The United Mine Workers of America made an “urgent demand” of the federal government on Thursday for the “immediate, uncompromised” enforcement of previously approved policies and rules that would protect coal miners from incurable black lung disease. The call from the UMWA comes after new research this month shows that black lung rates have increased to an almost 50-year high after years of…
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There is a certain symmetry to what we have experienced over the past decade of collapsing national consensus and far right radicalization. In cities and small towns around the country, people are watching as their friendships break down along lines of political or moral agreement, and as the shadow of white nationalism towers over even the most seemingly idyllic environments.
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When the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed into law in 2021, authorizing more than $11 billion in new funding to reclaim lands and waterways damaged by abandoned coal mines, the people who lead this work on the ground were ecstatic. “We were to the moon,” said Amanda Pitzer, the executive director at Friends of the Cheat, a nonprofit organization in West Virginia that works…
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Over the last two weeks, employees with the state’s 24/7 call center spent days, evenings and weekends answering phone call after call from West Virginians in need of groceries while food stamps were delayed. “It’s a little daunting when you come in every morning and there’s 60 voicemails and every one of them needs something,” said Margaret O’Neal, president and CPO of the United Way of…
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