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By MICKEY POWELL,
Winchester Star
(Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Acquiring safety improvements for the stretch of Va. 7 (Harry Byrd Highway) on Blue Ridge Mountain ultimately could be an issue of who has more political clout in Richmond. Is it Clarke County, a small agricultural community of roughly 15,000 residents? Or, is it Loudoun County, an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., with a population of about 420,000? Clarke failed in its attempt, so county officials are letting Loudoun try.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ELIZABETH BEYER,
News Leader
(Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)
Four reproductive health care bills were sent back to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk for his signature or veto following the Wednesday General Assembly reconvene session, when lawmakers met to consider the governor’s action on legislation passed during the regular 2024 session.
The legislative body sent four bills that the governor had amended back to his desk in their original form after rejecting the amendments, for his veto or signature. He has 30 days to act on the bills.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ELIZABETH BEYER,
News Leader
(Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)
One of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s amendments was approved by the General Assembly, six were sent back to the governor’s desk for his signature or veto, and attempts to override the governor's veto on 22 gun safety related bills failed during Wednesday's reconvene session. The General Assembly accepted the governor’s amendment to SB 363, a bill that would prohibit the purchase, selling, or possession of a firearm with a removed, altered or defaced serial number. That bill will now be enacted into law.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ANNA BRYSON,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
A senior-level Virginia Department of Education official has left her post to serve as Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s special adviser to the CEO of the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority. Although she has no experience with cannabis policy, the Youngkin administration says Elizabeth Schultz is uniquely positioned to serve under the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security, Terrance Cole.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By JOSH JANNEY,
Virginian-Pilot
(Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
A proposal to rename Fort Monroe has been resurrected by board of trustees members who are concerned the current name ignores centuries of the site’s history and could be stifling fundraising efforts.
The Fort Monroe Authority Board of Trustees considered the question of whether the site should be renamed Thursday morning as members met during a retreat. Some alternative suggestions floated for the 565-acre property and its affiliated organizations included “Old Point Comfort,” “Point Comfort,” and “Point Comfort at Fort Monroe.”
VaNews April 19, 2024
By JAMI FRANKENBERRY,
Virginian-Pilot
(Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
As Gov. Glenn Youngkin prepared to sign an unprecedented name, image and likeness bill Thursday in Richmond, he harkened to his playing days. “I want to be very clear that had the NIL rules been in place when I was in college, I would not have had an NIL deal,” joked Youngkin, who averaged just 1.4 points game in four years as a basketball player at Rice University. Youngkin signed into law a bill that grants Virginia colleges unprecedented freedom to administer name, image and likeness benefits to athletes.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ANDIE VIGLIOTTI,
WDVM-TV
U.S. Senators for Virginia, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, introduced federal gun legislation Tuesday on the 17th anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting.
The bill’s provisions are modeled from Virginia’s statewide gun legislation passed in 2020 that a release from Kaine’s office called “commonsense gun violence prevention measures.”
VaNews April 19, 2024
By TYLER LAYNE,
WTVR-TV
The future of Monument Avenue in Richmond remains unclear four years after multiple Confederate statues were removed and Mayor Levar Stoney said he would embark on a planning process to develop a long-term vision for the historic district.
The Robert E. Lee statue, was once the largest Confederate statue in the United States, was removed from Monument Avenue in 2021. Mayor Stoney ordered the emergency removal of the street’s other Confederate monuments amid protests against racial injustice in 2020.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By KELLY ROSKAM,
published in
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
With the conclusion of Virginia’s veto session, Gov. Glenn Youngkin refused to do more to protect individuals, most of whom are women, experiencing domestic violence. Violence against partners and family members is a public health epidemic. The danger is amplified for victims of domestic violence when combined with the prevalence and accessibility of firearms. To protect victims, survivors and the public, domestic abusers are often prohibited from possessing firearms; yet enforcement of those prohibitions are lacking. By vetoing bills aimed at strengthening our domestic violence and firearms laws, Gov. Youngkin chose to protect abusers and their firearms rather than victims and public health.
Roskam is director of law and policy at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ASHLYN CAMPBELL,
Daily News Record
(Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
A little more than $1 million in federal funding that Congress approved this March will go toward creating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math hubs across Virginia — but the effort that got the Commonwealth there came from an educator in the Shenandoah Valley’s backyard. Amy Sabarre, the Harrisonburg City Public Schools STEM director and the president of the Virginia STEM Education Advisory Board, helped secure that $1,028,000 for STEM education, an accomplishment that took the teacher 10 years of persistence.
VaNews April 19, 2024
