Javascript is required to run this page
VaNews

Search


Gardner and Pala: EV charging infrastructure can spark employment boom

By STUART GARDNER AND DAVID PALA, published in Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)

Something extraordinary happened last year. More than $600 million was provided to communities across the United States to build more public chargers for electric vehicles and make charger networks available everywhere. These funds are courtesy of the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program (CFI), a competitive grant program created by President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. CFI’s goal is to deploy EV charging infrastructure in the places where Americans live and work, in both urban and rural areas.

Gardner of Charlottesville is a program director at Generation180, a national clean energy nonprofit. Pala handles marketing and communications for IBEW Local 26 in Winchester.

VaNews March 25, 2024


Willett and Hayes: Virginia is dangerously short of health care workers. Youngkin can help fix it

By RODNEY WILLETT AND HARRISON HAYES, published in Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

Virginia is facing an unprecedented health workforce crisis in attracting and retaining all types of health care providers. No part of Virginia is immune to this crisis. There are shortages of almost all types of health care workers in rural and urban areas. In fact, most of Virginia’s localities are federally designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs): 102 of 133 Virginia counties are primary care HPSAs and 93 counties are mental health care HPSAs. The General Assembly created the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority (VHWDA) in 2010 to identify and address health workforce issues in the commonwealth.

Del. Willett, a Democrat, represents Henrico County. Hayes is executive director for the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority.

VaNews March 25, 2024


Rights restoration under Youngkin drops again

By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

The number of Virginians who are getting their right to vote back after convictions for felonies fell for the second year running, after Gov. Glenn Youngkin halted his predecessors’ practice of automatically restoring rights, the latest annual report from the Secretary of the Commonwealth shows. The report, required by the state constitution, shows that Youngkin restored rights to just under 2,580 individuals last year, down from just under 4,000 the year before, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.

VaNews March 25, 2024


Va. Lt. Gov. praises veto of 22 bills, including path for immigrants to be police: ‘We don’t know who you are’

By CHARLES CREITZ, Fox Business

Virginia Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears on Friday praised a series of vetoes by GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin that nixed 22 bills from the Democratic-majority state legislature, including legislation that would permit certain immigrants to become law enforcement officers. Sears also lauded the rejection of bills the governor claimed would “weaken criminal penalties,” telling FOX Business Virginians must be protected from repercussions of the border crisis. Sears told FOX Business the border crisis under President Biden has made Virginia and other interior states as close to the crisis as Texas, New Mexico and others.

VaNews March 25, 2024


Morabito: With the right approach, Virginia can lead a tech revolution

By JAKE MORABITO, published in Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)

Leading firms such as Amazon and Boeing have spurned traditional tech hubs in San Francisco or Seattle to establish a foundation here in the commonwealth. These moves present Virginia with the opportunity to become a cornerstone for American technology development. However, as lawmakers across the country debate regulations on groundbreaking technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Virginia’s future as a technology leader is far from secure.

Morabito of Fairfax is ALEC’s Communications and Technology Task Force director.

VaNews March 25, 2024


VCU students, employees protest plan to cut faculty

By ERIC KOLENICH, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

Two dozen Virginia Commonwealth University students and faculty wore red bandanas and held up handwritten signs at Friday’s board meeting to protest the university’s plan to terminate 14 professors. Emma Draga, a VCU senior, told the board of visitors it’s the professors who determine the quality of a student’s education, not the construction of new buildings. “Professors are our lifeline,” she said. The university is cutting $25 million from the budget this year, which resulted in the reduction of at least 76 positions. VCU employs close to 10,000 workers.

VaNews March 25, 2024


D.C. AG to Leonsis: Caps, Wizards can’t leave arena for 23 years

By MEAGAN FLYNN, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb sent a clear message to Wizards and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis this week as Leonsis forges ahead with his plan to leave Capital One Arena: You’re legally stuck here for another two decades. In a March 18 letter to a representative of Leonsis’s company, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Schwalb (D) accused Monumental of breaking promises to the city by negotiating with Virginia, and said the plan to pull the teams out of Capital One Arena before 2047 — the end of a planned lease extension — was a no-go.

VaNews March 25, 2024


Wittman, McClellan visit U.S. Postal Service in Sandston as facility undergoes audit

By THAD GREEN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

As Virginia lawmakers continue to press the issue on the state’s mail crisis, Reps. Rob Wittman, R-1st, and Jennifer McClellan, D-4th, toured the U.S. Postal Service Richmond Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Sandston on Friday. “We are grateful that the Postal Service took the time to show us around the distribution center and let us talk to them about the concerns that we have over mail delivery delays,” McClellan said. “We’ve got a ways to go, but at least they’re being a little more transparent now, and we appreciate that.”

VaNews March 25, 2024


Pro-Palestinian group asks judge to block Virginia attorney general’s demand for documents

By DEAN MIRSHAHI, WRIC-TV

A pro-Palestinian group based in Virginia wants a Richmond judge to limit what documents it must turn over to Attorney General Jason Miyares as his office investigates its fundraising and allegations that it indirectly supports Hamas. Miyares is looking into whether the AJP Educational Foundation, Inc., a part of the northern Virginia-based group American Muslims for Palestine, violated the state’s charitable solicitation laws by asking for donations without properly registering with the state.

VaNews March 25, 2024


Williams: For Youngkin, racial ignorance is bliss

By MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

The ongoing political program to keep Americans functionally illiterate about systemic racism brings to mind the sort of quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that you seldom seem to hear. “Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance,” King wrote in his 1967 book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” “It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”

VaNews March 25, 2024