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University of Lynchburg cuts 17 programs, eliminates 40 staff member positions
The University of Lynchburg announced Thursday they are taking dramatic steps at the school as they enter a new era. But for some prospective students and current staff, those changes could be detrimental; 17 programs at the school are being cut, and 40 staff members’ positions have been “reduced.” Over the next three years, the school said another 40 faculty will be headed out the door for good as well.
Five Years After Virginia Beach Shooting, ’No One Is Getting Better’
The ceremony on Friday afternoon will begin with the naming of the 12 people who were killed on May 31, 2019, when an embittered city employee carried out a shooting spree at the building where he worked. At the end of the event, the site of a future memorial will be dedicated, where, eventually, the 12 names will be etched into the landscape of Virginia Beach. The children of Mary Louise Gayle, whose name will be among them, have no plans to be at the ceremony. Sarah Leonard, her daughter, is taking her children camping. Matthew Gayle, her son, is resuming a sailing trip he cut short exactly five years earlier when he learned of a shooting at his mother’s workplace. They could not bring themselves to join hands with a city that they, and members of some of other victims’ families, say let them down.
UVa reverses course, allows nursing student arrested at protest back on Grounds
After public pressure and the threat of a lawsuit, the University of Virginia has reversed course on its decision to ban a nursing student from Grounds. Mustafa Abdelhamid was one of 27 people arrested when Virginia State Police cracked down on a May 4 anti-war protest at the school. Multiple arrestees, including Abdelhamid, say they were not even participating in the protest or the encampment where people had been voicing their opposition to Israel’s war with Palestinian terror group Hamas that has killed tens of thousands since Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack on the nation.
Yancey: A convicted felon once drew nearly a million votes for president. In Virginia, he did best in Clifton Forge.
Former President Donald Trump is now a convicted felon, 34 times over. Among the many questions that this raises is a very practical one: Will Americans vote for a convicted felon for president? They have before. Eugene Debs ran for president five times: in 1900 as a Social Democrat and in 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920 as the nominee of the Socialist Party of America. That last time he ran from a prison cell in Atlanta, having been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sedition after criticizing U.S. involvement in World War I. Despite his conviction and incarceration — or perhaps because of it — he received more votes in 1920 than he ever had before, just under one million nationwide. He also made it to the White House later, albeit as a guest of President Warren Harding.
Friday Read Ancient Chesapeake site challenges timeline of humans in the Americas
With the Chesapeake Bay sloshing at his knee-high boots, Darrin Lowery stood back and squinted at a 10-foot-tall bluff rising above a narrow strip of beach. To the untrained eye, this wall of sandy sediment is the unremarkable edge of a modest island southeast of the Bay Bridge. To Lowery, a coastal geologist, its crumbling layers put the island at the center of one of the most contentious battles in archaeology: when and how humans first made their way into the Americas. The story of the first Americans has long been a matter of public and scientific fascination, undergirded at times by vicious disagreements.
Yancey: Virginians from Emporia to Winchester went ashore on D-Day. Here’s what they said about it later.
In less than a week, the 80th anniversary of what came to be known as D-Day will be upon us — and then will pass on by us as time always does. The Allied landings on the Normandy beaches occupy a pivotal place in the history of the world, but they occupy a place in Virginia history as well. Coming ashore that June 6 morning 80 years ago were men who had signed up years before for the Virginia National Guard but had since been called up to the regular Army — and were now in the first waves assigned to break the Nazi hold on occupied Europe.
Youngkin says 24-hour notice of overdoses will be required by state
A bill directing the Virginia Board of Education to develop a parental notification policy for school-connected suspected overdoses has become a law without a provision calling for those notifications to be sent within 24 hours of an incident. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) signed the bill on May 17 but said the House of Delegates diluted the legislation by removing the 24-hour notification provision included in the state Senate version of the bill. “While the current language does not go far enough to ensure parental notification of school-connected overdoses, it allows the (Virginia) Board of Education to establish guidelines,” he said in a news release. “The Board of Education will begin this work immediately.”
McDonald sentenced to 14 years in prison for EDA scandal
A federal judge sentenced Jennifer McDonald, a former executive director of the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority, to 14 years in prison on Wednesday for committing financial crimes against the agency. McDonald appeared Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Harrisonburg for the second part of her sentencing hearing.
Schapiro: Does Trump’s endorsement trump all?
In the parallel universe that is a Republican primary in Virginia, the outcome these days is supposed to be decided by the company a candidate keeps. That being blessed by Donald Trump ensures victory, reducing the primary to a mere formality. U.S. Rep Bob Good, an uber-conservative Republican in the sprawling, largely rural 5th District, is seeking renomination in less than three weeks to a third two-year term, running this time — as he did the first time in 2020 — without the endorsement of the former president.
Charges downgraded for 3 Otieno defendants
The three remaining defendants in the death of Irvo Otieno have had charges downgraded from second-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. Court records on Wednesday show the charges were downgraded in the cases of Wavie Jones, Brandon Rodgers and Kaiyell Sanders. Sanders and Rodgers are Henrico County sheriff’s deputies. Jones was an employee at Central State Hospital, the maximum security psychiatric facility in Dinwiddie County where Otieno, 28, died while handcuffed and pinned to the floor.