In Around West Virginia today: an arrest may have saved a woman's life, a State Police trooper beats a Guinness world record, and the Huffington Post reports that President Obama was deeply affected by his trip to Charleston.
n Police say a woman's arrest on Monday may have saved her life. Danita Rae Simmons, 40, of Ghent, was arrested and charged with operating a clandestine drug lab, according to The Register-Herald. While she was in jail the next day, her husband Daniel Simmons died in a fire in the home where the couple made meth.
n Senate President Bill Cole told MetroNews he is still undecided on the West Virginia Religious Freedom Restoration Act. House Bill 4012 establishes a balancing test for courts to use when a person feels state action is violating his or her religious beliefs. The law would allow individuals and businesses to argue that state law and local LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances don't apply to them. Some supporters have openly said the bill is a reaction to same-sex marriage.
Cole, R- Mercer, said he is "inclined to support it."
"I'm willing to let it go through its process and then, whatever form it ends up in final, we'll have it on the floor presumably and then I'll have to make a decision then," Cole, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, said.
n The All Good Festival and Campout is no more, according to The Journal of Martinsburg. The newspaper reports that organizers sent an announcement, saying that last year's All Good would be the final festival, on Wednesday.
According to the Baltimore Sun, the first All Good was held at Wilmer's Park in Brandywine, Maryland. It was held on Marvin's Mountaintop in Masontown, West Virginia from 2003-2011.
At the 2011 event, an attendee died when a pick-up truck lost traction on wet grass and crashed into her tent. Local police reported approximately 50 arrests, mainly for drug possession, at the festival last year.
According to an economic impact report by a West Virginia University Extension specialist in Community Resources and Economic Development, 11,200 people spent an estimated $900,000 on food, fuel and other items when the event was held in Summit Point last year.
n Assuming Guinness confirms it, a State Police trooper beat the world record when he completed 2,505 push-ups in an hour Wednesday, according to The Herald-Dispatch. But to Capt. Ron Arthur, it wasn't about beating the record. He told the newspaper he was more concerned with putting in a "perfect effort" and raising money to send a dozen children to a summer camp for kids with diabetes.
Arthur's daughter Madi has diabetes. "She said it best last night: 'The kids are going to camp anyway. Jesus is more happy about that then he is with the push-ups," Arthur said.
n After President Obama held a town hall in Charleston on opioid abuse, he told multiple people he was surprised by how addiction has reached all walks of life in West Virginia. According to the Huffington Post, his experience at the town hall made him realize how widespread the epidemic has become.
"He got very emotional," a White House official said. "You're in this deep-red [conservative] environment, but people are just opening up their hearts on this. [The president] sort of was taken aback at how candid people were talking about this."