State lawmakers on Wednesday advanced a contentious anti-abortion bill after hours of behind-the-scenes negotiations. A split House Judiciary Committee amended and passed legislation (SB597) meant to make it easier for women seeking abortions to view fetal ultrasound images. The bill now heads to the full House for consideration.

Gov. Joe Manchin strongly urged state Board of Education members Wednesday to take a leadership role and push for changes that could help West Virginia secure $80 million in federal education dollars.

Legislation to allow the state Parkways Authority to operate additional toll roads in the state (SB427) advanced to the full House of Delegates Wednesday -- with a new version of a discount plan for commuters who use E-ZPass to pay Turnpike tolls.

Circuit courts in more populous areas of the state could set up business courts under a proposal approved by state senators Wednesday, after concerns some senators had about the cost of the new court systems were allayed.

Unemployment rates are up in all of West Virginia's 55 counties. Figures released Tuesday by Workforce West Virginia also show the number of counties reporting rates much worse than average declined slightly in January

A draft of the West Virginia Department of Education's new K-12 core standards for English/language arts and math is now available for public review. The agency released the draft standards Wednesday. They are expected to be finalized in early spring.

For perhaps the first time, a single agency could soon manage the estimated 9,300 vehicles owned or leased by West Virginia state government.

Concern about prison overcrowding in West Virginia has helped advance legislation that would speed up parole for the state's least-risky nonviolent inmates

Lawmakers have signed off on allowing West Virginia's cities and towns to tap insurance proceeds when clearing away buildings destroyed by fire.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection wants details about where oil and gas producers are getting water for wells and how they'll dispose of it.

The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling regarding new natural gas drilling proposed for Chief Logan State Park.

West Virginia will receive $21.9 million from the federal government to turn around its lowest-achieving schools.

Both political parties are taking tea party activists seriously and are wary of offending them – if they are not already actively wooing them for state races this fall. Just look at the governor’s election in Ohio. Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich openly touts his tea party credentials in his bid to defeat incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland. “I think I was in the tea party before there was a tea party,” Kasich famously told a Columbus crowd earlier this year. “This is a real movement with a real message about people’s frustrations by broken promises that leaders on both sides of the aisle would be foolish to ignore,” he went on to write in a blog posting.

TODAY’S TAKE: California has fewer people in its workforce today than it did in 1999. For Alabama and Indiana, 1993 is the last time the employment ranks were so thin. And for Michigan — unquestionably the nation’s hardest-hit state in terms of unemployment — 4.1 million people have jobs today. That’s the smallest total since August of 1987, when Ronald Reagan was president.

Gov. Mike Beebe today touted a national program designed to provide mental health care for soldiers returning from battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lawmakers could decide in the final days of this year's regular session to commit nearly $9 million to help beef up the ranks of the West Virginia State Police to its highest level in years.