A West Virginia company that has signed lease agreements for tens of thousands of acres of Athens County land to drill for oil has been sued in a local court, by another West Virginia firm that conducted title searches and related work in connection with the securing of oil-and-gas leases.

Ohio University is currently looking at all the land it owns, to let the state know which of it may be available for oil-and-gas drilling.

Attorneys for a former Ohio University student who lost an arm because of an alleged misdiagnosis at the former Hudson Health Center have argued that the university may owe her and her parents up to $3 million in damages, and potentially a great deal more than that, on top of any medical expenses.

Hundreds of people packed a lecture hall at Ohio University Saturday to hear some fairly dire warnings on what could happen to Athens County if the oil-and-gas industry begins to drill into deep underground shale beds here using the horizontal hydraulic fracturing method ("fracking").

As expected, a former Athens County sheriff's deputy who has previously pleaded guilty to a number of low-level felonies will serve no prison or jail time for his crimes.

A charge of aggravated menacing has been dropped in Athens County Municipal Court against local environmental activist Chad Kister. The charge had been based on threats Kister allegedly made on a call-in program of a Nelsonville radio station.

The head of the Athens County Historical Society and Museum has asked the Athens Board of Zoning Appeals to review a recent ruling by the city's Planning Commission.

Once upon a time, short stories were a staple of America's reading diet – or at least more so than they are today. Good, big-name writers like Fitzgerald, Lardner, Parker and O'Hara cranked them out, and popular magazines carried them.

The director of the Athens County Historical Society and Museum has sent a letter to the Athens law director's office, urging Law Director Patrick Lang to block a planned apartment development on Stimson Avenue, and warning that if he doesn't, the city may face an expensive legal battle.

Though the city of Athens has given up on trying to block a planned strip club on Stimson Avenue through a legal case in county Common Pleas Court, it's still facing a federal free-speech lawsuit over the project.