Today's Sponsor:
Hear from Virginia Conservation Network and conservation leaders in Richmond about protecting Virginia’s natural resources. Registration includes five field trips. Early bird ends 9/23, vcnva.org/vpap.
The Virginia Public Access Project
Which General Assembly candidates raised the most money this summer? The answer can be found in campaign finance disclosures due at midnight. VPAP ranks candidates by the most money raised in July and August and the most cash on hand. For each election contest, there is a side-by-side comparison. Die-hard political junkies can browse a complete list of each candidate's contributors and expenses.
By TRACY AGNEW, Suffolk News Herald
Bennett’s Creek Pharmacy owner S. Chris Jones has decided to close his business after 34 years. Jones, 61, told his 17 employees in an emotional meeting on Monday night, he said Thursday afternoon. Storeclosing signs went up in the windows of the store, located on Bridge Road in the Food Lion shopping center, later in the week, and many customers were sad to learn the news.
By JIMMY O'KEEFE, VCU Capital News Service
When Joe Morrissey staged a primary challenge against Sen. Rosalyn Dance, he also faced off against the state’s top Democratic leadership -- Gov. Ralph Northam, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe -- who supported the incumbent.
Associated Press
A federal judge refused on Monday to throw out a case in which a North Carolina man is charged with anonymously threatening to lynch a Muslim-American man campaigning for a state Senate seat in Virginia. Joseph Cecil Vandevere is charged with interstate communication of a threat to injure a person in connection with a tweet directed at candidate Qasim Rashid. The tweet included a picture of a lynching and read, “VIEW YOUR DESTINY.”
By LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
A Republican running for the Virginia House of Delegates is calling for stricter gun control, a message at odds with GOP leadership and virtually every Republican officeholder in the state. In a TV ad that begins airing Tuesday, Mary Margaret Kastelberg calls for more background checks, limits on magazine size and a “red flag” law that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.
By MORGAN EDWARDS, Capital News Service
When the ice cream came out, it felt like a party. But this wasn’t a party; it was a political event. Bursts of laughter peppered the air. The space on Parham Road that once served as headquarters for Abigail Spanberger’s 2018 congressional run bristled with excitement.
By MICHAEL POPE, WVTF
Nothing inspires quick action and creative thinking quite like a deadline. Just ask candidates running for the 140 seats of the Virginia General Assembly this year. Stephen Farnsworth at the University of Mary Washington says candidates have all kinds of tricks to make sure their latest campaign finance disclosures makes them seem as flush as possible.
By JULIEGRACE BRUFKE, The Hill
The Rappahannock County Republican Party in Virginia censured Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), accusing the freshman GOP lawmaker of “abandoning party principles,” including on fiscal spending and immigration.
By CLINT SCHEMMER, Culpeper Star Exponent (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
As soon as Rep. Abigail Spanberger began fielding questions Sunday at Germanna Community College’s Locust Grove Campus, it didn’t take five minutes for impeachment to rear its head. Marty Caldwell of Orange County asked her, in so many words: What’s it going to take to get you to back the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump?
By GRAHAM MOOMAW, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
The Virginia Lottery told state lawmakers Monday that an ongoing surge of unregulated gaming machines could cost the agency $140 million in annual sales, lowering lottery profits used to fund public education by almost $40 million.
By AMY FRIEDENBERGER, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
The Virginia Lottery told state legislators Monday that the agency could lose $140 million in sales because of the “proliferation” of unregulated gaming machines, but not due to this summer’s opening of betting parlors. In a presentation to legislators on the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee in Richmond, Lottery Executive Director Kevin Hall said with the increasing number of what he calls “gray machines,” lottery profits for public education have declined.
By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
In Virginia, says Secretary of Finance Aubrey, “we have a math problem.” The first part of the problem: the two biggest sources of state revenue – individual income taxes and sales taxes – account for about 80% of all the money Virginia takes in are growing at a pace of about 3.5% a year.
By MICHAEL MARTZ, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
President Donald Trump’s administration is balking at paying for Virginia’s plan to help low-income Medicaid recipients find work, reviving a political battle between Gov. Ralph Northam and General Assembly Republicans over the cost to the state of a work requirement for people covered by the health program.
By PATRICK WILSON, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
The Office of the State Inspector General is failing to fulfill its role as a state investigative agency and has inappropriately dismissed allegations sent to a state whistleblower hotline without gathering more information, according to a report from the Virginia General Assembly’s research arm.
By MARIE ALBIGES, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
It can be used to connect multiple victims to one attacker, like in the case of a man accused of raping six women from Virginia Beach to Williamsburg. It can uphold juries’ findings from decades ago, like when a test confirmed the attacker in a 1974 Virginia Beach rape case.
By FRANK GREEN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Three couples who refused to answer the race question on their marriage license applications are now asking a judge to rule the requirement unconstitutional without a trial.
By BILL ATKINSON, Progress Index (Metered paywall - 5 free articles a month)
Retired Circuit Court Judge James F. D’Alton Jr. is being remembered as a “fair judge” and a “humble man” who did not let his judicial robe get in the way of working with attorneys at both tables to ensure the best justice was served in the city. “He knew the law, and he made sure you knew the law, too,” Petersburg Commonwealth’s Attorney Cheryl J. Wilson recalled.
By DANIEL BERTI, Prince William Times
U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly is sponsoring a bipartisan bill to keep military service members with felony-level domestic violence convictions from purchasing firearms. The bill, known as the Safe Homefront Act, aims to strengthen Department of Defense policies regarding the reporting of domestic violence convictions and military protective orders to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
By MASON ADAMS, Virginia Mercury
Southwestern Virginia lawmakers are taking another swing at creating new economic growth in a part of the commonwealth that has lagged far behind Northern Virginia, metro Richmond and Hampton Roads in job creation. They were in Abingdon last week to announce InvestSWVA, a public-private partnership that ... will target advanced manufacturing, agriculture and forestry, food and beverage manufacturing, information and emerging technologies and energy and minerals.
By NEAL AUGENSTEIN, WTOP
It may not have been obvious, but for the past two years, self-driving cars have been tested on the Interstate 95 and 495 Express Lanes, including while regular toll-paying drivers and carpoolers are right nearby. Now, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute will receive $15 million in federal funding to support research on safe automated driving integration, and how to develop self-driving trucks.
By EMILY SIDES, Inside NOVA
During the partial Metro shutdown this summer, Alexandria officials worked with a local business to offer a commuter ferry that began moving an average of 5,000 passengers daily. ... The Potomac Riverboat Company started offering commuter ferry service May 28. The six Metro stations that service communities south of Reagan National Airport have reopened, but Potomac Riverboat plans to continue service through the end of the year.
By MIKE GANGLOFF, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
An assault charge against a Giles County man involved in protesting the Mountain Valley Pipeline was tossed out Monday after a judge watched a video of the man’s encounter with a security guard at a construction site — and ruled there was no attack.
Inside NOVA
Arlington County leaders are expected to finalize the details of a nearly $10 million bequest from Boeing in support of Long Bridge Park and its now-under-construction aquatics center. The agreement between the county government and aerospace giant, reached in February but kept quiet before being publicly announced in June, would include a total of $9.985 million in funding spread over several years.
By URIAH KISER, Potomac Local (Subscription Required)
They don’t often vote together on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, but the issue of preserving the Rural Crescent brought them together Monday at Stonewall Jackson Senior High School. Supervisors Jeanine Lawson (R-Brentsville), Frank Principi (D-Woodbridge), and Peter Candland (R-Gainesville) denounced a plan by county staff to create a transition ribbon, where about 10,000 new homes could be built along the boundary of the Rural Crescent.
By CALEB AYERS, Danville Register & Bee
The superintendent of Danville Public Schools has asked the state to review the school division to determine its strengths and areas for growth following the steady decline of city students' standard of learning test scores.
Today's Sponsor:
Hear from Virginia Conservation Network and conservation leaders in Richmond about protecting Virginia’s natural resources. Registration includes five field trips. Early bird ends 9/23, vcnva.org/vpap.
Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Off Riverside Drive in Richmond’s Westover Hills neighborhood is a paradise where, as Carrie Rogers puts it, you can “fulfill your childhood dream.” Her “Trailside Treehouse in RVA” is a $150-per-night urban retreat. Up to eight guests can “Glamp w prvt bath!” removed from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Coarse language is everywhere nowadays. No longer confined to the gutter, four-letter words abound on social media and over the airwaves. Watch almost any trendy new series on Netflix and you’re likely to hear as many f-bombs in an hour as you would on a six-month Navy deployment. Saturday’s news story by Patrick Wilson about the obscene Twitter account run by U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s former associate Gordon “Max” Heyworth is a prime example.
By CHRISTINE EMBA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
“Virginia is for Lovers,” as its famous slogan goes. Lovers of all colors! White, Black, Quadroon and even Moor. Yes, that’s Moor, not “more.” If that clarification leaves you queasy, you’re in good company. Earlier this month, three Virginia couples filed suit against the state to challenge Virginia’s requirement that they identify their race in order to obtain a marriage license.
By CINDY ELMORE, Published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
When English settlers arrived to America in the late 16th century, old growth longleaf pine trees towering as tall as 100 feet covered up to 90 million acres of the southern U.S. These ramrod-straight trees made an ideal ship’s mast and, according to the University of Florida, many of the best specimens were cut down for use by the British navy.
Cindy Elmore is a journalism professor at East Carolina University and a former journalist who has reported from 18 different countries.
