Latest Virginia Headlines
All the headlines from our Virginia Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Virginia Offering Storm Surge Risk Map for Coastal Areas
Sep 19 2014 // Virginia emergency management officials have created a new tool to help coastal residents assess the risks of rising water in a storm surge. The Virginia Department of Emergency Management says the Geographic Information...
Judge Approves $2.9 Million West Virginia Chemical Spill Deal
Sep 19 2014 // A federal bankruptcy judge has approved a $2.9 million settlement that would benefit 300,000 people whose water was contaminated in a January chemical spill. Judge Ronald Pearson filed the order this past Tuesday in U.S....
West Virginia Spill Lawsuit Scheduled for Next September
Sep 17 2014 // A lawsuit against a water company, chemical producer, airport and others over a January chemical spill won’t get a hearing for another year. The consolidated lawsuit that targets West Virginia American Water, Eastman...
Workplace Fatalities Declined 15% Last Year in Virginia
Sep 15 2014 // Labor officials say workplace deaths dropped in Virginia and nationwide last year. According to a preliminary report released by the U.S. Department of Labor, Virginia saw workplace fatalities decline 15 percent to 126 in...
The State of Obesity in U.S.
Sep 11 2014 // After decades of rising obesity rates among adults, the rate of increase is beginning to slow, but rates remain far too high and disparities persist, according to a new report. Adult obesity rates increased in six states...
West Virginia Nixes Special Session on Storage Tank Rules
Sep 10 2014 // West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin plans to use administrative fixes instead of a special session to adjust a law regulating above-ground storage tanks. On Monday, Tomblin’s top environmental official spelled out a...
Communities at Risk in Wake of Failure to Address Rising Seas
Sep 8 2014 // Missions flown from the NASA base here have documented some of the most dramatic evidence of a warming planet over the past 20 years: the melting of polar ice, a force contributing to a global rise in ocean levels. The...
Rural Communities Struggle to Compete With Cities for Coastal Protection Funds
Sep 8 2014 // The town of Saxis on Chesapeake Bay in Virginia is losing three to five feet (1 to 1.5 meters) of shoreline a year and suffered damage during hurricane Sandy. But like hundreds of rural communities along the coast, it is...
Full Appeals Court to Hear Obamacare Tax Subsidy Case
Sep 4 2014 // The full U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington will rehear a case on Obamacare tax subsidies, granting a government request in a move that may reduce chances of a new Supreme Court showdown over a central element of the...
West Virginia Water Utility Balks at $2.9M Chemical Spill Proposal
Sep 4 2014 // A utility is opposing a $2.9 million bankruptcy settlement that would fund projects to benefit 300,000 people whose water was contaminated in January. West Virginia American Water says Freedom Industries shouldn’t...
DuPont Hit with $1.3 Million Penalty for Multiple West Virginia Chemical Leaks
Aug 29 2014 // DuPont will pay a fine of $1.275 million to settle a federal complaint over eight chemical releases from a Kanawha County production facility, one of which killed a worker. The Department of Justice and U.S. Environmental...
FEMA Reimburses West Virginia Entities for Chemical Spill Costs
Aug 27 2014 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency has reimbursed $1.4 million to local and state governments, hospitals and some non-profit groups for costs related to January’s chemical spill in Charleston, West Virginia. The...
Virginia Looks for Ways to Reduce Animal-Vehicle Accidents
Aug 26 2014 // A Virginia study aimed at reducing collisions between vehicles and animals is targeting a section of Interstate 64 near Waynesboro. Lead researcher Bridget Donaldson tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch that 30 percent of the...
Court Asked to Dimiss Spill Claims Against West Virginia Airport, Chemical Producer
Aug 25 2014 // An airport and a chemical producer want claims dismissed in a lawsuit partly targeting them over a January chemical spill. In U.S. District Court in Charleston, Yeager Airport filed a motion last week to dismiss claims in...
Mine Owner to Pay $1.5B Penalty to Kentucky for Environmental Violations
Aug 21 2014 // West Virginia billionaire Jim Justice has reached a $1.5 million settlement with Kentucky officials over dozens of violations at several of his coal mines in eastern Kentucky. The agreement between Justice and the...
Freedom Industries’ Insurance Settlement Plan Favors Nonprofits
Aug 20 2014 // Freedom Industries Inc., whose leaking chemical tank made much of West Virginia’s water undrinkable early this year, filed a proposed Chapter 11 plan this week that offers nothing to people with claims for polluted...
Virginia Task Force to Target Worker Misclassification, Payroll Fraud
Aug 19 2014 // Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently signed an executive order establishing an inter-agency task force that will target worker misclassification and payroll fraud. “Every Virginian who works hard and follows the...
GEICO Lowers Commercial Auto Rates in Virginia
Aug 19 2014 // GEICO is introducing lower rates in Virginia for commercial auto insurance customers, including contractors, retailers, caterers, professional services and other businesses. Small business owners in particular need...
West Virginia Chemical Spill Claims Mount
Aug 18 2014 // Charleston, West Virginia-based Freedom Industries can expect about 5,000 groups to ask for money in bankruptcy claims over the January chemical spill that seeped into West Virginia’s biggest water supply. The...
Insurer to Participate in Proposed Fund for Failed West Virginia School
Aug 15 2014 // Former Mountain State University students who sued the now-defunct Beckley, West Virginia school would be entitled to compensation under a tentative settlement announced this week. The proposed settlement announced by...
