan County, where Derek lives.

On this West Virginia Morning, several lawmakers from the Ohio Valley region have joined a bipartisan push to fund what’s called carbon capture and storage. That technology can strip CO2 from power plant emissions. But it is also extremely expensive. Glynis Board spoke with a journalist who just spent a year traveling around the world to explore the topic.

On this West Virginia Morning, we have a preview of this week's Inside Appalachia episode, in which we learn more about a four-part series by Us and Them about gun violence, race and urban revitalization in West Virginia. Inside Appalachia’s Jessica Lilly sat down with Trey Kay, the host of Us and Them, to talk about Charleston’s West Side -- the poorest neighborhood in the city.

First Lady Melania Trump visited West Virginia yesterday to tour Lily’s Place – a facility in Huntington that serves babies born addicted to substances. Her visit sheds more attention on the Ohio Valley’s addiction crisis. About 5 percent of all children born last year in West Virginia were affected by drugs -- the highest rate in the country. Aaron Payne has this report on efforts to treat both newborns and parents in the grip of addiction.

On this West Virginia Morning, when all was said and done this past weekend, the Secretary of State’s office reports about one in 10 voters showed up to polls, and about 70 percent of them were in favor of passing Governor Jim Justice’s road bond. Glynis Board has details.

On this West Virginia Morning, as the number of coal mining jobs continues to decline in central Appalachia, hemp is getting a lot of attention as one way to diversify eastern Kentucky’s post-coal economy. But the region’s growing hemp industry is riddled with uncertainty. The lack of land suitable for growing hemp and its association with marijuana pose significant challenges. Rachel Cramer, from our partners at WGBH and The GroundTruth Project, has that story.

A bipartisan group in Congress has a new bill to save pensions for retired union coal miners throughout the Ohio Valley. As Becca Schimmel of Ohio Valley ReSource reports, the coal industry’s downturn has left tens of thousands of pensioners at risk. Also, on the latest episode of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Us & Them podcast, host Trey Kay tells us about an African-American man who broke one of the National Football League’s last color barriers, almost 50 years ago.

When we left off last time in our Struggle to Stay series, 38-year-old Dave Hathaway, a former coal miner who’d been unemployed for 12 months, was offered a job out of state. But it would mean leaving his wife and newborn baby behind. Then, he got another offer closer to home would put him going back to work as an underground coal miner. The Allegheny Front’s Reid Frazier delivers the final installment of Dave Hathaway’s, Struggle to Stay story.

Following the mass shooting in Las Vegas, President Donald Trump is canceling a previously scheduled trip to Morgantown and a new tool aiming to map overdoses gets attention at Marshall University this week. Also, West Virginia has the fourth highest rate in the nation for grandparents raising grandchildren - an arrangement often referred to as “grandfamilies.” And the number of grandfamilies here is on the rise. Most experts blame the opioid epidemic for that. While this arrangement usually

On this West Virginia Morning, 87-year-old Jim Shaffer has had his hands busy since 1946. He is the last commercial broom-maker left in West Virginia. On Saturday, Sept. 30, a short film about Shaffer will be screened at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public. State folklorist Emily Hilliard teamed up with Inside Appalachia earlier this year to produce the story, as part of a collaboration between West Virginia Public

On this West Virginia Morning, our series featuring people who are struggling to stay or leave Appalachia continues. We’ve been following the story of Dave Hathaway, a former coal miner in Pennsylvania. Last week, we heard about Dave’s struggle as an unemployed father of two trying to hold onto his dignity while his wife works. He and his wife are committed to staying in Greene County, even though the job choices are thin. The Allegheny Front’s Reid Frazier has our next installment of Dave’s

A biologist is studying how some insects might be adapting to a changing climate. Scott Hotaling is studying stoneflies that live in glacial regions in the north, and how these animals might be evolving. We'll hear about a grant the city of Huntington is receiving to help first responders combat the drug abuse epidemic.

On this West Virginia Morning, we have the first of a series of stories about grandparents who take on the role of primary caregiver for their grandchildren. To begin the series, health reporter Kara Lofton talks with professor Megan Dolbin-MacNab -- a researcher studying grandparent-headed households.

On this West Virginia Morning, the hurricane season’s super-charged storms highlighted the importance of disaster planning, and it’s not just a concern for the coasts. Scientists warn that heavy rain events have become more common in the Ohio Valley. Glynis Board looks at how some flood-prone communities are preparing for what experts call “the new normal” of extreme weather.