radioNOVO News WV News Roundup for June 29, 2026

 Good morning. We begin with a high-stakes legal showdown at the state Supreme Court, where Third Judiciary Circuit Judge Tim Sweeney is demanding that public ethics charges against him be dismissed with prejudice. The Judicial Investigation Commission previously admonished Sweeney after he took the unprecedented step of ordering short-staffed Child Protective Services officials to serve on the ground as caseworkers in Ritchie County. Sweeney's legal team argues that a judge should never face professional punishment for having the courage to publicly advocate for vulnerable, abused children who are actively being failed by state-level agency staffing shortages.Meanwhile, a massive new attraction has officially arrived in the capital city ahead of the holidays. Fully assembled, the "America Two-Fifty Wheel" will stand a staggering two hundred and thirty feet tall, making it the largest portable observation wheel in the entire world. The structure features forty-five climate-controlled gondolas—each uniquely themed after a different U-S President—offering panoramic views spanning up to fourteen miles. The wheel is set to serve as the massive centerpiece for a four-day, free independence celebration at the state Capitol beginning this Thursday.In financial news, West Virginia's Public Employees Insurance Agency is projecting a massive one-hundred-and-thirty-million-dollar surplus to close out the fiscal year. Chief financial officials attribute the solid financial health to stronger-than-expected investment returns and lower prescription drug costs. To keep worker premiums from rising following recent legislative pay bumps, the PEIA Finance Board has officially voted to raise state employee salary tiers by eighteen hundred dollars ahead of the next fiscal cycle.And the future of professional hockey in the northern panhandle is suddenly up in the air. The Wheeling Nailers are facing an uncertain off-season after the Hoffmann Family of Companies acquired the parent Pittsburgh Penguins in a massive one-point-seven-billion-dollar deal. Because the new ownership group also owns a competing minor league franchise down in Florida, corporate executives admit there is a very real possibility they may choose to dissolve the Penguins' historic twenty-eight-year ECHL partnership with Wheeling.For more news from across the state, download the radioNOVO app. I’m Codi Gaboff, radioNOVO News.