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By CAITLYN BURCHETT,
Virginian-Pilot
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More than half a billion dollars in construction is in the works at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth as the Navy modernizes the historic yard to repair current and future high-tech warships. Norfolk Naval Shipyard, with roots dating back to 1767, is about five years into a modernization process to better support the maintenance of Ford-class aircraft carriers and Ohio-, Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines. The modernization will allow the shipyard to get warships battle-ready at a quicker pace, Mark Edelson, program executive officer for industrial infrastructure, told the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance during a meeting last week.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
One-third of the localities that are rated the best able to pay for their own schools also have more than 50% of their students living in poverty.
That’s a fact, based on data from the Virginia Department of Education.
Now here’s an opinion: That doesn’t seem right.
The culprit here is the Local Composite Index, the funding formula that determines a locality’s ability (or inability) to pay for its own schools — and therefore determines how much the state will pay to make up the difference.
Bath County, Lancaster County and Surry County are among nine localities all scored at .8000 — the highest score possible, meaning they are more able to pay for their schools than anybody else.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By SALVADOR RIZZO AND KARINA ELWOOD,
Washington Post
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A 24-year-old woman who sued school officials in Fairfax County, Va., for millions of dollars, saying they mishandled allegations more than a decade ago that she was raped, lost her case Wednesday when she was unable to convince a federal jury that the school system had failed her. The woman, identified in legal records only by the initials B.R., testified through tears at times in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that she was bullied and harassed in 2011 as a student at Rachel Carson Middle School in Herndon, a pattern of abuse that she said escalated to gang rape.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By MAIMAH KARMO,
published in
Virginian-Pilot
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It’s been almost two decades since I heard the words “breast cancer” come out of my doctor’s mouth. I was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, a particularly hard-to-treat type with low survival rates and limited treatment options. During my second round of chemotherapy, I vowed that if I survived, I would start an organization to advocate for women like me. Today, my organization, Tigerlily Foundation, does just that. We envision a future in which cancer is no longer a death sentence for so many, but rather a treatable condition. Recently, Virginia legislators sought to pass a law that would have stifled that dream — all while exacerbating health inequities. Thankfully, Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed that bill with just hours to go before the deadline.
Karmo of Reston is a breast cancer survivor and is the founder and CEO of Tigerlily Foundation, a national women’s health and oncology organization.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By MARKUS SCHMIDT,
Cardinal News
A member of the Pulaski Town Council was charged with three class 1 misdemeanors and one class 3 misdemeanor last week relating to alleged ethics and conflict of interest law violations in his role as a public official between January 2021 and April 2024.
The charges against Michael Reis, an attorney from Pulaski who was first elected to the council in 2020, stem from his role in facilitating the appropriation of public funds to benefit the renovation of the Calfee Community & Cultural Center, a local institution that came to be known as the Calfee Training School when it first was a school for Black children in 1894, and Wide Angle Strategies LLC, a consulting firm with a vested interest in the center.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By GRAHAM MOOMAW,
Virginia Mercury
After a closed meeting that lasted more than an hour and a half, the Petersburg City Council abruptly voted Wednesday to pick Baltimore-based Cordish Companies as the developer that will have a chance to build a casino in the economically struggling city.
There was nothing on the council’s meeting agenda indicating such a monumental decision could be happening on Wednesday afternoon, and council members quickly left the mostly empty auditorium without explaining the move to the handful of reporters in attendance. Several members said “no comment” when approached.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By STACY PARKER,
Virginian-Pilot
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A U.S. Department of Justice evaluation of a dozen Virginia Beach facilities found that the city is not in compliance with the American Disabilities Act and will need to make changes to those buildings and others. It could cost millions of dollars and take several years for the city to reach compliance with its facilities, sidewalks, web-based services and emergency operation plans as part of a settlement agreement with the DOJ.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By BEN PETERS,
Inside NOVA
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to raise taxes on data centers in hopes of making good on the promise that data center revenue will help to offset the county’s residential tax burden. … The data center rate hike will bring Prince William County more in line with its neighbors in how it taxes the tech hubs.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By RYAN NADEAU,
WRIC-TV
There are nearly 1,800 registered sex offenders who live, work or go to school in the City of Richmond — but it still isn’t the community with the most registered sex offenders per capita in Central Virginia, according to new data from Virginia State Police.
Following a recent report stating that the City of Richmond has the highest rate of registered sex offenders per capita among over 430 total major cities surveyed, 8News investigated more local cities and counties to learn how many registered sex offenders are in the Richmond region and some surrounding localities.
As the 8News team looked into this topic, multiple issues were discovered in how Virginia’s sex offender registry returns information to users.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By MATTHEW BARAKAT,
Associated Press
A jury on Wednesday rejected a woman’s lawsuit seeking tens of millions of dollars from Virginia’s largest school system over allegations that she was raped multiple times as a middle schooler.
The woman, who was identified in court papers only by her initials, sued Fairfax County Public Schools under Title IX, a law that guarantees girls and women equal educational access. The lawsuit alleged school officials at Rachel Carson Middle School in Reston ignored her complaints that she endured sexual harassment and sexual assaults inside and outside of the school back in 2011 and 2012, when she was a seventh-grader.
VaNews April 25, 2024
