A former employee of a West Virginia State University agency who spearheaded a design competition to restore the iconic Top-O-Rock home in Charleston claims in a lawsuit she was fired over a post she made on her personal Facebook page.

Sarah Halstead, who worked as an economic development specialist for WVSU's Research and Development Corporation, filed a lawsuit last week in Kanawha Circuit Court against the school, its corporation and school officials.

Halstead was behind a design competition to restore the home built by architect Henry Elden in 1968. The contest was announced last March after the home was found in disrepair, having been vandalized in 2014.

In early May, Top-O-Rock was again vandalized, and footage of the alleged vandals was caught on surveillance cameras. In an effort to identify the trespassers, Halstead posted still photographs of them on her Facebook page on May 14, 2015, according to her lawsuit.

About five days after posting the photographs, Halstead was fired, the lawsuit states. A memo from Orlando McMeans, executive director of WVSU's Research and Development Corporation, to Halstead said she was fired for "while representing the WVSU Extension Service, publicly making criminal accusations against minors which were not authorized by the University or the [school's research and development corporation] and which do not represent the position of the University or the Corporation."

Along with McMeans, also named as defendants in the lawsuit are Ami Smith, associate dean of the WVSU Extension Office; Kimberly Osborne, vice president of university relations; and WVSU President Brian Hemphill.

The memo stated Halstead failed to comply with previous direction "to have press engagement approved through WVSU Office of University Relations and Operations."

Halstead potentially created legal or liability issue for the school, according to the memo, the lawsuit states.

Halstead's lawsuit claims she was wrongly terminated and retaliated against for exercising her First Amendment right to free speech. She is represented by Charleston attorney Harry Bell.

Charleston attorney Tom Kleeh, who represents the Research and Development Corporation, said Monday that he hadn't yet seen a copy of the complaint.

"We stand by the employment decision that was made," said Kleeh. "To the extent that the university and university employees, including Kimberly Osborne and President Hemphill were named, we don't think that was appropriate, as Ms. Halstead never worked for the university."

Kleeh said that the research and development office is separate from the school.

"It's a completely separate private sector entity from the university - separate employees, separate decision makers, particularly as it pertains to Ms. Halstead," Kleeh said.

Kleeh also said that a notice, which is required to be provided before a lawsuit is filed against a state agency, was never given. Halstead's complaint says that notice was sent to defendants June 9.

WVSU pulled out of the design competition around the time of the vandalism. At the time, Halstead said only that she was no longer with the school and, instead, West Virginia GreenWorks, a nonprofit organization that Halstead heads, decided it would lead the preservation effort and design competition. Demolition abruptly began on the house in September.

Halstead was hired as an interim Extension specialist by WVSU in 2012. Two years later, the school offered her the permanent position, which she accepted, her lawsuit states. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit.

Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723, or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.

The day their trial was set to begin, two men on Monday pleaded guilty in the shooting of a downtown Charleston nightclub bouncer.

Tasheem Collins, 39, and George Sawyer, 31, both pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the shooting of bouncer Jimmy Beasley on April 26, 2014. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed attempted murder charges the men were facing.

Donna Beasley said her husband was OK with the deals, as he just wanted the court proceedings to come to an end.

"Jimmy just wanted it to be over. He's the one who deals with it the most," she said. "He has to deal with it the rest of his life."

Sawyer pleaded guilty to wanton endangerment and malicious wounding. Kanawha Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey will sentence him March 2.

He faces one to five years in jail for wanton endangerment and two to 10 years for malicious wounding.

The deal Collins made could allow him to be released from jail almost immediately, his attorney, Richard Holicker, a senior deputy public defender in Kanawha said. Collins entered a Kennedy plea to two counts of wanton endangerment. Under the Kennedy rule, a defendant doesn't admit guilt.

The plea was binding, meaning if Bailey didn't agree to sentence Collins to a year for each count, he could withdraw his plea. After accepting it - although "somewhat reluctantly" she said - Collins was immediately sentenced.

"I think she said she was reluctant because this was a very violent crime," Donna Beasley said after the hearing.

Beasley was shot multiple times at the corner of Kanawha Boulevard and Capitol Street after a confrontation with Collins and Sawyer inside The Cellar nightclub.

The men were kicked out of the bar. Beasley was shot while walking two women to another club, prosecutors said.

Assistant Kanawha Prosecutor Don Morris told the judge Monday that surveillance footage from nearby businesses showed events leading up to the shooting and would have been presented at trial. Bailey had already ruled the two men would stand trial together.

Beasley spent more than two months in the hospital after the shooting. His wife said Monday that he has had to relearn how to walk and talk.

"He can walk short distances. If he loses balance he can catch himself now," she said. "He can talk but he doesn't sound the same. His voice sounds different."

Donna Beasley has attended every court hearing. She said Monday she would have liked to see Collins and Sawyer get a lengthy prison sentence - the maximum. But, she added, a longer sentence wouldn't change what happened to her husband.

"There's no way they could ever pay for what they've done to him," she said.

Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.

One day before West Virginia lawmakers start their annual regular session Wednesday, a group formed to consider statewide standardized testing might make its final recommendations on big changes to the exams.

At its second meeting last week, most members of state schools Superintendent Michael Martirano's Commission on Assessment said they wanted to move away from West Virginia's existing Smarter Balanced standardized exams, limit end-of-year testing in high school to only one grade and specifically explore using the ACT as statewide assessments. The group will provide its advice to Martirano, who will make recommendations to the state Board of Education.

Commission member Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association teachers union, urged the group to meet again before Wednesday.

"This train is going to pull out of the tracks fast and furious," Lee said of the legislative session, "and I would rather educators be the engineer of this train, than politicians."

Smarter Balanced is aligned with Common Core math and English language arts standards, and opposition to both the standards and Smarter Balanced has often intertwined at a time that there's much criticism of standardized tests in general.

Last year, the Senate Education Committee reduced a House-approved Common Core repeal bill to just require a review, but the Senate version still would've required West Virginia to cease, after next school year, using any standardized tests from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium or the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. The legislation failed when the House and Senate couldn't reconcile their differing versions on the last night of the session.

For its meeting today - in Building 6, Room 318 of the Capitol Complex in Charleston - the commission members have specifically requested more info on using the ACT Aspire, offered in grades 3-10, and the ACT itself to meet annual federal testing requirements.

Education officials say the new federal education law that replaced No Child Left Behind still requires math and reading testing in at least grades three through eight, plus once in high school, and requires science testing at least three times from grade three through 12. But they say the law newly allows for using the SAT and ACT to meet federal requirements.

Standardized testing can allow for comparing West Virginia's performance to students in other states. Paul Weeks, senior vice president of client relations for ACT, said 16 states require that students take the ACT. West Virginia isn't among them. He said the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education estimated about 60 percent of high school graduates nationwide took the ACT last school year.

"The cohort of ACT-tested students has become increasingly diverse and representative of students at large, which means the data that we've been tracking, monitoring, is considerably more useful than it was 10, 12, 15 years ago," he said.

Smarter Balanced spokeswoman Kelli Gauthier wrote in an email that 15 states plan to use Smarter Balanced for their end-of-year testing this school year.

Weeks said that, in addition to offering tests for all the grades West Virginia tests in for math and English, ACT, unlike Smarter Balanced, also offers science tests. West Virginia used a modified version of Westest, the test that preceded Smarter Balanced, for science last school year. Smarter Balanced also uses only one test for high school students, but the state altered Smarter Balanced to test three high school grades.

Kanawha County school board member Ryan White has expressed support for allowing counties to choose between ACT and SAT assessments. The SAT does not have a science portion, and only provides tests for grades eight through high school, but it includes science- and social studies-related questions as part of its tests.

Weeks said the normal ACT that students take to get into colleges has five sections: English, math, reading, science and the optional writing portion. He said the same sections also are available in all grades of the ACT Aspire, but states can choose which portions they want in each grade level.

A lingering question is whether new tests, or Smarter Balanced, can adequately assess if students are meeting the state's new standards for the upcoming school year. Although Martirano has said West Virginia's new standards are not based on the Common Core standards, which the state uses, they contain much identical language, down to the same examples and same ordering.

Weeks said ACT is about a week or two away from completing an internal alignment study between its tests and the state's new standards. Alyssa Schwenk, director of external relations for the Washington, D.C.-based Fordham Institute, said that organization also expects to publish, early next month, a study of the quality and alignment to Common Core of four tests: ACT Aspire, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, Smarter Balanced and the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, which Schwenk said is commonly considered a "gold standard" of a state-level tests.

Weeks, who said the federal government might require an independent standards-test alignment study for West Virginia to use the ACT tests for federal reporting, said the alignment between the ACT exams and the Mountain State's new standards will be "very strong," because the new standards don't veer too much from Common Core.

He said the ACT exams also line up well in some categories with the Next Generation Science Standards, another national standards blueprint that the state adopted, albeit with some changes to the teaching of global warming. He said ACT can work with states to add questions to the tests to cover gaps in what standards require, but ACT wouldn't change the heart of the tests because it would harm comparability.

Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.

There will be no major proposals coming this year from the Republican Legislature's new Joint Committee on Tax Reform, although a coalition of community organizations is pushing for a tax credit specifically aimed at low-income workers, a proposal with possible bipartisan support.

Sen. Mike Hall, R-Putnam and a co-chairman of the tax reform committee, confirmed Monday that they would make no major proposals, but said that if the Legislature gets in budget negotiations with the governor, that could "open up" some of the work they did toward tax reform.

Hall spoke at a forum on establishing a state earned income tax credit (EITC) in West Virginia.

Twenty-six other states have a state EITC, a tax credit for low-income people that has the support of both parties. Democrats tend to like the EITC because it is a safety net program, effective at raising the incomes of the working poor. And Republicans tend to like the program because you must already have an income to qualify - it only goes to people who are working and is designed not to discourage work.

The EITC is kind of like a negative income tax. Instead of the government taking away a percentage of your pay, as with an income tax, the government pays back a certain percentage of your pay, up to a certain point.

The more money low-income workers are able to make in wages from a job, the more the government will aid them in a tax credit, until it phases out as workers' earnings approach "middle income."

About 157,000 West Virginia families received an average of about $2,200 last year from the federal EITC, according to Joseph Hotz, a Duke University economist who studies the tax credit.

Every state EITC functions as a percentage of the federal EITC, a program that was made permanent in Congress' budget deal last month.

So, if West Virginia was to enact a state tax credit at 15 percent of the federal one, low-income workers would receive a credit on their state income tax equal to 15 percent of the federal tax credit they receive.

Going by Hotz's numbers that would mean an additional state tax credit of about $335 for the average low-income family, with a state EITC.

It would also mean about $50 million less in revenue for the state.

In a year where the state faces an expected deficit of more than $350 million, that's a big reason why a state EITC may face long odds in the Legislature. (That's also the reason why no major proposals are likely to come from the tax reform committee's work over the last 10 months.)

Hall, also the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said it would be difficult, but he was intrigued by one idea of paying for the tax credit.

Every year West Virginia spends about $35 million on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the equivalent of cash welfare. West Virginia must spend that money on the program in order to qualify for more than $100 million in federal TANF funds.

But the federal government allows states, if they choose, to spend that money on a state EITC instead, without losing the matching funds.

Of the 26 states with a state EITC, 18 fund it through TANF money.

Ted Boettner, director of the progressive West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said he anticipated a bill establishing a state EITC will be introduced with bipartisan support.

Both he and Hotz pointed to evidence that the EITC brings more people into the workforce.

Boettner pointed to the fact that low-income workers are making less money per hour, after adjusting for inflation, than they were 35 years ago.

And he said a state EITC could help rectify a quirk of West Virginia's tax system - the poor pay a larger share of their income in state taxes than the rich do. (Those making less than $29,000 pay about 8.7 percent of their income in West Virginia state and local taxes, while those making more than $144,000 pay about 6.5 percent, according to the Institution on Taxation and Economic Policy.)

And as for passing a tax credit during a state budget crisis?

"If something is a priority we always pay for it," Boettner said. "It just depends on making it a priority."

Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.

Charleston will be experiencing its first taste of winter weather this year Tuesday.

A clipper system from the Great Lakes will be hitting the Charleston area around 9 a.m. shortly after the morning commute, according to National Weather Service meterologist Michael Charnick.

While Charnick said it is only supposed to snow a little more than an inch or so, the snow combined with the strong gusts of wind is enough to reduce visibility for drivers.

Wind gusts may reach up to 30 mph in the lowlands and up to 40 mph in higher elevations.

Charnick said there could be snow squalls in the north near the mountains, but he said he doesn't expect lower elevations to see squalls.

"Another thing to watch for is early Wednesday temperatures are going to be dropping fairly dramatically and wind chills will be low, with most areas down in the single digits Tuesday night and Wednesday morning," Charnick said.

Charnick said some higher elevations could see wind chill temperatures 10 to 15 degrees below zero.

Dropping temperatures combined with wet roads will create slick conditions on untreated roads, according to Charnick. He advised drivers to use caution when traveling.

"This is the main impact event of the week," Charnick said. "After that is will be warming up a little bit as we head toward the end of the week."

If your New Year's Resolution is to cut out sugar, you're probably not alone.

"Sugar detox" has become something of a buzzword in the dieting world.

But is it fair to compare sugar to drugs? They do have similarities, according to an area physician.

"Sugar is an addiction because it stimulates the pleasure center in the brain, the same as drugs simulate," said Dr. Jamie Jeffrey, a pediatrician at Charleston Area Medical Center and the director of the KEYS4HealthyKids initiative.

"[Sugar] stimulates the same area of the brain as cocaine does and releases dopamine, which is a reward chemical, causing a dopamine rush and leads to cravings," Jeffrey said.

In the first few days, people who stop using sugar may start to feel shaky and tired, Jeffrey said.

"The biggest thing I've hear from patients is the cravings," Jeffrey said. "They want it, they want it, they want it."

She suggests replacing sugars, or simple carbohydrates, with fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

"So you still get the sweetness from an apple but with the fiber with that slows digestion," Jeffrey said.

Jennifer Hillenbrand, a registered dietitian at Saint Francis Hospital, recommends that people limit added sugars in their foods. Those include sodas, cakes, cookies and the like. People should read food labels, she said. Some words to look out for include high-fructose corn syrup and any other syrup and fruit juice concentrate, she said. Anything on the label that ends in "ose" is a sugar, but not all sugars are bad. For instance, lactose, a sugar found in milk, isn't bad.

Besides dealing with cravings, people detoxing from sugar will also have to break old habits. For instance, if they typically have a soda while they sit at their computer, it will take some time for them to get used to not having it, she said.

People will start to feel better in about 10 to 14 days of cutting out sugar, Jeffrey said.

And the less you eat sugar, the less your body craves it, Hillenbrand said.

"The body gets used to all this sugar and it wants it more," she said. "When you cut back, you don't want it as much."

Reducing sugar "long-term leads to weight maintenance, and decreased risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer," Jeffrey said.

As with smokers who decide to quit, people who cut out sugar have to decide whether they want to stop "cold turkey" or slowly wean themselves off it. Jeffrey doesn't encourage cold-turkey sugar detoxes because it wouldn't be appropriate for her young patients. Also because she doesn't want to make sugar the "bad guy," she said. Sugar is blamed for many health and nutrition problems these days, but before sugar, people blamed fat.

"When we decided the fat was the bad guy ... we took out the fat and replaced it with three times more sugar," Jeffrey said.

Instead, Jeffrey recommends decreasing sugar slowly.

To start with, eat your calories and sugar, she said - don't drink them.

"Sugar content in drinks is usually higher and without protein and fiber (in foods we eat) that slows down the absorption of the sugar," she said. "Drinking sugar leads to higher and quicker level of sugar in the bloodstream."

Having too much sugar, Jeffery said, can cause the body to produce too much insulin, which is what happens when we experience a "sugar crash."

She compared to a car's gas tank: if a gas tank holds 20 gallons, but you put 30 gallons in, it's going to overflow. So too, a body's muscles can only handle so much insulin.

"The overflow amount gets stored as fat," Jeffrey said.

According to new guidelines released Thursday, the federal government recommends limiting having less than 10 percent of calories per day from added sugars, or about 200 calories.

Jeffrey also recommends replacing simple carbs like white foods such as bread, pasta, potato, and rice with whole grain foods.

And finally, eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables at meal times each day, she said.

"They are high in nutritional density and fiber at a low calorie cost," Jeffrey said.

Reach Lori Kersey at lori.kersey@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1240 or follow @Lorikerseywv on Twitter.

With a new year comes new resolutions, and one Kanawha County agency hopes to convince residents to make one goal in 2016 that could save someone's life.

In an effort to increase the number of citizens trained in CPR, the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority will double the number of CPR trainings it offers. Starting this month, the ambulance authority will hold trainings twice monthly that are open to the public, according to Mike Jarrett, chaplain and safety officer for the KCEAA.

"Our goal is everybody - we know that's not attainable, but we'd like to see more of our public trained in CPR," Jarrett said. "The training also handles some basic first aid, such as choking, and I think it inspires people to go further, like taking a first aid course, or even considering working in emergency services."

For those in cardiac distress, receiving timely CPR can mean the difference between life and death, Jarrett said. A person's chances of receiving CPR immediately, however, are a little over 30 percent, due in part to the number of civilians who are trained in administering it, Jarrett said.

"Your brain starts to lose vital cell function four to six minutes without oxygen," he said. "Oxygen isn't going to get there if the blood isn't being circulated."

Nationally, about 12 million people are trained in CPR, according to the American Heart Association, which has set a 2020 goal of having 20 million people trained to perform it. Cynthia Keely, mission life director for the American Heart Association in West Virginia, said the AHA also hopes to increase the likelihood of someone initiating CPR from 31 percent to 62 percent.

"This is so important, because your chance of survival outside a hospital is very low, so the more laypeople who learn it, the better," she said. "Currently, only about 8 percent of the people receiving CPR outside the hospital survive, so we want to increase that, and that all goes back to getting people formally trained."

While Keely said it's best to take an official CPR class, she added that receiving any training in CPR could be helpful in aiding someone during a cardiac episode. The AHA and the Red Cross have phone applications that teach CPR, and emergency responders are often able to explain the process by phone until help can arrive.

The Kanawha ambulance authority teaches multiple types of CPR, according to Jarrett, who stressed that the hands-portion of the technique is more important than the breathing, as the patient's blood is likely still oxygenated. The AHA has been recommending hands-only CPR since 2008, and recommends more than 100 chest compressions per minute that are at least two inches deep - a difficult pace for many people to maintain for more than a few minutes, and another reason the AHA wants to see more people trained.

"You'll work up quite a sweat doing 100 compressions in a minute," she said. "Doing high-quality CPR and having people there to relieve you, and having quick access to an automatic electronic defibrillator - those components, and having quick emergency response, are paramount for survival."

For Keely, who has successfully helped someone with CPR in the past, the technique is one of the best things a person can learn.

"My thought is, it's like any other training you can have, but with this one, you can possibly save a life," she said.

To learn more about CPR certification and training, call the KCEAA at 304-345-2132 or visit www.heart.org/cpr.

Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.

ROCHESTER, Minn. - Turning the calendar to a new year often finds people working on their commitment to a healthy lifestyle.

When it comes to losing weight, experts advise taking a longer view, beyond a New Year's resolution.

"Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is best accomplished through a lifestyle approach," says Donald Hensrud, M.D., M.P.H., medical director of the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program and medical editor-in-chief of the Mayo Clinic Diet. "You should follow a dietary pattern that is practical. If it's too restrictive, it's impossible to sustain."

Recently, the Mayo Clinic Diet was named No. 1 in the Commercial Diet category by U.S. News & World Report. The Mayo Clinic Diet offers a weight-loss and lifestyle program that's based on research and clinical experience. An online program also gives access to meal plans, recipes and interactive tools like an iOS app for Apple operating systems, and fitness plans and exercises.

The two-phase program offers a two-week jump-start to weight loss and a lifelong approach to diet and health. The dietary plan is built around health-supporting vegetables and fruits, lean proteins, whole grains and healthy fats, such as nuts and olive oil. There's no calorie counting. Instead, the diet focuses on generous amounts of vegetables and fruits and healthy choices in other food groups. No foods are excluded. Portions of higher-calorie foods are limited. Physical activity of at least 30 minutes most days also is emphasized to highlight overall health - not just weight.

People with health conditions are encouraged to talk with their doctor before starting any diet or exercise plan.

"When you make even small changes in your diet and exercise habits, you decrease your health risks from many conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and sleep apnea," Hensrud says. "That's a gift to you and your family all year-round."

In a typical week, my teenagers might eat edamame straight out of the pods, roasted seaweed, whole grain pasta, homemade granola, frozen mango right out of the bag and fruit and vegetable smoothies made with kefir, chia seeds, kale, carrots and pineapple.

I was shocked to realize that they were also eating potentially toxic levels of sugar in the course of the day, well above recommendations from health experts like the American Heart Association.

Even if we think our kids are relatively healthy eaters, there's a good chance they are eating far too much added sugar from foods even healthy kids typically consume. Foods like fruit-flavored yogurts, sports drinks, pasta sauce, cereal, ketchup, energy bars and barbecue sauce are all loaded with added sugar.

The American Heart Association recommends that children consume no more than 12 grams, or 3 teaspoons, of added sugar per day. While a wonderful goal, it is very difficult to achieve for children whose regular daily diet includes any packaged or processed foods.

To find out how quickly those grams add up, I calculated how many grams of sugar are in the foods that my kids and the children of some of my health conscious friends might eat or drink in a day. (I did not pick the products with the highest amount of sugar; rather I picked a random sample of foods many parents may think of as healthy - or at least not as unhealthy):

n Yogurt: 8 oz. Yoplait Strawberry Greek yogurt = 11 to 12 grams added sugar, 18 grams total sugar* (these can easily go up to 18 grams of added sugar, depending on the brand).

n Cereal: 1 cup Cinnamon Life Cereal = 10 grams total sugar (most or all is likely added sugar, but no information is available).

n Frozen waffles: 2 Trader Joe's Multigrain Toaster Waffles = 7 grams added sugar.

n Ketchup: 2 Tbsp. Heinz Ketchup = 4 grams added sugar, 8 grams total sugar.

n Pasta sauce: 1/2 cup of Barilla Traditional Pasta Sauce = 8 grams added sugar.

n Chocolate milk: 8 oz. chocolate milk = 13 grams added sugar, 26 grams total sugar.

n Jam: 2 Tbsp. Stonewall Kitchen Strawberry Jam = 6 grams added sugar, 14 grams total sugar.

n Cereal bars: Special K Red Berries Cereal Bar = 8 grams added sugar (granola and cereal bars can easily go up to 11 grams or more).

n Sports drinks: 12 oz. Powerade Sports Drink + B-Vitamins, Grape = 21 grams added sugar.

Many foods like fruit and yogurt have naturally occurring sugars, which many nutrition experts differentiate from added sugars. FDA labels may soon reflect amounts of both added and naturally occurring sugars.

If your child has a container of fruit flavored yogurt or a bowl of cereal in the morning for breakfast (as ours often do), she is likely to meet or exceed her daily sugar recommendation by the time she walks out the door to catch the school bus. I asked my 16-year-old daughter to record her diet on a recent day, and although her diet sounded very healthy and included plenty of fruits and vegetables, she had likely consumed 36 grams of sugar, or 3 times the recommended amount! If using adult guidelines for her, she still would have had 1 1/2 times the recommended limit, and that's with no desserts (or at least none she reported to me).

For kids whose diets typically include cookies, candy and soda (a 12 ounce soda has 30 to 40 grams of added sugar), their sugar intake can easily be quadruple the recommended levels or worse.

Eating too much sugar can not only lead to obesity but also to metabolic disease and early onset of diabetes and heart disease as well as general inflammation that may lead to other diseases like cancer. A recent study found that after just nine days without added sugar, even though their diets still were full of non-sugary junk food like chips and hot dogs, metabolic health improved drastically in overweight kids, and their appetite decreased.

"Developing a healthy diet is critical while still in childhood as lifestyle changes become increasingly difficult to adopt with age, and adolescents are often resistant to these changes. Unfortunately, once a child has developed Type 2 Diabetes, studies have shown that most of the currently approved treatment regimens are not particularly effective in children. As the number of children with Type 2 Diabetes increases, one can expect the disorder to multiply exponentially in future generations. This is due to a biologic process known as metabolic imprinting, where the children of mothers who have obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and high blood pressure during pregnancy are more likely to also develop these conditions," according to Bethesda, Maryland-based pediatric endocrinologist, Rachel Gafni, M.D.

What's more, sugar is addictive, so if we are used to eating sugar, as most of us are, our brains crave more and more. The only way I've found to combat this in our family is by removing added sugar completely from our diets for three to seven days to lose our cravings, and that's not easy to do. The kids often start enthusiastically and lose their interest within less than a day.

Last year I served as a member of the media advisory board for "Fed Up!," a movie that links the epidemic of obesity and early onset of disease in the U.S. to our high consumption of sugar. The film's producers, including Katie Couric and Laurie David, found that sugar is in 80 percent of the products on supermarket shelves, and not just in the candy and desserts where we would expect to find it, but in bread, pasta sauce, marinades and salad dressings.

This awareness has lead me to make changes in how I shop (like reading labels more carefully and choosing products without added sugar) and how I cook, and to educate and try to inspire better choices for our children.

By buying and demanding lower sugar products, and supporting the FDA's proposed new rules to separate added sugars from naturally occurring sugars on nutrition labels, we concerned parents can put consumer pressure on food manufacturers to reduce the amount of added sugar in foods they produce, which some are already doing based on consumer demand. Along with changing our own purchasing and consumption habits, doing so is one of the best routes to consuming less sugar in our daily lives, losing our sugar cravings, and reducing the epidemic of lifestyle and weight related diseases, especially diabetes and heart disease, that are afflicting so many children at earlier and earlier ages.

Even for someone whose profession and passion is healthy eating, reducing sugar in my own family's diet is a major challenge, and I understand all too well the power of sugar cravings. (More than once, my family has walked in to find me lolling in a sugar-induced daze on the couch, with empty marshmallow bags and Nutella-stained spoons strewn around me.)

I can only imagine how hard it is for families with more typical American diets to combat the power of sugar-laden foods. I hope that as more kids see films like "Fed Up!," and "That Sugar Film," and as we make gradual reductions of sugar in their diets, their dietary choices when they are out of the house will also include foods with less added sugar.

Aviva Goldfarb is the author of "The Six O'Clock Scramble Meal Planner," a healthy meal planning cookbook published by the American Diabetes Association, her fourth cookbook, coming out in February. She is the mother of two and founder of the family meal planner, The Six O'Clock Scramble. She tweets @thescramble.

Winfield - Putnam County continues to see an increase in the number of teachers and staff retiring.

Twenty-four Putnam County Schools employees announced their retirement and were approved by the school board Monday night.

Putnam County Schools Superintendent Chuck Hatfield said the increase in retirement numbers could possibly be a result of the early notification for retirement incentive.

Employees who notify the school board of their retirement before Jan. 15 will receive a $500 stipend as well as one year of free dental and optical insurance, Hatfield said.

"It's an incentive program for them so that they'll notify us earlier so we'll know what our needs are for next year and get those things in mind," he said.

Hatfield said there has been an increase in the number of employees retiring over the last three years, with this year having the most retirees.

"We're going through a group that is qualified for retirement," Hatfield said. "We are seeing a trend of people retiring in the system."

In addition to approving the retirements, the Putnam County Board of Education created a new special needs preschool teaching position for Mountainview Elementary School because of increased enrollment.

Hatfield said this increased enrollment isn't unusual because three-year-olds are eligible for the program.

The new position should be posted by Thursday and will remain open for five business days, Hatfield said.

The West Virginia Office of Educational Performance Audits also recently audited Putnam County Schools.

Hatfield said he was pleased with the outcome after participating in the exit interviews.

The auditors visited every school in Putnam County and rated the schools in various areas, while the official report hasn't been filed yet, Hatfield expects it will be positive.

"We don't have anything formal in writing yet, but we feel that our schools did very well and some areas we need to improve on were identified," Hatfield said.

Hatfield also reminded board members and the audience that the Putnam County Spelling Bee will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The state Division of Highways will renew its $3.18 million contract with the Citizens Conservation Corps of West Virginia to operate the state Courtesy Patrol for another year this spring - and then will conduct a study to determine if the program is cost-effective, legislators were told Tuesday.

"We have to determine if the services we're getting are worth what we're paying out for them," John McBrayer, deputy highways commissioner, said after the legislative Post-Audits Committee meeting.

McBrayer said DOH intends to renew the nonprofit CCCWV's contract for one year in May, and then will conduct a four-month study to determine if the program is cost effective.

"If we determine it's not the best use of tax dollars, we will recommend abandoning the program," McBrayer told the committee.

The travelers' assistance service has patrolled 25 state highway routes daily since it was re-instituted in 1998, but has drawn criticism over its costs, duplication of private-sector services, and the high salaries paid to executives of the non-profit that manages the Courtesy Patrol.

A legislative audit issued last June concluded that it would be much cheaper - about $1.96 million a year - for the division to operate the Courtesy Patrol internally instead of contracting it out to the Beckley-based nonprofit group.

One issue is that five executives of the group have salaries totaling in excess of $600,000, including Executive Director Robert Martin, whose salary is $349,500.

Also during the Post-Audits meeting:

n Auditors concluded the Department of Agriculture improperly paid salaried employees a salary adjustment totaling more than $70,000 in November.

The payments, which averaged $251 per employee, were described as a "true-up" to offset a perceived loss of pay when the department was one of several that switched from twice monthly to biweekly pay earlier last year.

Employees switched to biweekly pay appeared to be shorted several days of pay within the 2015 calendar year. However, Post-Audits Division Director Denny Rhodes said it is strictly a timing issue, and that none of the employees actually lost any pay.

The audit recommends that the department recoup the more than $70,000 in additional pay and roughly $15,000 in benefits paid to about 280 Agriculture employees.

n Auditors found that DOH has been miscalculating taxable fringe benefits for employees who are allowed to commute in state vehicles.

Highways has been charging employees $3 a day of taxable income for use of the vehicles for commuting. However, the audit found that under Internal Revenue Service rules, the division should be charging the fair market value of the commutes, which in most cases would be considerably higher than $3 a day.

Auditors did not have a specific number of employees who commute in state vehicles, but said it is sizable.

Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304 348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.

U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney endorsed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for president on Tuesday, and announced he would chair Cruz's campaign in West Virginia.

Mooney is the first of West Virginia's four congressional Republicans to endorse a candidate in the crowded Republican presidential primary.

"I have had the pleasure of visiting with Sen. Cruz on several occasions to discuss the shared conservative policies for which we are fighting in Congress," Mooney said in a prepared statement released by the Cruz campaign. "Sen. Cruz has proven by his actions that he will stand firm in defense of the freedoms and traditional Judeo-Christian values which we cherish, even when under great pressure."

Cruz's father, Rafael, a close adviser, visited Charleston in 2014 to speak at a fundraiser for local Republicans. During his visit, Rafael Cruz said President Barack Obama "operates like a tyrant."

Cruz is, so far, one of three major presidential candidates to file for a spot on West Virginia's primary ballot.

Republican business executives Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina have also filed.

None of the major Democratic candidates had filed, as of Tuesday afternoon.

Keith Judd, a federal prison inmate who got 41 percent of the vote running against Obama in the 2012 Democratic primary, again filed to run for president.

Businessman Jim Justice officially filed to run for governor, as a Democrat, joining former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin. Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, has said he is running but has yet to officially file. Senate President Bill Cole, R-Mercer, filed his gubernatorial candidacy papers on Monday.

Mooney, who has not yet filed for re-election, gained a primary challenger when Marc Savitt filed to run as a Republican in the 2nd Congressional District. Savitt ran for a House seat in Virginia in 2014, but now lives in Jefferson County. Democrat Mark Hunt has also filed for the seat held by Mooney.

Also Tuesday, Delegate Doug Reynolds, D-Wayne, filed to run for attorney general, challenging Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.

Another Democrat, St. Albans resident Mary Ann Claytor, filed to run for state auditor. Claytor was an employee of the auditor's office under current Auditor Glen Gainer, who is not running for re-election.

In Kanawha County, Marva Lee Crouch, of Chesapeake, filed to run for magistrate in Division 3 against Brent Hall. Hall filed Monday to run for re-election.

Candidates have until Jan. 30 to file.

Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.

The Kanawha Valley Dental Society will sponsor their annual Give Kids A Smile event to provide underserved children with free dental services from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Feb. 5 at 1203 Jefferson Road.

Give Kids A Smile is held annually to provide free, easily accessible dental services to qualifying individuals and raise awareness of the epidemic of untreated dental disease occurring locally and nationally. It is also an effort to create local public and private partnerships to increase access to oral health care to solve this crisis.

All children will receive an exam by a dentist, x-rays and a cleaning. Limited restorative treatment will also be done if time permits on this day after the exam and cleaning have been completed.

Parents can call 304-993-3213 to schedule an appointment. Walk-ins will also be seen on a first-come first-serve basis.

For more information about Give Kids A Smile, visit www.capitalcityGKAS.com or http://www.ada.org/en/home-ada/public-programs/give-kids-a-smile.

Fayette County is officially closed for business when it comes to the disposal of oil and gas production waste.

The Fayette County Commission voted Tuesday to ban the storage, disposal or use of oil and gas waste within the county limits, according to a news release from Headwaters Defense, a local grassroots organization opposed to the waste disposal.

The county is not home to much oil and gas activity - with only 584 traditional gas wells producing last year. But local residents became upset with leaks from local underground injection wells, operated by Danny Webb Construction in Lochgelly, that residents say contaminated Wolf Creek.

The effort to pass the ban on drilling waste in the county was pushed by local residents and Headwaters Defense, which helped obtain around 5,000 signatures on a petition.

Part of the reasoning for the ban was a perceived lack of enforcement over Danny Webb Construction by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which regulates underground injection wells.

"The County Commission has stepped in where the state of West Virginia and the DEP have failed to adequately protect our land, water, health and safety," said Kristy Gilkey, a local resident and Headwaters Defense member.

Wal-Mart has made an independent decision to scrap plans for a previously proposed Neighborhood Market in Teays Valley, according to a company spokeswoman.

The retail giant's decision to end planning for the Teays Valley location comes less than a week after Putnam County Circuit Judge John Cummings overturned a county zoning decision that would have allowed Wal-Mart to build the smaller retail location along W.Va. 34.

Nearby homeowners and other members of the community have adamantly opposed the proposed store since April, citing concerns over traffic and property values.

However, according to Wal-Mart spokeswoman Anne Hatfield, the company's decision to cease planning for the store is not linked to Cummings' opinion last Friday.

"After careful consideration, we have made an unrelated business decision not to pursue our plans to build a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market in Teays Valley," Hatfield wrote in an email response, placing emphasis on the word "unrelated."

Hatfield did not respond to a question asking if Wal-Mart has plans to build stores in other regions of Southern West Virginia, but she added that the company is focused on providing service to customers throughout the state.

"Our commitment to our customers has not changed," Hatfield said of Wal-Mart, which is the largest commercial employer in West Virginia. "We will continue to pursue the opportunity to provide our customers throughout West Virginia the convenient and affordable shopping experience that our stores have to offer."

Reach Andrew Brown at andrew.brown@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or follow @Andy_Ed_Brown on Twitter.

Even with a $1.5 billion payout, it's possible nobody will win the Powerball again Wednesday night.

Even so, state budgets like West Virginia's are winners, just because of the number of people interested in playing.

West Virginia Lottery officials couldn't provide specific statistics about where the revenue from Powerball goes, but overall, revenue from all lottery games in West Virginia transferred $508.3 million to the state last year.

In 2015, $88.7 million went toward programs for senior citizens, $90.3 million to education, $62.5 million to tourism programs and $94.5 million to the state's general fund.

Additionally, $29 million went to the Promise Scholarship fund, $34 million to the infrastructure council and $100.3 million to other state agencies.

"It's hard to pinpoint exactly where every penny of that gets directed but, if you look at the big picture, that's where it all goes," said West Virginia Lottery spokesman Randy Burnside. "Even if you don't win a prize from the game, people are still contributing to some really worthwhile causes."

As excitement has built, ticket sales have peaked at more than 10 transactions a second in West Virginia, Burnside said.

At the Charleston Town Center mall, shoppers were buying multiple tickets at the kiosk.

Laura Hill, 62, of Charleston, said she frequently plays Powerball but is especially excited about this jackpot.

Because of the high amount, Hill said she bought five tickets Tuesday and five tickets Monday.

"I don't want it all," Hill said. "I just want a little."

Hill said, if she wins, she will buy a large, flat piece of land and build a one-story house. She said she would donate the rest of the money to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association.

Hill said she believes the thought of one person winning $1.5 billion dollars is "scary."

"I hope and pray that it's not just one person but multiple people - and poor people, where money will help them out," Hill said.

Even if all six numbers might not match the jackpot, there is still the chance to win some sort of prize. After Saturday's drawing - which did not include a Powerball winner - 103,979 people won various prizes in West Virginia.

Five West Virginians are $50,000 richer after Saturday's drawing.

Burnside said the winning locations were in St. Albans, Wheeling, Spencer, Wellsburg and Kenova.

Three of those five winners already have claimed their prizes, Burnside said. The winning St. Albans ticket was purchased at Go Mart No. 66 in that town, according to Burnside.

Burnside said it's equally popular for individuals and groups of people to play, but all three of the claimed tickets were individual players.

Last Saturday, Burnside said, a group of 27 people from The Cold Spot, in Dunbar, shared a $50,000 prize from Powerball.

Powerball tickets cost $2 and can be purchased up until 9:59 p.m. ET on drawing days. The Powerball drawing takes place every Wednesday and Saturday night at 10:59 p.m. from Tallahassee, Fla.

Burnside encourages all West Virginians to play responsibly and stay within their means.

He advised anyone playing to be sure to check all their ticket numbers thoroughly and to sign the back of the ticket.

Reach Laura Haight at laura.haight@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4843 or follow @laurahaight_ on Twitter.

The West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has given the state official notice that it will file a lawsuit on behalf of inmates housed at the South Central Regional Jail during the 2014 water crisis.

The lawsuit will allege that inmates at the jail between Jan. 9 and 14, 2014 were given inadequate amounts of drinking water and bathing water.

The inmates were "denied basic human needs, inflicted unnecessary and wanton pain and suffering, and put complainants' at substantial risk of physical injury, illness and premature death, in violation of complainants' rights," the notice states. It was filed Jan. 8 by ACLU attorney Jamie Lynn Crofts and Charleston attorney Anthony Majestro, who is working as a "cooperating attorney" with the ACLU, according to a news release Tuesday from the organization.

According to the notice, inmates were retaliated against when they requested adequate amounts of water and medical attention. The allegations against the state Regional Jail Authority are violations of the prisoners' constitutional rights, which prohibit, among other things, cruel and unusual punishment.

"During the water crisis, inmates were given as little as two bottles of water to drink per day," Crofts said in the release. "That is not enough to meet their basic needs. It is unacceptable both that inmates were not adequately cared for and that those who complained were punished."

In response to the notice, Lawrence Messina, spokesman for the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, provided the Gazette-Mail with information about how water was distributed to inmates. On Jan. 9, each inmate was given 8 ounces of water after dinner and before lockdown, he said. Inmates were given 32 ounces of water Jan. 10, and 24 ounces of other beverages. Inmates with prescriptions and those with special needs were given additional water. Between Jan. 11 and 16, inmates, according to Messina, were provided 48 ounces of water and 24 ounces of other beverages.

Also beginning Jan. 11, inmates were provided with gallon jugs of warmed water for bathing and brushing teeth during the evening, according to Messina.

"Officers worked overtime to conduct this process, section-by-section, until regular water use was restored in a given section," he said.

The governor's Constituent Services Office fielded two phone calls about water access for inmates, according to Messina, and the Regional Jail's central office received two complaints. Five inmates filed "sick call slips" alleging water-related issues in January, he added.

The lawsuit will seek monetary relief for the alleged damages sustained by inmates as well as request injunctive relief to correct agency policies, which led to the alleged violations, the notice states.

"People in state custody are among the most vulnerable members of society. It is my hope that this lawsuit will lead to proper planning and procedures for all state correctional facilities in the event of another contamination," Crofts said.

The January 2014 Elk River chemical spill from Freedom Industries contaminated the region's water supply and left thousands of West Virginians without potable water for days.

The ACLU plans to sue on behalf of former regional jail inmate Kelsey Legg and those similarly situated. Legg was sentenced to six to eight years in prison for accessory after the fact to murder and for helping conceal the body of Kareem Hunter, 28, who was beaten to death in the fall of 2013 in Legg's apartment in Marmet. She is currently being held at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail and is expected to be released next year, according to the state Division of Correction's website.

"Clean and safe water for drinking and bathing is a basic human need, and people who were incarcerated did not have the ability to go to the store and purchase bottled water like everyone else," Majestro said in the release. "The state has a constitutional obligation to care for people in its custody."

State law requires notice be given to state agencies before a lawsuit is filed. The notice was sent to David Farmer, executive director of the state Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority; state Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.

Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.

Legislators return today, for the second session of the 82nd Legislature, facing uncertainties over West Virginia's severe budget deficit and control of the Senate.

The 60-day session convenes at noon, and will be highlighted by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's sixth, and presumably final, State of the State address to a joint session of the Legislature at 7 p.m.

Looming over the session is a projected $353 million deficit in the 2015-16 budget, caused by ongoing cuts in state business taxes and by an unanticipated plunge in energy prices that has sharply cut state severance tax collections for natural gas, coal and oil.

Tomblin spokesman Chris Stadelman said the governor will address the shortfall, as well as challenges in balancing the 2016-17 state budget.

"He has a responsible plan that continues to pay off the sins of the past, manages our current situation and doesn't mortgage our future," Stadelman said.

Tomblin has not indicated if he will propose tax increases to deal with the funding crisis, although in a recent Gazette-Mail interview, the governor said he would be amenable to a "balanced" increase in the state's tobacco tax that would raise revenue and deter young people from smoking while not harming state tobacco retailers.

Stadelman said the approximately 50-minute speech will be an opportunity for Tomblin to look back on successful initiatives and address ways to build on those programs. That will include new initiatives to fight the statewide substance abuse problem, and to advance workforce development programs, he said.

"He has some exciting new things, not only in developing our workforce, but in diversifying our economy," Stadelman said.

For the straight second year, Democrat Tomblin will have to work with a Republican-controlled Legislature - although with a potential twist, depending on how the state Supreme Court rules on a dispute over whether the successor to former Sen. Daniel Hall, R-Wyoming, should be a Democrat or a Republican.

Hall ran as a Democrat when he was elected to represent the 9th Senatorial District in 2012, but he switched his party affiliation to Republican after the November 2014 elections to break a 17-17 deadlock in the Senate.

Hall resigned from the Senate on Jan. 4 to take a job as a state liaison for the National Rifle Association.

Tomblin, on Monday, notified the court that he plans to honor "the mandate of the voters" and appoint a Democrat to replace Hall, unless the court directs otherwise. Republicans have filed briefs with the court arguing that Hall's successor should be a Republican and asking the court to hear oral arguments on the matter.

Barring any other party switches, replacing Hall with a Democrat would again create a 17-17 tie in the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, who was ousted as Senate president after the 2014 election, said Tuesday he believes that Senate President Bill Cole, R-Mercer, would continue to preside over the Senate under that scenario, since he was elected last January to a two-year term as president.

However, Kessler said a 17-17 split in the Senate could slow or stop many GOP mandates this session, including expected legislation to make West Virginia a right-to-work state, to repeal prevailing-wage laws and Common Core public education standards and to authorize charter schools, among other issues.

"Last year, they just ran a bunch of things over us, knowing they had 18 votes and we couldn't stop them," Kessler said.

A 17-17 tie would necessitate deliberation and compromise in the Senate, he said, "Instead of just running a lot of out-of-state-driven policy agendas."

Kessler added, "If nothing else, the 17-17 tie would assure that the days of, "If we pass it, we can override a veto" are behind us."

Last year, the Legislature overrode the governor's veto of a late-term abortion ban, and Republican leaders had indicated they planned to take up a bill allowing people to conceal-carry handguns without state permits early in this session to allow time to override a veto. Last year, Tomblin vetoed a similar bill over concerns from law enforcement.

While many states require a two-thirds majority vote to override gubernatorial vetoes, the West Virginia Constitution requires a simple majority vote in both houses of the Legislature. As Kessler noted, a 17-17 tie vote in the Senate would defeat a veto override motion.

Neither Cole nor House Speaker Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, responded to requests Tuesday to comment on the upcoming legislative session.

House Democrats, meanwhile, unveiled their legislative priorities during a news conference Tuesday.

That includes an increase in the tobacco tax, with the first $120 million of revenue dedicated to raising Public Employee Insurance Agency employer premium contributions to alleviate pending severe increases in co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums for teachers and public employees covered by the health insurance plan.

House Minority Leader Tim Miley, D-Harrison, said failure to increase funding for PEIA would effectively amount to pay cuts for those public employees.

Democrats also said they will oppose right-to-work legislation and the repeal of the prevailing-wage law, saying those proposals would cut wages for workers.

"I can't imagine why anyone would go down the road of cutting construction wages in our state," Miley said.

While they lack the votes in the House to advance their priorities, Democrats said they hope to raise awareness and influence public opinion on those issues.

"We hope we can work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans," Miley said, "but we don't believe they share the same passions and priorities as we share."

Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304 348-1220 or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.