This story originally appeared in the September/October 2015 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. The halls at Lily’s Place, an old Huntington podiatrist’s office turned infant drug withdrawal center, are almost noiseless. For drug-affected newborns, almost any kind of stimulus is unbearable. “Sometimes just talking…
This story originally appeared in the January/February 2016 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. For a time, it seemed black lung was headed the way of smallpox and polio. When Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, about 35 percent…
This story was original published in the March/April 2015 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. In late October 2011, storm winds brought down trees all around James Ball’s home near Danville, making the road to his home impassable. It was a terrible time to have a…