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Youngkin turns to AI to cut more red tape across Virginia Government
Days after declaring victory in his administration’s push to cut regulatory red tape by 25%, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is now looking to artificial intelligence to help push that number even higher. In an executive order issued Friday, Youngkin announced Virginia will launch the nation’s first “agentic AI” pilot program designed to streamline state regulations and guidance documents. The initiative will scan thousands of pages of agency rules using generative AI to identify redundancies, contradictions and overly complex language — all in the name of efficiency.
Fredericksburg Planning Commission unanimously recommends disapproval of Gateway data center
Thomas Johnson spent some time working at Hugh Mercer Elementary School, which means he was already familiar with a couple of the proposed transmission line routes for a data center project discussed at Wednesday’s Fredericksburg Planning Commission meeting. “With what I see, one goes through the car [rider] line and one goes through the play area,” said Johnson, a planning commissioner. “So, both would be very difficult obstacles for that entity.” Ultimately, concerns surrounding the transmission lines that would be required to feed power to the proposed 2.1 million square foot campus led to the project’s undoing.
'People are scared': N.Va. Korean community faces tariffs
Steve Lee hasn’t seen costs increase yet for the products he imports from South Korea for the specialty chicken franchise he runs here in the heart of Fairfax County’s thriving Korean community. But Lee, a former Democratic candidate for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, knows it’s coming if President Donald Trump carries through on his latest threat to impose a 25% tariff on most goods coming from one of the United States’ most reliable trading partners. . . . “Eventually (the cost of) products from Korea coming over will change, and our consumers will have to pay for it. And it hurts.”
Who was arrested in Virginia’s immigration crackdown? State, federal officials won’t say.
The Virginia Homeland Security Taskforce has been busy this year, arresting more than 2,500 people in the United States illegally. That’s according to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who boasted the arrest data during a July 2 news conference at the Virginia State Police headquarters in Richmond. But while the governor’s office has described the 2,512 people arrested as “violent criminals who are illegally in the United States,” neither Youngkin’s office nor state or federal agencies involved in the operation have provided any documentation about those arrested to be able to verify who they are, what they were charged with or whether they’ve been deported.
Norfolk wants protection from future flooding. Agreeing on how isn’t easy.
After residents of Norfolk’s historic Freemason neighborhood objected to proposed floodwalls snaking through their community, blocking river views, potentially depressing property values and leaving condominium buildings exposed, staff members from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers walked the planned path with local leaders in January. ... As details about the plan to protect the city from major storms and hurricanes have become clear to residents, the cost has risen and the beginning of construction has been pushed back, clouding the future of the project.
Appalachian Power seeks state approval of measure to reduce electricity bills
Appalachian Power Co. is seeking state approval to spread out the cost for some of its assets, a move the company says will save its average residential customers about $11 a month. An application filed Thursday with the State Corporation Commission seeks to securitize the costs of restoring power cut off by bad weather, and the Virginia share of the debt and equity on two West Virginia coal-burning power plants that provide a large share of the electricity the utility sells.
Appalachian Power says new financing method will save customers money
Appalachian Power on Thursday said it plans to save customers money by using a newly allowed method of financing to recover costs associated with recent storms and balances on two coal power plants. . . . Specifically, Appalachian’s proposal would save the company an estimated $176 million and decrease the average residential monthly bill by $6.66, according to the utility. That average bill has risen by about $50 since July 2022 to about $174 today.
Trump administration increases scrutiny of another Virginia university
Weeks after the University of Virginia’s president resigned amid pressure from the Justice Department, the Trump administration is increasing its scrutiny of another large public university in the state. On Thursday, the Education Department said it had opened its second civil rights investigation in two weeks into George Mason University, this one over the alleged use of race in the hiring and promotion of faculty members. The department said it had received complaints from multiple professors, including about university initiatives to make the demographics of faculty better reflect the diversity of its student body.
Virginia prisoners report extreme heat as air conditioning fails
The high temperature in and around Chatham, Virginia is expected to be ninety degrees for the next three days – a dire forecast for about 980 men at the Green Rock Correctional Center. Tim Wright is among them. “We’ve had like two weeks of air conditioning since April,” he says. That’s because the man who had nursed the aging air conditioning system along was transferred to another facility. . . ." The Department of Corrections reports a compressor is on order but could not say when it might be delivered. The facility is now 18 years old.
The Trump staffers who set out to reshape their alma maters
Less than a decade ago, Gregory W. Brown helped fundraise for the University of Virginia by posing for pictures in his old dorm room. Now he is central to the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on his alma mater for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as one of two Justice Department leaders and U-Va. alumni to threaten sweeping funding cuts and compel the school’s president to resign. Brown is one of several key architects of President Donald Trump’s wide-reaching campaign to root out liberal ideology from higher education who graduated from the prestigious universities the president has emboldened them to transform. Driven by personal experience, the staffers are pushing to overhaul the progressive culture they feel has come to dominate elite colleges and universities.