Latest Virginia Headlines
All the headlines from our Virginia Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Virginia Names New Insurance Commissioner
Dec 2 2010 // Virginia has named Jacqueline K. Cunningham as the state’s next commissioner of insurance. Cunningham has been deputy commissioner of the life and health division of the state’s Bureau of Insurance for nearly...
DuPont Offers $70 Million to Settle West Virginia Pollution Case
Nov 29 2010 // Chemical company DuPont last week offered to pay $70 million and spend millions more on medical monitoring for the next 30 years to end a legal battle over a toxic exposure case it lost in West Virginia. The proposal drew...
Judge Upholds West Virginia Mine Accident Reporting Rule
Nov 29 2010 // A Kanawha County Circuit Court judge has upheld a state law giving coal mine operators 15 minutes to tell regulators about fires and other serious accidents. Judge Tod Kaufman’s ruling came in a case involving...
Reports on 2 West Virginia Chemical Plant Incidents Delayed
Nov 29 2010 // Reports on a federal board’s investigations of fatal incidents at two West Virginia chemical plants won’t be released until next year. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is investigating a 2008 explosion at Bayer...
Drivers Beware When Deer Search for Mates
Nov 24 2010 // Paula Reid was cruising at the speed limit on U.S. 460 in Virginia, near Montvale, her big BMW sedan slicing through the dark highway’s miles. Then, thwack. “Out of nowhere she hit me,” Reid, 49, of...
Is Gas Drilling Causing West Virginia Earthquakes?
Nov 24 2010 // Officials say there’s no clear explanation for what may have prompted several earthquakes near Frametown earlier this year. Some have speculated that the cluster of small earthquakes was linked to local gas...
DuPont Worried About Publicity in West Virginia Zinc-Smelting Case
Nov 23 2010 // DuPont will likely seek to sequester jurors in a 2011 trial that could determine whether it must pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to some 8,500 West Virginians who won a toxic-exposure case three years...
Safety Officials Warn 13 Mines in 7 States
Nov 22 2010 // Federal regulators late Friday warned 13 mining operations in seven states, including two owned by troubled Massey Energy Co., to show improvement on safety or face stricter enforcement. The Mine Safety and Health...
Work-Related Deaths Decline in West Virginia
Nov 19 2010 // Work-related deaths in West Virginia have fallen to their lowest level since 2002. Preliminary figures released this week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show 41 workers suffered fatal on-the-job injuries in 2009,...
Judges’ Mediation of Massey Pollution Case Fails in West Virginia
Nov 18 2010 // A lawyer for the plaintiffs says attempts to settle a long-running water pollution lawsuit against Massey Energy Co. have failed. Two judges on West Virginia’s mass litigation panel have been trying to mediate a...
Slurry Pollution Case Plaintiffs Called to West Virginia Meeting
Nov 15 2010 // Eighteen months ago, Christina Doyle packed up her two kids for an eight-hour journey to a West Virginia courthouse, hoping for some resolution to a lawsuit over water pollution she believes caused her daughter’s...
Virginia Firm Eyes High Tech Fix for Distracted Driving
Nov 14 2010 // Despite a public outcry over drivers who text, talk and e-mail that has prompted dozens of states to ban the practice, enforcing those laws is proving difficult. But Matthew Howard, co-founder and CEO of ZoomSafer, says...
Growth, Stability and Changes in Store for Long Term Care Market
Nov 14 2010 // With the first of 77 million baby boomers nearing retirement age in 2011, assisted living facilities and nursing home facilities will play a more important role than ever before. About three million Americans will require...
West Virginia Court Upholds Mine Safety Office Authority
Nov 3 2010 // The authority of West Virginia’s mine safety office to suspend coal miners has been upheld by the state Supreme Court. The decision stems from the death of locomotive driver Victor Goudy at Consol Energy’s...
Sensors Show Football Helmets Should Vary by Player’s Position
Nov 1 2010 // Dr. Gunnar Brolinson wonders if football helmets should be position-specific. Meaning a lineman’s helmet would be different than a defensive back’s helmet or one used by a quarterback. After all, the head...
Virginia Firm Eyes High Tech Fix for Distracted Driving
Oct 28 2010 // Despite a public outcry over drivers who text, talk and e-mail that has prompted dozens of states to ban the practice, enforcing those laws is proving difficult. But Matthew Howard, co-founder and CEO of ZoomSafer, has...
Virginia Tech Gets $825K to Research Home Construction Safety
Oct 27 2010 // Two Virginia Tech professors have been awarded an $825,000 federal research grant aimed at reducing falls on residential construction sites. The grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health will...
Sensors Show Football Helmets Should Vary by Player’s Position
Oct 22 2010 // Dr. Gunnar Brolinson wonders if football helmets should be position-specific. Meaning a lineman’s helmet would be different than a defensive back’s helmet or one used by a quarterback. After all, the head...
West Virginia Fire Department Insurance Falls Short
Oct 18 2010 // Sissonville, West Virginia Volunteer Fire Department officials say they still need to raise about $450,000 to replace a fire station and three fire trucks destroyed in a blaze. Fire department secretary Tom Miller says a...
Fire Kills Nearly 40,000 Chickens Virginia
Oct 15 2010 // Nearly 40,000 young chickens are dead following an early morning fire at a poultry house in Rockingham County, Virginia. WHSV-TV reports that the fire was reported shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday at the poultry house on...
