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Virginia crab management committee requests opening winter season for dredging
The 2024 Bay-wide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey revealed last week shows the crustaceans are still below desired population levels, as the state’s Marine Resources Commission considers a request to maintain the same crabbing regulations in Virginia and opening a winter dredge season. The VMRC Crab Management Advisory Committee voted last Wednesday afternoon to have the larger body consider allowing catches past December at its June meeting. Currently, crabbing is only allowed between March through the middle of December in Virginia. The state had a winter dredging season up until 2008, when it was closed down following population lows that necessitated an emergency declaration.
Republican U.S. Senate candidates in Virginia primary discuss national issues in Appomattox
At the Appomattox Community Center last month, Jonathan Emord and Scott Parkinson, Republican candidates running for the U.S. Senate in the Virginia primary, discussed hot topics such as abortion, domestic security and the national budget. Emord is a constitutional law and litigation expert from Clifton, and Parkinson is from Arlington and has multiple experiences working for the Republican Party. According to his campaign website, Parkinson worked as Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff during his campaign for Florida governor in 2018. ... The other three Republican candidates are Hung Cao, Chuck Smith and Eddie Garcia.
’Not one life lost in vain’: Families of Bedford Boys who fought at D-Day remember soldiers’ sacrifices
When John Boggess was growing up in Bedford County, his uncles Bedford and Raymond Hoback were pictures on the mantle. “We knew they died on D-Day and that was kind of it, because no one talked about it,” said Boggess, whose mother Lucille was the Hoback brothers’ younger sister. “The survivors didn’t talk about it, the family members of those who died didn’t talk about it.” The knowledge of the town of Bedford suffering massive casualties during the D-Day invasion was commonly known in the county, but it didn’t draw conversation, Boggess said.
Two Virginia colleges face backlash after backtracking on plans to require diversity courses
When the police killings of Black people, including George Floyd set off racial unrest across the country in 2020, Marie Vergamini decided she wanted to do her part to help address systemic racism. So, Vergamini, a doctoral student and adjunct instructor at Virginia Commonwealth University, joined a committee of faculty and students who were creating a racial literacy curriculum. Vergamini said they created lessons that covered the history of slavery in the United States, the Jim Crow era, racism against Asian Americans, and the nationwide movement to remove Confederate statues, including those in the state’s capital, Richmond, which was once the seat of the Confederacy.
Orange County claims Virginia School Boards Association has leftist leanings as it severs ties with group
During a divisive meeting on May 20, the Orange County School Board voted 3-2 to not recertify its membership with the Virginia School Boards Association, claiming the nonpartisan statewide organization was a drain on resources and leaned too far to the political left. “I’ve seen recordings where they mock our governor and anyone with a conservative viewpoint,” said Board Member Darlene Dawson, who referred to the organization as a “monopoly.” “They lobby for many things that I, on principle, stand against, and I’m not interested in supporting them. If you try to disagree with them, they will shut you down. I’ve seen it happen.”
Shots Fired: Nearly 3,000 killed in homicides and suicides in Hampton Roads in past 10 years
On a Friday evening in late April, 10-year-old Keontre Thornhill was in his bedroom in Portsmouth, relaxing with his favorite video game, Fortnite. Teenage girls were arguing outside. Drawn to the commotion, Keontre looked out his window of the home on Farragut Street in Cradock. And then the shooting began. A bullet sailed through Keontre’s open window, striking him in the torso. He died in the ambulance.
Nelson: How unchecked illiberalism is infecting our college campuses
As we end the 2023-2024 academic year, many Americans are wondering what has happened on our nation’s college campuses. It is one word: illiberalism. To be illiberal is to limit freedom of expression, free thought, free exercise of religious ideology and civil libertarian practices. With the coup de grace being the suppression of “free and fair” elections, which is the pillar that sustains all liberty.
Dems weigh local ties, anti-Trump fame in primary for Spanberger seat
Craig Barrett was a little star-struck, he confessed, when he answered the door at his Northern Virginia townhouse to find a Trump whistleblower standing outside. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” he said as former Army colonel Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman handed him a campaign brochure. “Hold on, hold on — I’ve got to get a picture, if you don’t mind.” Vindman, who made his pitch for Congress while they posed for a photo, is no stranger to this kind of fame ...
Records show Virginia mail carriers caught dumping mail
It’s the U.S. Postal Service’s informal motto that “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night“ will interfere with the work of its mail carriers. Turns out that sometimes the problem can be the postal workers themselves. Internal investigations from the watchdog agency that oversees the agency shows that three carriers in the Richmond area ditched the mail rather than deliver it last year, adding to examples of unreliable service that residents reported to the Richmond Times-Dispatch in the past several months. The dumping incidents appear to be unrelated to the overhaul that Richmond’s postal system underwent in July 2023 ...
Clark: Fight for competitive teacher pay continues in Virginia
Every student in Virginia deserves a fully qualified and trained teacher. Why? Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because research consistently shows that teacher quality has the largest impact on student outcomes. Yet, as another school year ends, thousands more students in the Tidewater region spent this year with a permanent substitute or provisionally licensed teacher, at a time when teacher vacancy rates are at historic highs in Virginia and competitive pay for these positions at unprecedented lows. Help was on the way.