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By JASON ARMESTO,
Daily Progress
(Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
The United States Congress is broken. So said L.F. Payne, a Virginia Democrat who represented Virginia’s 5th Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1988 to 1997, during a special visit to Charlottesville Friday. “In the last Congress, I think there were over 500 pieces of legislation that were passed,” Payne said, adding that’s on track with recent history. “This Congress by comparison, now three-fourths of the way through, has passed 69 pieces of legislation. So it is clearly by many measurements dysfunctional.” ... Now serving as president of Former Members of Congress, or FMC, a bipartisan nonprofit group, part of Payne’s job is to help remedy that dysfunction.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By CHARLIE PAULLIN,
Virginia Mercury
Almost 20,000 acres have been lit by flames that primarily torched the western and central parts of the state so far during Virginia’s 2024 spring fire season. With about a week left until the season ends, that is double the amount of acres affected annually in the state across its 10-year average.
There’s no question that the fires visibly caused an immediate loss of vegetation and wildlife habitat, but state and federal officials said in interviews with the Mercury last week the blazes provide some benefits and are a centuries-old resource management tool.
“It does play an important role in the ecosystem,” said Michael Downey, assistant director for wildfire mitigation and prevention at the Virginia Department of Forestry.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By NATHANIEL CLINE,
Virginia Mercury
While 2050 is more than a quarter century away, The Virginia Railway Express wants to start transforming its commuter rail operations much sooner by offering Saturday services as it considers its System Plan 2050, part of holistic, multi-agency efforts to transform rail services in the commonwealth.
Last year, the VRE Operations Board — which is represented by the nine jurisdictions that fund the commuter rail service — backed the agency’s budget that included a 5% fare hike, or 50 cents more, due to the increase in services since 2020. The budget also included a plan to, for the first time, operate Saturday train service on tracks shared with Amtrak, CSX and Norfolk Southern.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By CATHY DYSON,
Free Lance-Star
(Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
People who’ve gotten free medical care at the Moss Free Clinic, as well as those who volunteer and work there, joined members of the community Sunday to show their support for the services the clinic provides. Jim Eagan told the crowd of about 80 people that he went to the clinic when he had an abscessed tooth and couldn’t find help anywhere else. ... The rally came about as the partnership between Mary Washington Healthcare and the clinic, named after the late co-founder, Dr. Lloyd Moss, has deteriorated in recent months.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By TAD DICKENS,
Cardinal News
A federal program that gives discounts on internet service to low-income households is ending this month, with no immediate plan to replace it.
The Affordable Connectivity Program for two years provided discounts of $30 a month, or $75 a month for people on tribal land. The $14.2 billion Congress made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has run out, and the Federal Communications Commission accepted its final application on Feb. 8. The program also included one-time $100 discounts on laptop, desktop or tablet purchases.
Despite multiple requests to extend the program — including from lawmakers and the FCC chairwoman — neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives is on schedule to address it.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By BILL ATKINSON,
Progress Index
(Metered paywall - 10 articles a month)
Hopewell’s outgoing city attorney has recommended that the Virginia attorney general’s office look into claims by an alleged department employee that the city’s treasurer improperly removed herself from a state agency’s list of delinquent taxpayers without attempting to settle her own tax debts. The allegations against Shannon Foskey were brought up in a letter sent last week to Commonwealth’s Attorney Rick Newman and cited in an April 18 memo from now-former city attorney Danielle Smith to City Manager Dr. Concetta Manker.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
The news that broke late last week about the U.S. government loaning $100 million to a California company to open a lithium-ion battery plant in Lynchburg is much bigger than the 100 or so jobs it will involve.
Let’s count the ways. 1. This helps put Virginia in the “battery belt.”
Dixie is the new Detroit: The Southeast has been quietly building a hub of auto-related plants for decades. The Roanoke and New River valleys are part of that, with truck-building operations at Mack Truck in Roanoke County, Volvo in Pulaski County and lots of suppliers in between.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS AND BRAD PLUMER,
New York Times
(Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)
President Biden will travel to a national park in Virginia on Monday, Earth Day, to spotlight his clean energy investments, with an eye on bolstering support among young voters disillusioned with their choices for the 2024 election.
Against the backdrop of the park, Prince William Forest, Mr. Biden will announce $7 billion in grants to fund solar power for hundreds of thousands of homes in primarily disadvantaged communities, according to the White House. He will be joined by future members of the American Climate Corps, a new work force for young people hoping to combat climate change.
VaNews April 22, 2024
By LUKE WEIR,
Roanoke Times
(Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Your trash becomes gas. It happens gradually, as mountains of our garbage decompose at Smith Gap Regional Landfill in Roanoke County. That’s where the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority hauls all the waste — more than 500 million pounds per year — from Roanoke, Salem, Roanoke County and Vinton. Among rotten banana peels and other decaying organic material sealed inside the landfill, methane-rich fumes are captured by a system of buried vacuum tubes ...
VaNews April 22, 2024
By MATT BUSSE,
Cardinal News
The Roanoke-based fiber-optic technology company Luna Innovations Inc. on Friday added more than a year’s worth of previous financial statements to the list of those that it says are no longer reliable.
Luna said in a news release that a committee formed by its board of directors has determined that the company’s financial statements from 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 “cannot be relied upon and need to be restated due to identified accounting errors relating to revenue recognition.”
VaNews April 22, 2024
