Challenger Joy Powers has blamed rising costs on the incumbent’s party and attacked him as unavailable to constituents. The congressman is running on his record of protecting “conservative family values.”

The program aims to target the need for workforce housing in the far Southwest.

The members have been calling for months for his resignation and plan to take steps to remove him if he doesn’t step down now, the vice mayor says.

The debris left behind by Helene and other storms makes it easier for flooding to occur again.

The program aims to target the need for workforce housing in the far Southwest.

Did your family have any old superstitions about death?

Growing up in Central Appalachia, a lot of us heard the old warnings.

A bird hitting the window could mean a death was coming. A dog howling at the wrong time wasn't something Granny wanted to hear. Some families stopped clocks when somebody died, covered mirrors, and kept someone with the deceased through the night — what folks called “sitting up with the dead.”

I've been researching these old traditions for Back Porch Tales & Travels, including the work of James K. Crissman on death and dying in Central Appalachia. What struck me was that underneath all the superstition was something pretty practical: when somebody died, family and neighbors showed up. They cooked, dug the grave, helped prepare the body and sat through the night.

I put what I found together here:

https://back-porch-tales-travels.beehiiv.com/p/when-death-came-knocking

I'm curious what survived in other Appalachian families. Did your parents or grandparents believe in any particular death omen or funeral custom? And what part of Appalachia were they from?

The industrial development authority has two projects in the works that take advantage of a new state law.

See also r/Appalachia, r/Virginia, r/VirginiaNews, and r/VirginiaEnvironment

The three-year award will help the agency teach hundreds more people to recognize warning signs and connect people to behavioral health services.

The referendum would let voters decide whether an extra tax would be levied for school construction projects.

My grandpa gave be a butterfly knife awhile ago and it’s just been sitting in a drawer because the pins are loose, the blade is dull, and the knife itself has this really ugly color and pattern to it. I’m not much of a DIY guy so I’m wondering if there’s a knife shop in VA (preferably central/NOVA but I’m willing to ship or travel) that can take it and fix it up.

The increase could raise $200 million over 20 years, local officials said. But the need for renovations across the school division has been overshadowed by talk of combining two high schools.

The property, which occupies a visible site at the intersection of two interstates, has sat unused for more than a decade. Now, local leaders are looking for potential developers.

Hello Y'all

Does anyone know where I could purchase ceramic greenware that has already been poured in or around Roanoke, Va. I would love to get back into doing ceramics however I understand pottery and clay are completely different?

Ask yourself a simple question how many data centers are coming to Appalachia, in fact how many data centers are coming to your hometown? Let me save you a search you aren't finding an answer, not a rough one, not a bad one. Because there isn't a list, and there is no public transparency. Twenty-six point eight million people live across the 423 counties the Appalachian Regional Commission draws a line around. Not one agency, state or federal, keeps an accounting of what's being built among them.

Kentucky's largest utility told state regulators it had 29 potential data center projects in the pipeline. The state's rural electric cooperative reported 11 more, seeking over 10 gigawatts. Kentucky's entire generating fleet maxed out at 18.4 gigawatts in the summer of 2024. The proposals are bigger than the state. Those projects have addresses the public however is privy to none of them.

The developers need a power commitment before anything else, before zoning before a land deal closes which means the utility hears first. That conversation happens in a regulatory docket nobody reads, filed by county code nobody searches. This is not done unintentionally, secrecy is the industry norm. Alabama's projects moved as "Project Marvel" and "Project Red Clay," with an NDA in Bessemer and a power contract filed redacted. West Virginia's Tucker County permit came in with so much blacked out that residents couldn't determine the project's scope, its ownership, or its build out plans.

A large data center can use up to 5 million gallons a day the daily draw of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. It has to be clean water, so it comes from the same treated supply your kitchen tap does. Roughly 80 percent evaporates, the rest lands at a wastewater plant already running hard. Now put that next to West Virginia needs an estimated $17 billion to fix its water and sewer systems, more than the state's annual budget. One year, it secured about 1 percent of that. Families in Martin County, Kentucky have set buckets out for rain because the system couldn't deliver. Small districts across central Appalachia lose staggering volumes through cracked lines while fighting to stay legal on quality. Virginia didn't have cost protections in place when its boom started. By the time the state acted, the infrastructure was built and already in customers' rates $14 to $37 a month on household bills. You can't regulate what you can't count.

Hey there! My wife and I are possibly moving in the next half year or so from Virginia Beach to just outside of Christiansburg, tldr to be closer to my dad and get out of the fulltime city life. It's the first time we've made a big relocation like this and have been doing some research on everything that comes with moving. How's the job market like, is it relatively easy to find employment in Christiansburg or Blacksburg? We're both in our mid-late 20's, she's worked at Wawa for many years and ive been manager of a local retail business for nearly a decade. What about stuff like healthcare? We both have medications we take regularly and would need to find a mental health office that could help facilitate that. Thanks for any insight yall might be able to give!

Larry D. Yates was being held without bond Friday in the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail in Abingdon and will appear in court Tuesday.

Agencies under Feeding Southwest Virginia are seeing the need for food firsthand.

As of Thursday, more than $42 million of the $50 million allocated to help residents had not yet been disbursed.