All the headlines from our Virginia Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Dec 28 2010 // Conducting special inspections to crack down on mines with poor safety records appears to be working, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said last week.The agency said it issued 250 citations and orders...
Dec 21 2010 // Montgomery County, Virginia says it expects to get $4.4 million from its insurance carrier for the collapse of the Blacksburg High School gym roof last February. The Roanoke Times reports that the anticipated insurance...
Dec 20 2010 // Police say a suspect is in custody after a third fire in one week damaged a Super 8 motel in Virginia.Hanover fire Battalion Chief William Jones tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the third fire was reported just after...
Dec 14 2010 // Outgoing Massey Energy executive Don Blankenship is refusing to testify as planned next week about the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine, state mine safety officials said.Deputy Director Eugene White said the Office...
Dec 14 2010 // The Justice Department said Tuesday it intends to appeal to a U.S. appeals court a ruling by a judge in Virginia declaring a key part of President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law unconstitutional.Department...
Dec 13 2010 // A U.S. judge in Virginia Monday declared a key part of President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law unconstitutional in the first major setback on an issue that will likely end up at the Supreme Court.U.S....
Dec 13 2010 // Sissonville Volunteer Fire Department is getting $10,000 from State Farm Insurance to help replace a fire station and three fire trucks destroyed in a blaze. The insurance company announced Friday it would donate the money...
Dec 3 2010 // A former Jefferson County employee has won a lawsuit that accused a county commissioner of defaming him with an Internet posting.Media outlets report that the jury ordered County Commissioner Patsy Noland to pay George...
Dec 3 2010 // Massey Energy Co. has shut down a Kentucky coal mine that federal regulators had cited for safety violations and said another of its mines in West Virginia was in danger of collapse following heavy rains.The mining company...
Dec 2 2010 // Massey Energy chief Don Blankenship is expected to testify Dec. 14 in the probe of an April explosion that killed 29 men in West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine.The state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ago.At...
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...
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,...
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...