Latest news with #WestVirginia
E&E News
8 hours ago
- Politics
- E&E News
NPS to shutter training centers in Grand Canyon and West Virginia
Since the 1960s, most employees of the National Park Service have traveled to a storied training facility in Grand Canyon National Park at some point in their early career to learn how to be a park ranger. The Trump administration is overhauling that rite of passage. As part of the administration's effort to consolidate all the administrative functions of Interior Department offices at its headquarters on C Street in Washington, the National Park Service will close its two national training centers, according to the service. Advertisement One of those facilities is the Horace P. Albright Training Center on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, where new rangers are taught about the laws and history of the service. The second is the Stephen T. Mather Training Center in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where career development and technical trainings were held.
National Post
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- National Post
At this West Virginia nudist resort, everyone has skin in the game
PAW PAW, West Virginia — The time was 2 p.m., the sun was scorching and a retiree named Dewey Butts III was reveling in his version of heaven: a swimming pool crowded with dozens of men and women – every last one of them naked, himself included. Article content Here at the Avalon Resort, a self-styled 'clothing-optional' retreat two hours west of D.C., the dress code requires no type of dress (or shirt or pants) at all. Article content Article content Article content 'This is about finding a way to enjoy life and I enjoy being nude,' said Butts (yes, that's his real name), a widower who drove last weekend from Pennsylvania with his girlfriend for a gala celebrating Avalon's 30th anniversary. Article content Article content 'This is freedom,' he said, his smile befitting someone who had just won something akin to the jackpot. Article content The regimented constraints of conventional life often inspire a deep yearning for liberation, the form of which can be as logistically challenging as, say, parachuting out of an airplane, or as prosaic as channeling your inner Pavarotti in the shower – neighbors be damned. Article content At Avalon, 250 rolling acres that include streets with names like 'Bare Buns Boulevard,' freedom means moseying about in nothing more than gobs of sunscreen and embracing a lifestyle that dates back nearly 100 years in the United States and longer in Europe. Article content Feeling a tad self-conscious? Article content Not to worry, say Avalon's members, largely an older crowd that includes people like the ever-sunny Linda Keesee, 74, a retired naval intelligence officer who bought a condo at the resort years ago with her husband, Bill, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who died in 2022. Article content Article content Article content On her kitchen wall is a framed photo of a happy moment – Bill at their outdoor grill, his middle-aged body covered only by a red apron. A second photo, this one on a side table, also captures Bill at the grill, this time without the apron. Article content 'I always tell people when they come to Avalon that Barbie and Ken don't live here,' said Keesee, in a sundress, at least for the moment, as she reclined in a comfortable chair in her condo. 'It is people of all shapes and sizes and colors just enjoying the freedom of it.' Article content The resort draws patrons from various backgrounds and professions, as well as parents with children, willing to pay an annual year-round membership fee of as much as $800 (raising kids to accept nudity as natural and to not equate it with sex is a mainstay of the nudist ethos). Article content On this particular weekend, the crowd seemed heavy on ex-military and government types. At one point at Keesee's place, Chris Morales, 63, a forensics expert who formerly worked for the Secret Service and Justice Department, dropped in, naked from head to sandal-covered toes.
The Sun
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Hollywood bombshell unrecognizable as she transforms into boxer for new movie – can you guess who?
A HUGE A-list actress looked a far cry from her usual glamorous self, as she transformed into a boxer for her latest role. Fans are used to seeing this movie star, 27, impeccably groomed - can you guess who she is? 5 5 5 5 The star in question is actress-of-the-moment Sydney Sweeney. The Hollywood star underwent a major body transformation to portray boxer Christy Martin, 56. In a new picture released to promote the film, the actress looked worlds away from her usual glam self in the upcoming movie which will be released in September. The bio-pic, which is simply called Christy, tells the boxer's incredible story, which saw her once be left for dead. Originally haling from West Virginia, Christy is credited with putting women's boxing on the map. She won 49 fights, with 32 by way of knockout, in a career that began in the late 1980s, and was represented by legendary promoter Don King. However, behind-the-scenes manager James 'Jim' Martin, who she married in 1991, made her life a living hell by beating her physically and mentally. All the while, Christy, who is gay, was wrestling with her sexuality and identity. In 2010, Martin tried to kill Christy by repeatedly stabbing his wife, before shooting her in the chest. Sydney Sweeney stuns in elegant blue dress at glitzy UK premiere of her latest movie The attack reportedly occurred after an argument at home - - somehow she survived the attack. Martin, who was 25 years Christy's senior, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He died in jail last November, while serving his sentence at Graceville Correctional Facility in Florida. Understandably, Christy's astonishing story caught the attention of Hollywood. Speaking about Sydney playing her in the forthcoming film about her incredible life, she said: "I think she is young, hot, talented." She also added that the actress was "making a movie that in 20+ years, fathers will watch with their daughters to make them aware of domestic violence". While Sydney said of Christy: "Her journey is a testament to resilience, strength, and hope, and I'm honored to step into her shoes to share her powerful story with you all." Christy now works as a promoter and has been married to Lisa Holewyne. 5
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
McDowell County, West Virginia, birthplace of food stamps, faces a disappearing safety net
For nonprofits in McDowell County, West Virginia, the federal cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act threaten a lifeline. Many of McDowell's 17,000 residents rely on federal programs and the nonprofits they fund to get by. The county's tax base and population have significantly declined since 1950, when McDowell was the top coal-producing county in the nation and had about 100,000 residents. Now, more than half the children in the county receive federal Children's Health Insurance Program benefits, and about one-third of seniors are on Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for the poor. Decades after the Kennedy administration made the county a first test of food stamps, nearly half the county's residents receive supplemental nutrition assistance, or SNAP, the Food Stamp Program's successor. The strains created by new eligibility restrictions on SNAP as a result of the passage of President Trump's domestic policy bill will be especially dire in places like McDowell County, where more than one-third of the population lives below the federal poverty line, said Rosemary Ketchum, executive director of the West Virginia Nonprofit Association. 'These federal cuts are starving people,' she said. Since the interruption in federal support tied to President Trump's January executive orders barring grants related to 'gender ideology'; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and environmental justice, Ketchum said many of the 9,000 or so nonprofits in her state have laid off staff. Others, she said, are dipping into whatever reserves they have to pay their employees. Those reserves are slim, if they exist at all. Taken together, the seven nonprofits that receive federal grants in McDowell County run on a 3 percent operating margin, according to data tabulated by the Urban Institute's National Center for Charitable Statistics. If all federal support disappeared, the center found, all the county's nonprofits would be at risk of going under unless other funding was provided. No Plan B In a poor state like West Virginia, which is already facing a budget deficit and lacks the legions of philanthropic donors who got rich on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley, nonprofits don't have a plan B, said Kathy Gentry, executive director of Safe Housing and Economic Development, or SHED, a McDowell nonprofit housing provider. The nonprofit's clients, many of whom are elderly or disabled, rely on U.S. Housing and Urban Development support to cover the rent at the 94 housing units SHED manages. Gentry's pay was temporarily cut for six weeks this spring because part of her salary comes from a HUD capacity-building grant that the administration deemed at cross-purposes with Trump's anti-DEI policy agenda. Her full paycheck resumed, but Gentry worries further cuts will force her to lay off staff. Already the nonprofit operates at a loss. In its 2023 tax filing, the most recent available, SHED's $663,000 in expenses outstripped its revenue by nearly $200,000. 'We're in a quandary here — all nonprofits are,' Gentry said. 'Are we going to exist? Will we have to dissolve?' Health care and internet access Since 2015, Heidi Binko and her team at the Just Transition Fund have worked with economic development agencies and nonprofits in areas where the coal industry once flourished. That can mean helping a local organization identify or write a grant or provide a matching grant. The fund was created by the Rockefeller Family Foundation and Appalachian Funders Network to help coal towns capture some of the dollars provided in the 2015 Clean Power Plan, or POWER Act, passed during the Obama administration. Since then, the fund says it has helped coal communities in West Virginia and throughout the nation secure more than $2 billion in federal grants. Binko hopes the fund can continue to attract federal resources to towns with high poverty rates. 'There are still federal dollars available,' she said. 'They haven't all been zeroed out.' The recently passed domestic policy bill, for instance, contains $50 billion in health care grants over 10 years for rural providers, though it is unclear whether that money will keep hospitals and clinics that rely on Medicaid dollars afloat. Two hallmarks of the Biden administration's infrastructure and stimulus acts — transitioning away from a carbon-based economy and providing federal resources among different populations equitably — are not a focus of the Trump plan. As a result, Binko fears recent progress will be dimmed. For instance, Generation West Virginia, a Just Transition Fund grantee worked with McDowell County to apply for funds from the Biden administration's Digital Equity Act to run an elementary and middle school digital literacy program. Programs under the act were terminated in May. The cancellation of the Digital Equity Act is a setback for McDowell, where 20 percent of households don't have a broadband internet connection, according to a Generation West Virginia report. Clean water Other, more basic infrastructure is lacking in the county. According to DigDeep, a nonprofit that assists with clean water access and wastewater systems and is primarily funded by private institutions, corporate partners and grassroots donations, there may be hundreds of people in the county without a dependable water supply. The exact number is unknown because information on whether existing water systems provide safe drinking water is not gathered by the U.S. Census. DigDeep works with the McDowell Public Service District utility provider to identify residents who need a water hookup and helps secure grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rural development program to extend water trunk lines to hard-to-reach areas. In some cases, the nonprofit helps pay to connect the federally supported water lines directly to people's homes. It is also helping to install wastewater treatment facilities to more than 400 residents who either have inadequate systems or flush waste into nearby creeks. The water supply throughout the county is unreliable because of the area's close historical ties to the rise and fall of the coal economy, said George McGraw, DigDeep's chief executive. When coal operations came to McDowell, businesses operated in a 'closed loop' environment. Coal companies paid workers to build and work in the mines, they owned the houses where miners lived, and they built the water lines that served those houses, McGraw said. When the coal industry began to peter out, companies exited the county, leaving behind an aging system of pipes and drains. To secure water in the county today, hundreds of people fill plastic jugs from roadside springs or mine shafts, McGraw said. To get drinking water, they may use the bathroom in a store, a neighbor's house, or a school. DigDeep has several projects in the planning stages in McDowell. But the Trump USDA budget proposal would chop the rural water program by two-thirds, meaning some public works projects may never get completed. Someone else will have to foot the bill or the system will continue to crumble, leaving many people in McDowell County without a basic necessity. 'It's not like the burden goes away,' McGraw said. 'The burden just shifts, and utilities are forced to raise rates on customers, many of whom are below the poverty line.' ______ Alex Daniels is a senior reporter at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit Solve the daily Crossword
Washington Post
a day ago
- Business
- Washington Post
McDowell County, West Virginia, birthplace of food stamps, faces a disappearing safety net
For nonprofits in McDowell County, West Virginia, the federal cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act threaten a lifeline. Many of McDowell's 17,000 residents rely on federal programs and the nonprofits they fund to get by. The county's tax base and population have significantly declined since 1950, when McDowell was the top coal-producing county in the nation and had about 100,000 residents.
