Monday Morning Miscellany

* Phil Kabler offers a roundup of recent political fundraisers, among other tidbits, in today's column in The Charleston Gazette.

* Secretary of State Betty Ireland pledges to return to politics after the 2008 elections, and this future office "would not be anything lower than the secretary of state’s office," she told the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce. The Journal has the story.

* The state Division of Corrections continues to back a program allowing female inmates to care for their newborns while behind bars, but the idea has its opponents, The Register-Herald of Beckley reports.

* The Gazette reports on some good news from Marshall University's medical school.

* West Virginia begins the second round of voting today for its welcome sign slogan, MetroNews notes.

* U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., continues his push for the Children's Health Insurance Program in an interview with the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.

* U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., bids farewell to a storied Charleston institution, the open-all-night Southern Kitchen, in today's Gazette.