West Virginia Politics News

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Politico ContributorSometime this spring, the North Korean captors began allowing the two American journalists to have periodic phone conversations with their families, and the relatives gave readouts of the c...

The state Department of Health and Human Resources, and the programs it operates, are ending up in West Virginia courts.

The Associated Press' Tom Breen reports on observations from state Supreme Court Chief Justice Brent Benjamin that DHHR "is suffering from a 'systemic' lack of resources that regularly results in a failure to meet its legal obligations."

Benjamin addressed the topic in a concurring opinion in "a case in which the DHHR successfully sought a Supreme Court ruling that blocked a lower court from dismissing the agency's move to terminate a woman's parental rights."

"I am deeply troubled and concerned about this continuing resource problem," Benjamin wrote, "a problem which I sense may be worsening and may be becoming systemic.

Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis came to West Virginia for "her first tour of an underground mine...flanked by business and labor leaders seeking her ear on such issues as climate-change legislation and the administration's approach to regulating mining," The Associated Press reports.

The party included Gov. Joe Manchin, Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-1st, Patriot Coal Corp. CEO Rick Whiting and United Mine Workers Union President Cecil Roberts.

Others with coverage include the Times West Virginian of Fairmont, Public Broadcasting (with audio) and MetroNews (ditto).

The National Republican Congressional Committee is including the seat of U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-1st, among the 70 it views as ripe for a takeover in the next election, the state GOP says in a news release.

While citing the district's strong showing for Republican nominee John McCain in last year's presidential race, the release cites the spectre of a possibly pending federal investigation into Mollohan's finances and earmarks benefiting nonprofit groups he helped create and staff.

But the NRCC also launched early against Mollohan during the last election cycle, with August 2007 radio ads invoking the federal scrutiny. Mollohan ended up running unopposed the following year.