I read in your paper about the Methadone clinic wanting to come into the area and the controversy surrounding it. The clinic is a joke!

My son has been going to a Methadone clinic for six years and guess what? He’s still taking the same dose as day one. This program is not helping our children get off drugs, it’s padding somebody’s pocket.

I’d be all for a facility that actually helped people with addiction, but I haven’t found this to be the case. Methadone is replacing an illegal drug with one that can be purchased legal, but what for? We need help with this wide spread problem, I just don’t think another clinic is our answer.

Faye Holbrook
St. Paul, Va.

via Another clinic is not the answer to stopping addiction | TriCities.com.

BLACKWATER, Va. AP – The Virginia Department of Forestry and volunteer firefighters are battling an 800-acre wildfire in the states remote southwest corner.
  
The department said Tuesday the fire in 8-foot buffalo grass has not caused any injuries or structural damage but is threatening 34 homes and other structures in the Lee County community of Blackwater.

Lee County is in Virginias most southwest county, bordered by Tennessee and Kentucky.

The fire is located near Routes 600 and 602. Forestry officials say the mountainous terrain is presenting a challenge for firefighters, but they have contained the flames.

Crews began battling the fire Monday afternoon. The cause of the fire is not known.

via Wildfire burning 800 acres in Southwest Va. | SWVAToday.

BRISTOL, Va. — Police are looking this evening for the man they say robbed the New Peoples Bank on Commonwealth Avenue at 4:52 pm. A police K-9 unit is now scouring the businesses behind the bank. Police say more officers are inside the bank reviewing surveillance video to get a description of the suspect. More information will be posted as it becomes available. Read the full story in Tuesday’s Bristol Herald Courier.

via Bristol, Va., police searching for person who robbed New People's Bank this afternoon | TriCities.com.

A tagless pickup truck “with a washing machine or stove in the back” was seen “swerving all over the road.”

via The Bristol Blotter | TriCities.com.

Check out calendar for ways to help in the area.

via Sunday Calendar | TriCities.com.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A proposed bill could change information required when applying for a job.

If passed, the bill would no longer allow private and public employers to ask applicants if they are a convicted criminal.

Employers would only be allowed to ask after an applicant has received a conditional offer of employment.

Representative David Hawk of Greeneville is not sponsoring this bill, but says he doesn’t believe the bill will make it very far."It’s important to know that that’s something as a business owner you really need to know at the beginning,” Hawk said. “Now, what you choose to do with that info after that is up to the business owner."

The bill is still in the primary stages and still has a way to go before it is approved.

via Proposed bill would make a difference to convicted criminals when applying for jobs | TriCities.com.

The late Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers is shown in this family photograph with some memorabilia he collected during his World War II service. Author Marcus Brotherton has written a biography of Powers, a Clinchco native.

via World War II hero Darrell Powers’ biography released.