SUMMARY: WEEKEND WEATHER AUG 24TH: Today was a pleasant, typical summer day with temperatures reaching 80° in Beckley. A cold front is moving through tonight, bringing increasingly breezy winds and cooler air, dropping temps to the high 50s overnight and into the 40s early next week. Rain chances remain very low, with mainly dry conditions expected tonight and tomorrow. Monday will feature a mix of clouds and sun with highs in the high 60s to low 70s—cooler than normal. Low humidity and comfortable weather will continue through the week, making it a great time to enjoy the outdoors as fall arrives early.

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by Anna Claire Vollers, West Virginia Watch
August 22, 2025

This week, the Trump administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an effort to check the immigration status of people who get their health insurance through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Medicaid is the public health insurance program for people with low incomes that’s jointly funded by states and the federal government. For families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance, CHIP is a public program that provides low-cost health coverage for their children.

The feds will begin sending states monthly enrollment reports that identify people with Medicaid or CHIP whose immigration or citizenship status can’t be confirmed through federal databases. States are then responsible for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals in those reports. States are expected to take “appropriate actions when necessary, including adjusting coverage or enforcing non-citizen eligibility rules,” according to a CMS press release.

“We are tightening oversight of enrollment to safeguard taxpayer dollars and guarantee that these vital programs serve only those who are truly eligible under the law,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees CMS as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a press release announcing the new program.

As of April, roughly 71 million adults and children nationwide have Medicaid coverage, while another 7 million children have insurance through CHIP. Immigrants under age 65 are less likely to be covered by Medicaid than U.S.-born citizens, according to an analysis from health research organization KFF.

Immigrants who are in the country illegally aren’t eligible for federally funded Medicaid and CHIP. Only citizens and certain lawfully present immigrants — green card holders and refugees, for example — can qualify.

But some states have chosen to expand Medicaid coverage for immigrants with their own funds. Twenty-three states offer pregnancy-related care regardless of citizenship or immigration status, according to KFF. Fourteen states provide coverage for children in low-income families regardless of immigration status, while seven states offer coverage to some adults regardless of status.

The tax and spending package President Donald Trump last month cuts federal spending on Medicaid by more than $1 trillion, leaving states to either make up the difference with their own funds or reduce coverage. But the new law also includes restrictions on coverage for certain immigrants, including stripping eligibility from refugees and asylum-seekers.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.

The post Feds direct states to check immigration status of their Medicaid enrollees appeared first on westvirginiawatch.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article provides a balanced overview of recent policy changes to Medicaid and CHIP enrollment verification tied to immigration status. It presents facts, official statements, and statistics without emotive language or partisan framing. Both the rationale behind the policy, such as safeguarding taxpayer dollars, and the impact on immigrants are covered objectively. The inclusion of context on eligibility rules and varying state approaches reinforces a neutral, informative tone, typical of centrist reporting seeking to inform rather than advocate.

by Andrew Donaldson, West Virginia Watch
August 21, 2025

While students across the Mountain State are going back to school to advance to the next grade, many parents and most of the politicians seemed to be held back in the same spots with the same education arguments of the last few years.

News headlines and social media stories come one at a time on the as-needed basis as events and the business model dictate. But separate news items and viral debates over school choice, school funding, school vaccination requirements, school closings, school performance, and school staffing are variations on one theme: What is education, and who should control it?

That basic “who/what” question of intent and control is not unique to education issues. All political stories when reduced to their essences are stories about power and money. Education has become more and more a political endeavour, because of inherently involved power and money. As such, the rules of discerning politics apply far more than the traditional policy ideas and learning philosophies of what information goes into a student and how to evaluate the information coming out of a student. Add in the culture warring elements fueled by the modern marriage of news media and social media, and you have an environment that is heavy on the vibes and light on vocation.

The COVID-19 crisis is justifiably noted to be an inflection point in the push-pull world of policy and politics in general and education specifically. COVID — or more specifically the reaction by the people involved in running the institutions of American society from schools, to government, to health care, to social order — revealed the pre-existing flaws with a stress test that most everyone failed to one degree or another. While the high-minded ideals of learning, education and bettering the next generation were still recited as if the words themselves would magically manifest such things into malleable minds, reality told a different story.

Schools were closed, opened, closed again, re-opened with restrictions and not-ready-for-prime-time hybrid and online learning. Exceptions and standards had to be adjusted on the fly. Parents and the government had a tug-of-war over who could better understand an unprecedented crisis in public health and public trust with in-classroom teachers and their students as the rope.

The generation of students who lived through it heard all the buzzwords and platitudes, but weighed them against their lived experience, and found them wanting. Words said education matters, students matter, learning matters. Actions told them the priority of the education system was to be a giant jobs and funding program first, a daycare for parents second, and once that was all satisfied, perhaps you might learn something while being taught to pass a test to show what you learned.

Post-COVID, plenty of parents and politicians seem unable to let go of the tug-of-war rope. While the individual debates over issues like the vaccine exemptions, the ballooning cost of the Hope Scholarship, and debates over what should and shouldn’t be included in curriculum continue, perspective is badly needed that all these threads form the one cord of systematically educating students. The in-classroom teachers and students are on a treadmill that starts every August and keeps going until the following June. Education in the United States of America in the Year of Our Lord 2025 is very much a machine that does not stop.

The ever-entwined socio-political news and social media coverage of education runs at variable speeds, mostly parallel to the actual in-classroom education system. When the news narratives and social media attention does cross over into the real world education system, chaos and confusion are usually the result. Regardless of the chaos or the reason du jour, the in-classroom teachers have to press ahead with the students. While the algorithms and consultants keep us entertained, the pressure on an already overworked, underfunded and constantly criticized in-classroom environment is doing no one any favors.

Not that there ever was an era of magnanimous politics, but even with cellphones being banned from classrooms the rising generations of students have more information on current events than ever before. Those students aren’t just learning the curriculum; they are learning what the adults — teachers, parents, government officials, administrators — really think about them and their place in the education and political machines that drive America. And they are going to believe us.

West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.

The post Students go back to school in West Virginia, but same education debates rage appeared first on westvirginiawatch.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The content presents a critical view of the current education system, highlighting systemic issues such as underfunding, politicization, and the impact of COVID-19 on schooling. It emphasizes the struggles of teachers and students within a politicized environment and calls for broader perspective and reform. While it critiques both political sides and the media’s role, the focus on social challenges and institutional shortcomings aligns more closely with center-left perspectives that advocate for systemic improvements and greater support for public education.