In West Virginia, Governor Joe Manchin is calling on mines across the state to suspend production on Friday to honor the twenty-nine victims of last week’s mine disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine. Manchin has also ordered state inspectors to probe mines cited for repeated combustion risks within the next two weeks. Meanwhile, the Mining Safety and Health Administration has revealed the Upper Big Branch Mine was on a list of forty-eight mines earlier this year deemed to have enough violations to warrant at least a temporary closure. But regulators couldn’t take action because a heavy backlog of appeals made it impossible to establish the necessary finding of the mines having a “pattern of violations.”