MetroNews This Morning
MetroNews This Morning 6-28-24
Today on MetroNews This Morning:
--A document signed by Abraham Lincoln about the early formation of West Virginia is coming back to the Mountain State
--One of the most familiar voices on the air in the Elkins area retires today after almost five decades on the radio
--Bids for a Nicholas County school destroyed in the 2016 flood came in below budget
--In Sports: Two West Virginia natives are headed to professional basketball
- Duration:
- 15m
- Broadcast on:
- 28 Jun 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
is your vehicle stopping like it should. Does it squeal or grind when you break? Don't miss out on summer break deals at O'Reilly Auto Parts This is Metro News this morning bringing you this morning's biggest news headlines from across the state. It is Friday, June 28, 2024. Good morning. I'm Chris Lawrence and we're getting your day going with all the news and information you'll need this morning in the mountain state. We start with the forecast. It's a cool and clear start to the day in West Virginia. And that's nice, but don't get too used to it. The heats returning this afternoon and overnight storms are a possibility. Well, I have the full forecast coming up in just a moment right now. Let's get cut off of what's been happening overnight in West Virginia at the Metro News anchor desk this morning is Kerry. Who to say? Good morning, Kerry. Good morning, Chris. An 1861 document is back in West Virginia. President Abraham Lincoln's signature is clear on the document sent to Wheeling resident Daniel Lamb in October 1861, giving him authority to purchase up to $2 million in ours and munitions to protect then Western Virginia from Virginia Confederate militants. The letter was part of a public auction last month, a group of four, including Jefferson County prosecutor Matt Harvey and House of Delegates members Mike Hornby, Mike Hite and Elliot Pritt heard Lee put together a bit on the last day. And they were the top bid at just more than $19,000. Harvey says the letter arrived Wednesday. He wants it to end up in a state museum. Harvey says this almost didn't happen. You know, candidly, if there would have been another bit on it, it may not have came home. But now he says it's back where it belongs. I'm Jeff Jenkins WV Metro News.com appears Nicholas County will have enough money to build a new school following the June 2016 flood. Nicholas County Board of Education, President Chip Perrine says the apparent low bid for the new PK through eight school at Glade Creek came in below what the county currently has to finance the construction. A bit opening was held Thursday. The state school building authority approved three and a half million dollars for the project earlier this week. Meanwhile, high bids have been submitted for parking garages surrounding the Charleston town center mall. Founded like during a public auction held Thursday, auctioneer Joe Arpaio says there were a limited number of potential bidders for large parking garages. There's not a lot of operators of this type of a business. And so, you know, we talked to people from Richmond, Roanoke, Columbus, Cincinnati, reaching out to surrounding Louisville and just to try to find an operator of a parking garage. One of the garages went for $800,000 and a second for $600,000. The PEIA finance board is considering how to strike a balance between the demand for weight loss drugs and the significant cost. Board members on Thursday asked how much of that is due to the cost of drugs for weight loss and diabetes. PEIA's chief financial officer, Jason Haut. Let me just throw out one number. If I'm any 84 million. 84 nine. That's the spend on GLP ones through May of this plan. GLP one treats type two diabetes and obesity. Read more at WV Metro News dot com. A kayaker is dead after being struck by a barge along the Ohio River in Mason County. The state division of natural resources police says a 51 year old man died at around five 30 Thursday night near Hoffman Park Drive. His body has been taken to the same medical examiner's office for an autopsy. The case of a Lincoln County couple charged in connection with the with their two year old daughter's drowning death is heading to a grand jury. 30 year old Jack Parsons and 24 year old Tara Adkins appeared for their preliminary hearings Thursday afternoon in Hamlin after being charged with felony child neglect resulting in death and injury. Both their daughter and three year old son were found in a farm pond last week. Akanaw County man will spend 14 years in federal prison for operating a pill pill lab out of an apartment in St. Albans. 44 year old Timothy Jackson was sentenced Thursday. US Attorney for Southern West Virginia. Will Thompson says the operation was extremely sophisticated. He was essentially ordering fentanyl from out of the country. Bleak. We don't have the exact source. It's either China or Mexico. And we're actually making pill pressing the pills in an apartment in St. Albans. Over 10,000 peels were made that were nothing but pure fentanyl. Thompson says there were enough of the pills to kill thousands of people. Mango County officials will open up a balloting books today over questions involving an unsettled state Senate Republican primary race between incumbent Senator Chandler Swope and challenger Craig Hart who is the apparent winner. Secretary of State Mack Warner says the county will be looking at several things today. There's several steps in this process to determine what first what are the facts and then to get something new radio happen. And was it intentional or wasn't fraudulent? That's what has to be determined. I think the court of a full hearing on the question has been set for July 18th. Thank you, Kerry. Coming up in our backgrounder, a longtime voice on the radio in Randolph County is retiring today. We'll hear more from him coming up in our backgrounder. And then Kyle Wigs who have an update on sports. I'll still ahead. Stay with us. Hi, it's Tony Carini. If West Virginia matters to you, then download the all new Metro News TV app onto your connected devices is an absolute must. You will gain access to both live and archived content, including talk line, sports line, free guys before the game and so much more. It is Metro News for your ears and eyes. Download the free app. It's available on Roku, Amazon devices, Apple TV, iOS and Android. It's Metro News TV. And now you can watch the voice of West Virginia. Coming up, Kyle Wigs, we have an update on sports for us right now in our backgrounder. longtime Elkins DJ Roger Taylor will sign off the air for the final time today. Taylor will retire after 46 years on the air at WDNE. He sat down and recalled some of his career with fellow broadcaster Greg White. I was going to Fairmont State College. I was studying radio and television communications. And a friend here in Elkins, as I was visiting when we can actually worked here, selling advertising. And he was an older gentleman. And he said, What are you doing now? And I told him where I was. And he said, Well, you should go by the radio station there. They're always looking for a part timer. Walked in and talked to the manager. And next thing you know, I was on the air. What year was that? 1978. How old were you? I was 19. Every shift possible. I worked morning shift for quite a while. I've worked night shift and everything in between. I've actually even sold some advertising at times over the years. And of course, as you said, production and news back when we started, you had to be a jack of all trades, because there was no satellites. There was no nothing to go to except you. And we used a teletype machine. And you had to tear off the news from the night before, which was probably about 40 feet of paper, go through it, pick out the national news, the West Virginia news, the weather, the sports. And that was it. You sat down. And first thing I did at six o'clock in the morning was 15 minute newscast live cold without without reading it ahead of time. It seems like every time a big event happened, I was here at the station. But I spend a lot of time here. So I mean, I remember vividly when John Lennon was shot, and that came across the wire and I had to take the time to compose myself before I went on the air and announced it. And then I played to his song Imagine right afterward. And it wasn't too long after that that the president was shot talking about gun blank. It wasn't too long after that that Ronald Reagan was shot. And I've never heard that many bells on a teletype machine up to that point or after. And so announced that. And you know, as the as the years progressed, I hate to just talk about tragedies, because there were, you know, wonderful things that we did. Sure. You know, but it was it was everyday life. And there was a space shuttle disaster, of course. And of course, 9/11. And I was here at that time. And we had a tiny little television set in the studio and watched the towers fall. I never wanted to go anywhere else. I never wanted to live anywhere else. I love Elkins. I love the small town life. And to just walk up the street and and have people, you know, call your name. Now you're not sometimes you're not sure whether you actually know the person, or they simply know you from the radio. But but I have a lot of friends that way that people would come out and see us at every remote we do. We have certain people that do that. People that call the station pretty much every day. And we appreciate that. That's they're like family. They're like family to us. And but that's why I've stayed here. This is where I wanted to be. I'd have people say, why don't you go? Why don't you move to Morgantown or Washington DC? You can get a good job there. And I don't want to live in a big city. I just don't want to I want to live in a small town. And this is where I'm going to die. And we at Metro News, certainly wish Roger all the best in his retirement. Time now for an update on sports cow wigs is in call a couple of mountain state products are heading to the professional ranks of basketball. Indeed, you've got Jalen bridges of Fairmont. He signed a two way undrafted free agent contract with the Phoenix Suns organization shortly after the NBA draft concluded on Thursday that two way deal with the Suns means that bridges can play in the G league. He can also play up to 50 games in the NBA bridges, of course, played a fairmont senior on state championship winners. He was the Bill Evans award winner in 2019 West Virginia's top prep basketball player started his college career at WVU before transferring to Baylor Frankfurt native Abby Beeman average 16 points 5.2 rebounds, six and a half assists at Marshall last year. She was the Sunbelt Conference Player of the Year. Marshall made the NCAA tournament. Beeman will begin her professional career in Iceland. She assigned with a team in Iceland. There's much more on that story at WV Metronews.com. Thank you, Kyle. Tomorrow morning. Listen into my show West Virginia outdoors will explore the state's two most popular activities, hunting and fishing. It comes your way at 706 every Saturday morning on Metro News radio stations all across the state or the live stream at wvmetronews.com. And if you happen to miss the show, we do archive it as a podcast at all podcast providers after it airs live. Now with today's commentary, the voice of Metro News, happy, coachable. Chris, when it comes to immigration, Donald Trump voters overwhelmingly believe their candidate is the best person to handle the issue. A Marist poll found that 96% of individuals who plan to vote for Trump say he's better equipped than Joe Biden to handle immigration. And West Virginia, of course, is Trump territory. The state's voters have chosen him over the Democratic nominee by 40 points in the last two elections. And they will do so again in November. And it's reasonable to associate Trump's position on border security with this popularity here. It's worth noting that West Virginia is one of the states with the fewest number of migrants who've crossed over the border in recent years. According to a Washington Post analysis of immigration court data since 2014, West Virginia, Wyoming and North Dakota, states with severe labor shortages attract hardly any newcomers while New York, Chicago and Denver have received thousands. Attracking by the post shows that the greatest concentration of migrants can be found in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle. 143 migrants with pending immigration cases have settled in Hardy County. Over half of them are from Guatemala. Many are drawn there to work in the poultry industry. 186 migrants are living in Jefferson County with another 174 in neighboring Berkeley County. They've come from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru. But some migrants have turned up in other parts of the state. 176 migrants are in Montague County. 39% of those are from Guatemala. 140 migrants are in Greenborough County and most of them are from Honduras. The Post analysis reports about two dozen other West Virginia counties have fewer than 100 migrants each. And about half of all the states counties have none. Typically, the trend is for migrants to settle where there's family, friends or at least others of the same background. So that is why many West Virginia counties simply are not a landing spot for them. Illegal entries into the United States have surged since President Biden took office in 2021. And his administration has been slow to act as the post reported, they're fleeing poverty and repression back home, drawn by a tight US labor market and perceptions of a weaker border enforcement under President Biden. Congress had a chance to improve border security and tighten the lax asylum policy. But Republicans killed the deal after Trump spoke against it. So while presidential candidates argue and Congress dithers, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world make up a great diaspora. The United States with its poorest border and easily abused asylum laws is a popular destination. But these individuals end up in a legal nether world. Meanwhile, West Virginia is desperate for economic growth, something akin to North Carolina, for example, and a growing economy needs workers. And in our state, they're in short supply. Immigration is a logical source. If only we had a secure border and a functioning immigration policy and politicians willing to work together to achieve that goal rather than trying to score points with voters. Chris, thank you, hot hobby. You'll be back at 10 or six this morning with Metro News talk line. Your West Virginia weather forecast on this Friday morning, cool, clear conditions are expected across the area this morning. That's courtesy of a high pressure system. But above normal temperatures are going to be returning this afternoon. And if you isolated thunderstorms are possible, best chance, probably in the southern part of the state. However, most locations will stay dry for today. There's a cold front that may bring more showers and widespread thunderstorm activities Saturday night into Sunday. Thunderstorms could be heavy and strong. Main threats will be damaging winds and excessive rainfall, particularly in low lying areas, you could have some minor water issues. And now you're up to date and have yourself a great day and a great weekend for Hoppy Kirchival. Kyle Whigs and Kerry Huda sec. I'm Chris Lawrence and this is Metro News, the voice of West Virginia. Metro News this morning is an exclusive production of the Metro News radio network. All rights reserved. (upbeat music)