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By KATIE KING,
Virginian-Pilot
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Gov. Glenn Youngkin is proposing massive changes to legislation that would tax and legalize skill games, including a provision that would ban their use across large swaths of the commonwealth. “I would much prefer the governor had vetoed the bill outright,” said Sen. Aaron Rouse, a Virginia Beach Democrat who introduced the measure. On Monday night, the governor put forth dozens of pages of amendments to overhaul the bill, including new restrictions curtailing where the slot machine-like devices could operate.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By DREW HUTCHINSON,
Bloomberg Law
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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) on Monday suggested to revise a proposed law creating the state’s first “green bank,” a type of financing authority gaining popularity across the country after longstanding gaps in clean energy financing markets.
Virginia’s Clean Energy Innovation Bank would be tasked with using state and federal dollars to attract private investors to emissions-slashing projects.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
With the ink of his veto pen, Gov. Glenn Youngkin has just helped shape the battle lines of the 2025 governor’s race — and the 2026 General Assembly session that will follow.
Here’s how the governor’s vetoes, and in some cases his proposed amendments, will set the tone for both the April 17 reconvened session and the politics of the state for the next two years.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By TREVOR METCALFE,
Virginian-Pilot
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Federal investigators are looking into whether Norfolk-based Sentara Health’s insurance subsidiary misled regulators when it drastically increased premiums in Hampton Roads and areas across the state in 2018 and 2019, according to court documents.
Sentara Health Plans, then known as Optima Health, announced in 2017 it was increasing 2018 premiums in Hampton Roads by an average of 81% for its individual plans, according to Virginian-Pilot reporting. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield pulled out of the marketplace for the 2018 Affordable Care Act open enrollment period in Hampton Roads, leaving Sentara as the only game in town.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By CHARLIE PAULLIN,
Virginia Mercury
Some of the larger energy and environment bills from the 2024 session — regarding small modular reactors, preserving tree canopy and testing for “forever chemicals” known as PFAS — met different fates after review by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
On Monday, the deadline for Youngkin to take action on pending legislation, he proposed amendments to House Bill 1491 from Del. Israel O’Quinn, R-Washington and Senate Bill 454 from Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax, which would adjust how utilities could recover costs for early development of a small modular reactor, or SMR, from ratepayers. SMRs are an electricity generation source that has yet to be deployed commercially in the United States.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By JORDAN FISCHER,
WUSA-TV
Federal prosecutors are seeking more than 11 years in prison for a Virginia man who was at the forefront of the mob’s efforts to break into the Speaker’s Lobby at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Zachary Alam, 32, of Centreville, Virginia, was convicted last September of 10 charges, seven of them felonies, for his role in the Capitol riot. The charges include destruction of government property, obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting police with a dangerous weapon.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By KATE ANDREWS,
Virginia Business
Virginia Senate Democrats had a lot of criticism Tuesday for Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed reworking of the state’s 2024-26 budget but held back on saying whether they would vote yea or nay on his 233 amendments. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said late Tuesday afternoon that he and fellow legislators had not had time to read and fully digest Youngkin’s suggested amendments, which were posted late Monday to the state budget website and provided to lawmakers a few hours earlier.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By CORMAC DODD,
Winchester Star
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Gov. Glenn Youngkin made two stops in Frederick County on Tuesday to champion two business expansions, first visiting the HP Hood dairy plant, where a roughly $83.5 million expansion was announced. “You’ve recognized something that I know is true: that Virginia is a great place to do business. Innovation thrives here, talent aggregates here, opportunity is presented here,” Youngkin told an audience of mostly HP Hood employees clad in white coats.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By BRANDON JARVIS,
Virginia Scope
Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed legislation passed by the General Assembly that would have codified parts of the legal process in Ranked Choice Voting across Virginia. The bill was intended to address concerns from the Department of Elections about the RCV system that is already in place for localities to use.
Youngkin cites confusion in the process for voters as his reason for the veto, but Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, says the Department of Elections asked for the specific aspects of this bill with a report in December to help provide clarity and address legal concerns.
VaNews April 10, 2024
By PETER DUJARDIN,
Daily Press
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A special grand jury in Newport News has charged a former school administrator with multiple counts of felony child neglect in the case of a 6-year-old who shot his teacher early last year. Ebony J. Parker — the former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School — showed “a reckless disregard for the human life” of other students on Jan. 6, 2023, according to indictments unsealed Tuesday in Newport News Circuit Court. Parker, 39, of Newport News, was charged with eight counts of felony child neglect, each punishable by up to five years in prison.
VaNews April 10, 2024
