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Dice and Bray: Student teachers in Virginia need more paid internships
As we navigate the challenges of ensuring high-quality education for our children, a critical aspect that remains overlooked is the financial burden on students preparing to become teachers. Completing a licensure-required internship is mandatory for students seeking a teaching degree at higher education institutions. However, these internships are typically unpaid, creating a significant financial barrier for many. Virginia has the opportunity to join the growing number of states that compensate student teachers for their undergraduate internship experiences. Supporting future teachers during their internships provides an opportunity for Virginia to address its alarming teacher shortage.
FBI shows up at Charlottesville public defender’s home unannounced after ICE raid
It was before 7 a.m. on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend when the wife of Charlottesville public defender Donald Bellah, asleep inside the couple's rural Albemarle County residence, was awakened by two FBI agents. They told her they wanted to speak with her husband. Around that same time, other agents were arriving at other lawyers' homes. "There was no attempt to contact any one of us other than just showing up at our houses at the same time," Bellah told The Daily Progress. "I'm angry; it was intending to intimidate us."
Virginia free health clinics strategize survival after state, federal funding cuts
Amid federal and state funding cuts, freezes and delayed payments, the outlook is grim for free clinics in Virginia that have had to trim or halt some services, but there is hope, Health Brigade executive director Karen Legato said Thursday evening. “Care is resistance,” she reiterated during a speech outside of the clinic’s Thompson Street location in Richmond. Having first opened in 1970 as the Fan Free Clinic, what is now known as Health Brigade was the first free clinic established in Virginia. It is one of about 70 free clinics currently in the state that provide care to uninsured or underinsured people.
Virginia probe into Black communities’ displacement surges forward with infusion of funds
As more states reckon with the history of Black land loss, the Virginia General Assembly has been taking a rare, state-sanctioned approach: formally examining how the creation or expansion of public university campuses has displaced Black communities. A 19-member legislative commission met last month, its first convening since a mandatory hiatus during the 2025 legislative session was lifted. Enacted last year, the commission received an additional $200,000 in the state budget signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in May, a major bump from the $28,760 it was initially allocated. As it prepares to enter its second year, the group is poised to deliver Virginia’s only known comprehensive statewide examination to date of how public universities displaced Black communities — and what forms of redress may be appropriate.
Warren County Sheriff Rejects DHS ‘Sanctuary’ Label
A recent report by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has sparked sharp criticism from local law enforcement after erroneously labeling Warren County, Virginia, as a “sanctuary jurisdiction”—a classification typically reserved for local governments that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Sheriff Crystal Cline is at the center of the response, demanding an immediate correction and public retraction of what she calls a “baseless mischaracterization” of her county and her office’s policies. ... Responding to Sheriff Cline’s objections, Russell Hott, Field Office Director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Washington, issued a written apology, clarifying that the local ICE field office was not responsible for the inaccurate designation.
Trump student visa halt could hurt regional economy
About 5% of the approximately 1.1 million international college students studying abroad in the U.S. are doing so in D.C., Maryland or Virginia. The Trump administration is halting student visa interviews and revoking visas for Chinese students amid a political pressure campaign against colleges and universities and a broader immigration crackdown. A big drop in international students could hurt college town economies, some of which are already struggling due to lower enrollment.
Leighty: How America drifted from shared power to centralized control
The government of the United States was never designed to be efficient. It was designed to be safe — from tyranny. Having just fought a war to escape centralized power, the founders intentionally created a government that divided authority in every possible direction. They built a system of pluralistic governance — one that splits power across three branches (executive, legislative, judicial) and three levels (federal, state and local). It was a system of friction by design, built to slow down decision-making so no one person — or branch — could dominate.
Williams: Asians beware. MAGA doesn’t care about racial justice
The prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology — a Northern Virginia magnet school not to be confused with Richmond’s TJ — has become yet another Trump administration battleground in its war on diversity, equity and inclusion. At issue is an admissions process, adopted by the Fairfax County School Board in 2020, that a parents group argued was biased against Asian applicants. A lower court agreed, but the Richmond-based U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling in May 2023. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the matter.
Jerrauld Jones, Norfolk judge and former state delegate, dies at 70
Jerrauld C. Jones, a Norfolk judge, former state delegate and father of Democratic attorney general hopeful Jay Jones, has died at 70. His family, including Jay Jones, who previously held his father’s former seat in the House of Delegates, announced his death Saturday evening.
Trailblazing civil rights leader, state delegate and longtime Norfolk judge Jerrauld Jones dies at 70
Jerrauld C. Jones, a longtime judge and state delegate who began making a name for himself when he was among the first Black students to integrate one of Norfolk’s elementary schools, died Saturday. He was 70. Jones’ son, Jay — also a former state delegate and a current Virginia attorney general candidate in this month’s Democratic primary — made the announcement on Facebook late Saturday. A cause of death wasn’t provided.