By Leann Ray | Editor-in-chief
“It’s very difficult and so heartbreaking to see what happens in some of these individual circumstances, and it’s awful, and we should try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” — Gov. Patrick Morrisey on the death of a four-month old in foster care
Gov. Patrick Morrisey has said his administration is focused on reforming West Virginia's troubled foster care system. (Photo courtesy of the West Virginia Office of Gov. Patrick Morrisey)
By Amelia Ferrell Knisely
After a four-month-old baby in West Virginia foster care died last week, Gov. Patrick Morrisey had no information to share with reporters on Monday about the case but said, “We certainly want to get to the bottom of things.”
Gov. Patrick Morrisey holds a news conference June 28, 2026, to share a schedule of events for West Virginia's America250 Capital City Celebration. (Photo by Amelia Ferrell Knisely/West Virginia Watch)
By Amelia Ferrell Knisely
The state Capitol grounds are being readied for West Virginia’s America250 Capital City Celebration, which kicks off Thursday. Other events are being planned across the Mountain State to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary.
NATIONAL
A teacher holds a student’s baby while his class completes coursework at a high school for young parents in Spokane, Wash. U.S. Health and Human Services sent termination letters to 53 of 67 grantees under the Office of Population Affairs’ Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program on Friday, June 26. (Photo by Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report)
By Kelcie Moseley-Morris
A spokesperson for U.S. Health and Human Services confirmed to Stateline on Friday that the agency is canceling 53 out of 67 grants, worth about $68 million, under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, affecting grantees in more than two dozen states.
By Jonathan Shorman
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, a blow to the Trump administration and some Republican states that had urged the justices to require all ballots to arrive by the close of polls.
By Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has nominated a former Oklahoma state trooper to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency tasked with carrying out the president’s mass deportation campaign.
By Jonathan Shorman
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that law enforcement searches for the location history of cellphones near crime scenes are covered by the Fourth Amendment, requiring warrants to obtain the data.
By Ashley Murray
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump both a win and a loss Monday in allowing his firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, but ruling that he cannot remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors.
By Jonathan Shorman
President Donald Trump was speaking to supporters at a Pennsylvania rally June 23 when he made an extraordinary admission about an election a continent away.
COMMENTARY
A classroom at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in South Salt Lake City, Utah, on March 12, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps/Utah News Dispatch)
By Abigail Jeffries
My brother spent part of his teenage years in foster care. It wasn’t a simple situation, but he landed with a placement where someone genuinely cared about him. That person helped him refocus at a time when the path in front of him could have gone very differently. I’ve thought about him a lot lately, as I’ve watched West Virginia close the very institutions that can do for other foster children what that placement did for my brother: offer consistency and care.
ICYMI
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