By Thomas Harding
Not since the introduction of seatbelts has there been a traffic safety issue that has caused such concern among legislators and consumer protection organizations. With the rapid growth of cell-phones during the last few years, followed by the widespread practice of texting, distracted driving has become a life-and-death issue in America.
The numbers speak volumes.
In a Pew Research study, 47 percent of drivers admit to texting while driving. The study also found that 25 percent of American teens of driving age say they have texted while driving, and half …

 
By Thomas Harding
Not since the introduction of seatbelts has there been a traffic safety issue that has caused such concern among legislators and consumer protection organizations. With the rapid growth of cell-phones during the last few years, followed by the widespread practice of texting, distracted driving has become a life-and-death issue in America.
The numbers speak volumes.
In a Pew Research study, 47 percent of drivers admit to texting while driving. The study also found that 25 percent of American teens of driving age say they have texted while driving, and half …

 
By David Lillard

At first the new name, “Hollywood,” seemed a stretch. You can dress it up, but Charles Town should go by the familiar Chuck Town to locals. Sure it’s the town the Washingtons built, and even the Colonials loved horse racing.
Two steps into the door, though, this really is Hollywood, not because the giant, curvaceous hi-def video wall plays movie trailers. “Hollywood” comes from the feeling of walking onto a movie set. Or stepping into the movie.
Workers are raising massive stone pillars that seem to hold up the sky …

By Dominic Valentine
Over 20,000 rafters ride the Shenandoah River each year on commercially guided trips. As a father of three daughters and someone who lives on one of the local  waterways, Dominic Valentine felt a kinship to one of them. Roger Freeman, who died in a Shenandoah River rafting incident in 2004, was a family guy in his 40’s who loved life and to play music. For Valentine, Freeman is a reminder of how precious life is.

The vast majority of those trips are uneventful and end pleasantly. On the …

 
In advance of the upcoming primary elections, The Observer’s David Lillard asked candidates for the County Commission, House of Delegates and W.Va. Senate to share their views on a range of topics. Because this is a primary race, we surveyed only the races in which there were intra-party contests. But to give all candidates in those races “equal ink,” we surveyed unchallenged candidates in the races we surveyed. So, if a couple of Democrats are facing off in a primary, we surveyed an unchallenged GOP candidate in the same race. …

by Thomas Harding
This is the second article focusing on the alleged sale of unqualified retirement plans to Jefferson County families. The first article concentrated on the impact on two families, the Kables and the Lloyds. This second article looks at how the scheme impacted five other local families, and provides an update on how the cases are progressing.
 
Quietly and without much fuss, the largest case in Jefferson County legal history is making its way through the local court system. It involves a small local firm, perhaps as many as 15 …

by Glenn Scherer
The rush to tap vast natural gas reserves trapped in the Marcellus Shale bedrock underlying rural West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio has led to a heated regional debate concerning the safety of a controversial drilling process known as “fracking,” or natural gas hydraulic fracturing. Legislation introduced in the West Virginia House by Delegate Tim Manchin, D-Marion, would begin to regulate the large volume of water withdrawn for drilling and fracturing. It would also require drilling companies to identify the contents of potentially polluting frac fluids, and …

by Jeff Feldman
Some people wait for the stars to align before initiating action; for Barbara Humes, it had more to do with the Sun. Humes had been waiting eight years to see solar electric panels raised on the roof of her Harpers Ferry’s home. In late 2009, the pieces finally fell into place, and renewable energy came to her Ridge Street home.
Nature has been harnessing the power of the Sun since the dawn of time. Leaves converting sunlight to energy via photosynthesis are the original solar cells. Humans began following …


—Shepherd Town, W.Va., December 29, 2020.
In a long an-ticipated move, the Shepherd Town Council approved a mea-sure to move its Town Hall to Omega House, a university fra-ternity house.Then they enjoyed a parade down German Street. The decision formalizes a decade-old merger de facto be-tween the Town of Shepherd, formerly known as Shepherds -town, and Shepherd Univer-sity’s student body.
The move, Council watchers say, merely completes a process begun in 2009 when the then-Shepherd-stown Council voted to annex a significant portion of the cam-pus, effectively handing con-trol of the town to …

by David Lillard
It’s a stunning autumn morning on the interstate. Blazing strands of orange cotton stretch across the skies above the Allegheny Front, moving eastward as the car blazes west toward Wheeling and a maiden voyage to Wheeling Island Casino.
License plates on big pickups zoom past my slowpoke four cylinders in a parade of the states. Maybe because I’m on my way to a racetrack, the plates and the dreaminess of a road trip drift me back some 30 years. One Delaware plate, Maryland, Maryland, Jersey . . . I’m …