West Virginia

West Virginia Grabs Game One of the Backyard Brawl

Published

2 weeks ago

April 17, 2024

West Virginia Grabs Game One of the Backyard Brawl

Granville, WV – The No. 18 West Virginia Mountaineers (23-13) took the first game of a two-game season series against the Pitt Panthers (14-19) Wednesday night, 6-3.

West Virginia grabbed a 3-0 lead in the third with a little aid from the Pitt defense. Freshman Spencer Barnett hit a pinch-hit one-out single in the place of junior JJ Wetherholt. Then, sophomore Logan Suave hit a ground ball back up the middle, snagged by Pitt hurler Mathew Fernandez but threw the ball behind the shortstop into centerfield and Barnett scampered to third. Barnett scored on a wild pitch.

Sophomore Sam White drove and RBI double off the right centerfield wall before senior Reed Chumley capped off the three-run third with an RBI sacrifice fly to centerfield.

The Mountaineers added three runs in the fourth. Junior Grant Hussey was hit by the first pitch of the bottom of the inning by Pitt junior reliever Ethan Firoved and was given second on a balk. Junior Brodie Kresser bunted for a single and freshman Aaron Jamison followed with hard ground ball for an RBI single through the right side before a RBI sacrifice bunt from Barnett and Sauve brought Jamison home with line drive centerfield to mark the fifth Mountaineer to record an RBI and a 6-0 WVU lead.

Pitt cut the Mountaineers’ advantage in half in the eighth when a leadoff single from Jonah St. Antoine, a pair of ground balls moved the freshman to third, before junior Luke Cantwell delivered the RBI single back up the middle. Then, junior Jayden Melendez hit a two-run homerun as the Panthers were within three, 6-3.

West Virgina reliever Carson Estridge took the mound in the ninth. The sophomore gave up a walk but struck out two and collected the save as the Mountaineers held on for the 6-3 decision.

The Mountaineers are back in action this weekend as the Mountaineers travel to Lubbock, Texas. To take on the Texas Tech Red Raiders for a three-game Big 12 Conference series with game one set for Friday 7:30 p.m. EST, game two is slated for Saturday 3:00 p.m. and the series finale is Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

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West Virginia

West Virginia University Leads Initiative to Boost Farmland Access and Support Underserved Farmers – Seed World

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46 mins ago

April 30, 2024

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West Virginia University Leads Initiative to Boost Farmland Access and Support Underserved Farmers – Seed World

The initiative aims to transform agricultural access and education across four states, empowering veterans, new farmers and communities.

West Virginia University (WVU) is leading a national initiative aimed at expanding farmland accessibility to underserved populations. This effort is also designed to assist producers in securing working capital and improving food distribution channels.

The WVU Institute for Community and Rural Health (ICRH) received a five-year, $8.5 million cooperative agreement grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Increasing Land Access Program, a part of the initiatives funded under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Entitled “Working Lands of Central Appalachia,” this WVU-led project will span across West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. Collaborating with 11 state, regional, and national organizations, the initiative will focus on agricultural workforce training, developing farm-to-institution markets, and promoting the concept of food as medicine. The primary goal is to support underserved veterans, people with limited resources, and beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers.

ICRH research associate Megan Govindan is spearheading the regional effort.

“By engaging state institutions to assess demands for local food procurement and community benefit programs, this project supports healthier food systems in the community to address social determinants of health,” Govindan said in a WVU news release.

Govindan elaborated on the mission to increase land accessibility.

“The goal of increasing land access is to be able to support our agricultural future by utilizing existing markets and finding sources of capital, whether that be policy-focused or otherwise,” she said. “West Virginia leads the nation in small, family-owned farms. Supporting agricultural communities is critical to increasing food access.”

The project will include audits of public and private holdings to facilitate this increase.

Public farmlands are those owned by entities such as the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, WVU and community hospitals. Researchers will leverage insights from landowners to boost access and production on these lands. Govindan said private farmlands often involve heirs’ property, which is inherited land without a formal will or deed, complicating federal benefit claims for descendants. As private lands open, she expects new opportunities for agricultural training and career matchmaking.

Project partners are set to enhance government policy support requiring certain institutions to incorporate fresh food into their meal plans and mandate nonprofit hospitals to conduct community health needs assessments. Utilizing this data, a structured collaborative will be formed to manage local food procurement and community benefits.

“As we’re engaging those hospitals through community benefit, it opens the opportunity for all nonprofits to be able to engage and accelerate their institutional investment,” Govindan explained. “We’ll have a standardized language of what those activities are so they can be invested in a uniform way and then replicated and scaled across the region.”

Additionally, organization partners will provide training for farmers on beginning or expanding their sales to institutions and community markets.

To enhance community access to fresh food, the consortium will conduct a needs assessment and develop a curriculum that integrates agriculture and health.

“With this curriculum we’re not only talking about the opportunities within agriculture, but how to be able to make our communities more food secure,” Govindan said.

Govindan also highlighted the educational benefits for students involved.

“This project provides health science students with food as medicine experiences that will improve their ability to practice in rural areas, while addressing social determinants of health and engaging national, regional, and state partners,” she said.

Furthermore, the project aims to boost healthcare practitioner recruitment and retention by addressing various systems impacting population health.

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West Virginia

Transgender care polices in W.Va., NC are discriminatory, judge rules

Published

8 hours ago

April 29, 2024

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Transgender care polices in W.Va., NC are discriminatory, judge rules

State health care plans and government-funded insurance programs cannot exclude coverage for gender-affirming medical care, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 8-6 to affirm two lower court rulings ordering North Carolina and West Virginia to roll back policies that exclude coverage for gender-affirming care. North Carolina’s state health plan does not cover treatment “in connection with sex changes or modifications and related care,” and West Virginia’s Medicaid program covers only some gender-affirming treatments.

Attorneys for both states argued in court that the policies were based only on cost concerns, not animus toward transgender people. Judge Roger Gregory, writing for the majority Monday, said the states’ restrictions are “obviously discriminatory.”

“Because we hold that the coverage exclusions facially discriminate on the basis of sex and gender identity, and are not substantially related to an important government interest, we affirm the district courts,” Gregory wrote in the majority opinion. “We further hold that the West Virginia exclusion violates the Medicaid Act and the Affordable Care Act.”

A federal judge in 2022 ruled that North Carolina’s health plan discriminates against transgender people by excluding coverage for gender-affirming medical care. The same year, another court ruled that West Virginia’s Medicaid program must provide coverage for care.

In a statement Monday, Tara Borelli, senior legal counsel at Lambda Legal and the lead attorney on both cases, said the 4th Circuit’s ruling “will save lives.”

“It confirms that discriminating against transgender people by denying critical medical care is not only wrong but unconstitutional,” she said. “No one should be denied essential health care, but our clients in both cases were denied coverage for medically necessary care prescribed by their doctors just because they’re transgender.”

“West Virginia’s denial of medically necessary care just because of who I am was deeply dehumanizing,” said Shauntae Anderson, one of the plaintiffs in the case against the state’s Medicaid program. “I am so relieved that this court ruling puts us one step closer to the day when Medicaid can no longer deny transgender West Virginians access to the essential healthcare that our doctors say is necessary for us.”

Gender-affirming health care for transgender minors and adults is considered medically necessary by major medical organizations, though not every trans person chooses to medically transition or has access to care. Twenty-four states since 2021 have banned treatments for transgender youths, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that tracks LGBTQ laws, and legislation in some states also restricts access to care for adults.

In more than a dozen states, gender-affirming care is explicitly excluded from state employee benefit plans, and Medicaid policies in 10 states exclude coverage for transition-related care for individuals of all ages. In three states, Medicaid can be used to cover the cost of gender-affirming care for transgender adults but not minors.

West Virginia’s Republican attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, responding to the 4th Circuit ruling with a vow to take the case to the Supreme Court.

“Decisions like this one, from a court dominated by Obama- and Biden-appointees, cannot stand: we’ll take this up to the Supreme Court and win,” he said in a statement. Morrisey, who is currently campaigning for governor of West Virginia, last week said he also plans to appeal a separate 4th Circuit ruling blocking the state from enforcing its restrictions on transgender student-athletes to the Supreme Court.

North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell (R), whose office oversees the state’s health plan, said Monday’s 4th Circuit decision was “untethered to the reality” of the fiscal situation of the plan, which is “facing the real risk of looming insolvency.”

“Accordingly, the Plan cannot be everything for everyone — our priority is to provide coverage that does the most good for the highest number of people with the finite resources we have available,” Folwell said in a statement.

“As I have said consistently, I respect the rule of law and, therefore, will continue to follow every legal avenue available to protect the Plan and its members,” he added.

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WVSports – 2025 DB Bell grabs offer during trip to West Virginia

Published

15 hours ago

April 29, 2024

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WVSports – 2025 DB Bell grabs offer during trip to West Virginia

2025 DB Bell Grabs Offer During Trip To West Virginia – WVSports

Keenan Cummings
•
WVSports

Managing Editor

Loganville (Ga.) Grayson 2025 defensive back Jaylen Bell came to West Virginia to get a good look at the program and left with a scholarship offer from the Mountaineers.

Bell, 5-foot-11, 170-pounds, admitted that the time spent in Morgantown exceeded his expectations and he was impressed with virtually the entire experience.