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DUPONT WANTS JUDGE OFF CASE - The DuPont Co. has asked Wood County Judge George Hill. Jr. to disqualify himself from the lawsuit over water and air pollution.
Their lawyers are claiming the judge or is family could be part of the class action group who are claiming they have been
harmed by the chemical C8. Hill ordered DuPont to pay for blood testing for residents who may have been exposed to the
chemical which they have produced since the 1950's. It could cost the company millions of dollars.
Hill made a ruling that allowed the suit to proceed as a class action on behalf of thousands of plant neighbors.
DuPont lawyer Larry Janssen said that Hill "holds a potential economic interest in the outcome of the trial."
Residents have claimed the chemical has affected public health after it seeped into the local water supply.
OFFICERS SHOT AFTER TRAFFIC STOP - Two Upshur County policemen are hospitalized after being shot by a
Randolph County man Monday evening. One of the officers underwent surgery Tuesday evening. Randolph County Deputy
John Channel and Elkins Patrolman Mike Coberly were also shot Monday evening when they approached the house of
29-year-old Scott Ennis in Montrose.
The standoff with Ennis lasted 14 hours until State Police stormed the house and arrested him.
REPUBLICIAN JONES NEW CHARLESTON MAYOR - Republican Danny Jones defeated Democrat Chris Smith by
2,030 votes in this week's election. Jones, who has now been elected to local, county and state office in Kanawha County,
says he wants to re-ignite a spirit to Charleston that existed when Mike Roark was mayor in the 1980s.
SENATOR BYRD CRITICAL OF WAR - Senator Robert C. Byrd continued his criticism of the Iraqi war this week.
He said it has "become painfully clear in the aftermath of war is that Iraq was no immediate threat to the U.S. ravaged by
years of sanctions, Iraq did not even lift an airplane against us." Bryd says the truth about the war will be exposed.
"And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall."
He said "No weapons of mass destruction have yet turned up, but we are told that they will in time. Perhaps they yet will.
But, our costly and destructive bunker busting attack on Iraq seems to have proven, in the main, precisely the opposite of
what we were told was the urgent reason to go in....Were our troops needlessly put at risk? Were countless Iraqi civilians
killed and maimed when war was not really necessary? Was the American public deliberately misled? Was the world?"
Byrd says, "The American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from
public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line."
CATERPILLARS HIT THE WHITE OAKS -
Caterpillars are hurting West Virginia's white oaks this spring. The worst defoliation has occurred in the Cabwaylingo State
Forest area of Wayne County. Agriculture Commissioner Gus Douglass says moderate to heavy defoliation has been
reported in Braxton, Gilmer, Ritchie, Wirt, Jackson, Kanawha, Putnam and Mingo counties.
GINSENG MAY BE FURTHER CONTROLLED - People from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina
and Tennessee attended a public forum in Kentucky this week concerning the production and sale of wild ginseng.
Robert Gabel is chief of the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Division of Scientific Authority told the 50 people that the Fish
and Wildlife Service wants input from licensed ginseng growers and sellers about ways the agency can ensure the US meets
requirements of the 28-year-old Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Under the treaty, wild ginseng is designated as a species that could become threatened. It currently can can bring more than
$350 a pound.
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