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A federal appeals court has overturned a West Virginia transgender sports ban, finding that the law violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The 2-1 ruling Tuesday from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocks a West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams. The court said the law cannot lawfully be applied to a 13-year-old girl who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade. The American Civil Liberties Union, its West Virginia chapter and LGBTQ interest group Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit in 2021.

CHARLESTON — A state health facilities official was scheduled to appear before West Virginia…

The Labor Department issued a new rule Tuesday intended to protect coal miners from poisonous silica dust that has contributed to the premature deaths of thousands of mine workers from a respiratory ailment commonly known as “black lung” disease. A rule announced by Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su cuts in half the permissible exposure limit for crystalline silica for an 8-hour shift. Mine workers, community advocates and elected officials from Appalachian states pushed for the stricter rule, noting that health problems have grown in recent years as miners dig through more layers of rock to gain access to coal seams where surface deposit have long been tapped. In Central Appalachia, an estimated one in five tenured coal miners has black lung disease.

Since the first successful English colony settled in Jamestown in 1607, flows of immigrants …

This story was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight. Get stories like this deliv…

This story was first published by WestVirginiaWatch.com and is republished here with permission.