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By CHARLOTTE RENE WOODS,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
After years of trying — on both sides of the aisle — lawmakers will have to try again to give localities the option to levy local sales taxes to fund school construction.
An effort to overturn Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s veto of the proposal failed during the reconvened session on Wednesday.
But lawmakers backed a Youngkin amendment that will enable Petersburg residents to vote this year on whether to build a casino resort.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By SUSAN CAMERON,
Cardinal News
Changes made by Gov. Glenn Youngkin to bills that would allow two electric utilities to seek approval to charge customers for early development costs for small modular nuclear reactors were approved Wednesday by the House of Delegates and Senate.
The governor’s amendments to HB 1491, which apply only to Appalachian Power, were approved by the House in a 64-34 vote with one abstention, while the vote in the Senate was 26-14.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By MARKUS SCHMIDT,
Cardinal News
Just hours before lawmakers returned to Richmond for the General Assembly’s reconvened session Wednesday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and key Democrats put their irreconcilable differences over the state’s biennial budget aside and agreed to start over with a clean slate.
Using a procedural maneuver, the House of Delegates by a unanimous vote essentially killed the $64 billion spending plan for fiscal years 2024-26, which the Democratic-controlled legislature sent to the governor’s desk last month.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By THOMAS BAXTER,
Cavalier Daily
The Jewish Leadership Advisory Board, an elected organization of Jewish student leaders, criticized the (UVa.) Board of Visitors for politicizing the experiences of Jewish students at the University in an April 3 letter acquired by The Cavalier Daily. The letter came after the March 1 meeting of the Board of Visitors, where Bert Ellis, Board member and College and Darden alumnus, criticized the University and Rector Robert Hardie for their responses to allegations of rising antisemitism on Grounds.
JLAB is composed of students elected to govern the Hillel Jewish Leadership Council.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By HENRI GENDREAU,
Roanoke Rambler
Roanoke Assistant City Manager Brent Robertson has been demoted and city officials are staying tight-lipped about the circumstances.
Robertson, who also served as finance director, was stripped of his titles just as city leaders are finalizing a $379-million budget that went before City Council on Monday.
City Manager Bob Cowell appointed Chris Chittum, a longtime employee who leads the planning department, as acting assistant city manager.
Council approved that decision late Monday — but not before tabling the motion and returning after a three-hour closed door session to approve the measure unanimously.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By NATALIE ANDERSON,
Virginian-Pilot
(Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
The Hampton Roads Regional Jail Authority officially approved Portsmouth’s pitch to buy the now closed facility.
The jail, on Elmhurst Lane, opened to fanfare in 1998 with a capacity of 1,300. The publicly owned facility housed overflow inmates from Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Hampton and Newport News. But in October, the full HRRJ board — including city managers, sheriffs and council members from each jurisdiction — voted unanimously to close the jail April 1 after several cities began pulling back on the number of inmates housed there.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By MARKUS SCHMIDT,
Cardinal News
The state Senate on Wednesday soundly rejected Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s far-reaching slate of amendments to legislation that would legalize so-called skill games in Virginia and create a regulatory framework and tax structure for the electronic devices.
By a 34-6 bipartisan vote, the body sent SB 212, sponsored by Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, and Sen. Timmy French, R-Frederick County, among others, back to Youngkin’s desk for a signature or a veto. The bill had passed in the Senate by 32-8 in February and in the House by 51-45.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
Winston Churchill once said: “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”
That quote comes to mind after Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the General Assembly defied all expectations and came to an agreement Wednesday on the state budget.
To be sure, there isn’t a budget yet — but neither is there a dramatic confrontation looming between the two branches of government, with the state’s prized AAA bond rating hanging in the balance.
The Democratic legislature did not reject the governor’s 233 budget amendments and send the original spending plan back to him with a dare: Sign it or veto it.
Instead, Democrats and Republicans agreed to work together on a revised budget ...
VaNews April 18, 2024
By DEAN MIRSHAHI,
WRIC-TV
A bill that would have allowed hundreds of people incarcerated in Virginia on cannabis-related felonies to reduce their sentences or be released was vetoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The bill from state Sen. Angelia Williams Graves (D-Norfolk) was among the seven pieces of legislation from Democrats that the Republican governor axed the day after his hopes of luring two professional sports teams to Alexandria collapsed. It would have given incarcerated people convicted of certain felonies tied to the possession, selling, manufacture, giving, transportation, distribution or delivery of cannabis before July 2021 – when recreational possession was legalized – an automatic hearing to modify their sentence.
VaNews April 18, 2024
By PETER EAVIS,
New York Times
(Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)
New John Deere tractors made their way last week through the sprawling port of Brunswick, Ga., their distinctive green paint glinting in the sunshine. Stevedores drove the tractors up a ramp into the belly of the Leo Spirit, a ship that would take them to Asia.
As orderly as everything looked, the tractor convoy was an example of the enormous lengths to which East Coast ports, railways, truckers and shipping lines have gone to remake supply chains after a container ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month. The bridge’s collapse closed most of the Port of Baltimore, which last year handled 1.3 million tons of farm and construction machinery and 850,000 cars and light trucks.
VaNews April 18, 2024
