‘Do you have to be dead?’: US coalminers plead for benefits as black-lung disease cases surge

<p>Trump says he digs coal – but pneumoconiosis cases are at a 50-year high, and sick miners are mired in benefit delays</p><p>For 38 years, Josh Armes worked as a coal miner in West Virginia and Virginia.</p><p>After retirement, Armes, 74, of Grundy, Virginia, was diagnosed with black lung disease, <a href="https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/black-lung">medically known</a> as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), caused by breathing in coal dust over long periods, which