Report For America

Nicholas County was the latest to celebrate the first graduation ceremony from its family treatment court program, which works to reunite parents and children separated by addiction.

The state legislature's latest bill for broadband offers new consumer protections to users, allows local governments to deploy their own infrastructure and expands on existing data-collection efforts to identify areas of the state that need high-speed internet.

A bill to rewrite the state’s criminal code won’t go into effect this year, but state lawmakers have introduced a resolution suggesting they plan to keep at it.

West Virginia senators have removed a presumption of 50-50 custody from a “Best Interests Of The Child Protection Act" that passed the House of Delegates three weeks ago, along with a provision to reopen closed custody cases in which parents were not considered for equal time.

With only three days left in the legislative session, Senate Bill 565 — which in 40 pages updates various provisions of the state’s election law — will not leave the House Judiciary Committee in time to pass the lower chamber.

West Virginia elections officials and advocates for voting rights are closely following 40 pages of legislation that would update several voting procedures, including those for early voting, registration and the legal process for disputed results.

House Bill 3307 would regulate the activity of social media platforms during an election, in light of activity from Facebook in the 2020 election.

Over the course of nearly 400 pages, House Bill 2017 updates hundreds of crimes and replaces the state’s process for sentencing with a six-felony, three-misdemeanor system of sentencing ranges.

House Bill 2017 rewrites state code for hundreds of criminal offenses and creates a new system for judges to sentence people. But stakeholders in the criminal justice system say they had little opportunity to weigh in on this legislation, which will drastically alter their jobs and the experiences of the people they work with.

A new bill in the state legislature creates an optional work-sharing program for West Virginia employers who would rather temporarily reduce their workers’ hours than lay them off.