The office of State Tax Commissioner Christopher G. Morris is offering a series of tips to help West Virginians file their Personal Income Taxes this year.

A Ripley woman was arrested Wednesday on charges of allegedly forging checks that she stole from her mother’s checkbook.

A second man involved in alleged prescription pill trafficking was arrested by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department last week.

A Given man was killed Monday evening after his tractor-trailer rolled over on him as he was conducting repairs along the West Virginia Turnpike.

A South Carolina man died Monday morning when he was thrown from the SUV he was driving as it rolled on I-77 just south of the Kenna interchange.

A lawsuit was filed last week in Circuit Court against West Virginia Polymer, a Millwood manufacturing company, claiming that the company has failed to pay lease payments for several months and seeking to bar the company from selling any assets until payments are received.

“If it seems to good to be true, it usually is” can be the best advice to take when dealing with mail fraud. Criminals are currently using the U.S. Postal Service to bilk unsuspecting local individuals out of thousands of dollars.
 

The former Ripley Police Officer charged with sexually abusing a minor girl entered a plea of not guilty Friday morning in Jackson County Circuit Court.
 

A North Carolina man was arrested in Ravenswood last Thursday after a routine traffic stop allegedly uncovered a large quantity of prescription drugs in his possession.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., was under a glaring spotlight over the past week, after single-handedly thwarting passage of a bill to extend unemployment benefits for 400,000 jobless Americans.

Bunning, 78, a Hall of Fame pitcher whom Time Magazine in 2006 named one of the nation's five worst senators, objected that the Senate had not identified corresponding spending cuts to offset the $10 billion measure. Democrats had agreed to the provision for all new spending bills, but waived the requirement for the unemployment bill, citing the need for swift passage.

Democratic leadership sought to pass the measure with the unanimous permission of all senators, a common tactic to speed non-controversial measures through the notoriously balky Senate. Otherwise it could take almost a week to slog through the procedural steps required to take up the measure and defeat Bunning's filibuster.

Eleven times, over the course of a week – beginning last Wednesday and continuing through Tuesday – Bunning rose when the bill came before the Senate, and registered his opposition, denying unanimous consent and unilaterally preventing the extension of benefits to tens of thousands of Americans. Also blocked was funding included in the measure for highway projects and Medicare payments to doctors.

Democrats railed against Bunning's maneuver, with numerous senators taking to the floor to denounce the denial of benefits to hard-pressed jobless constituents. Recognizing the political damage being done to their Party, Republicans pressured Bunning to relent, but their leveral was limited because he is not seeking re-election this year.

Late Tuesday night, after Senators mollified Bunning by allowing him to offer cost-cutting proposals after passage, the senator from Kentucky relented. The measure passed by unanimous consent.

Be sure to read what FACEOFF columnists Charlie Meyer and Steve Smoot have to say on this subject and If you have something to say about it, send us a letter-to-the-editor at: letters@newstribune.info. We want to hear what you have to say.

FACEOFF QUESTION: Was Sen. Jim Bunning right to unilaterally hold up a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits?

The office of State Tax Commissioner Christopher G. Morris is offering a series of tips to help West Virginians file their Personal Income Taxes this year.

One of the individuals indicted last summer on meth-related charges had her bond rescinded this week following her arrest Tuesday on DUI charges in Ripley.

Woman arrested for stabbing a man with a fork, thief swipes dough from cupcake shop, one man's effort to create the coolest laundromat ever, plus a recent Jackson Newspapers story all make headlines in this week's edition of Gatehouse News Service's This Week in Weird. 

The Kroger Company recently released information concerning certain products that may have been contaminated with Salmonella Bacteria.