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Governor: CNBC's 'new subjective metric' dropped Virginia on 'Best States' business list

By BILL ATKINSON, News Leader (Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)

Gov. Glenn Youngkin is faulting what he called “a new subjective metric” that saw Virginia drop its crown as CNBC’s top state for business – a major political calling card for his administration. In the latest version of its annual “25 Best States for Business” report released July 10, CNBC dropped Virginia to No. 4 on the list. North Carolina, which has been in a battle for the top spot with Virginia in recent years, reclaimed that spot, with Texas and Florida taking the second and third positions, respectively.

VaNews July 11, 2025


Norfolk wants protection from future flooding. Agreeing on how isn’t easy.

By JIM MORRISON, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

After residents of Norfolk’s historic Freemason neighborhood objected to proposed floodwalls snaking through their community, blocking river views, potentially depressing property values and leaving condominium buildings exposed, staff members from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers walked the planned path with local leaders in January. ... As details about the plan to protect the city from major storms and hurricanes have become clear to residents, the cost has risen and the beginning of construction has been pushed back, clouding the future of the project.

VaNews July 11, 2025


Friday Read What Ken Burns Won’t Say About the American Revolution

By NATHANIEL MOORE, Politico

“If I have a problem with you,” Ken Burns said, “it’s my fault. If you have a problem with me, it’s still my fault. My mother taught me that.” It was startling to hear this ethos of humility and personal responsibility from a man who had won two Grammys, 15 Emmys, a Peabody and the National Humanities Medal. Not just because of the impossibly large burden this duty put on his shoulders, but because in that moment it was hard to imagine anyone having a problem with him. The documentarian was addressing a Colonial Williamsburg ballroom, crowded with a diverse group of civic educators looking up at him with reverence. They had gathered for A Common Cause to All, a convention organized to find fresh answers to a question as old as America itself: How to help the new generation find meaning in the country’s founding revolution?

VaNews July 11, 2025


Appalachian Power seeks state approval of measure to reduce electricity bills

By LAURENCE HAMMACK, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Appalachian Power Co. is seeking state approval to spread out the cost for some of its assets, a move the company says will save its average residential customers about $11 a month. An application filed Thursday with the State Corporation Commission seeks to securitize the costs of restoring power cut off by bad weather, and the Virginia share of the debt and equity on two West Virginia coal-burning power plants that provide a large share of the electricity the utility sells.

VaNews July 11, 2025


Appalachian Power says new financing method will save customers money

By MATT BUSSE, Cardinal News

Appalachian Power on Thursday said it plans to save customers money by using a newly allowed method of financing to recover costs associated with recent storms and balances on two coal power plants. . . . Specifically, Appalachian’s proposal would save the company an estimated $176 million and decrease the average residential monthly bill by $6.66, according to the utility. That average bill has risen by about $50 since July 2022 to about $174 today.

VaNews July 11, 2025


Trump administration increases scrutiny of another Virginia university

By DAN ROSENZWEIG-ZIFF, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Weeks after the University of Virginia’s president resigned amid pressure from the Justice Department, the Trump administration is increasing its scrutiny of another large public university in the state. On Thursday, the Education Department said it had opened its second civil rights investigation in two weeks into George Mason University, this one over the alleged use of race in the hiring and promotion of faculty members. The department said it had received complaints from multiple professors, including about university initiatives to make the demographics of faculty better reflect the diversity of its student body.

VaNews July 11, 2025


Virginia prisoners report extreme heat as air conditioning fails

By SANDY HAUSMAN, WVTF-FM

The high temperature in and around Chatham, Virginia is expected to be ninety degrees for the next three days – a dire forecast for about 980 men at the Green Rock Correctional Center. Tim Wright is among them. “We’ve had like two weeks of air conditioning since April,” he says. That’s because the man who had nursed the aging air conditioning system along was transferred to another facility. . . ." The Department of Corrections reports a compressor is on order but could not say when it might be delivered. The facility is now 18 years old.

VaNews July 11, 2025


The Trump staffers who set out to reshape their alma maters

By EMILY DAVIES AND DAN ROSENZWEIG-ZIFF, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Less than a decade ago, Gregory W. Brown helped fundraise for the University of Virginia by posing for pictures in his old dorm room. Now he is central to the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on his alma mater for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as one of two Justice Department leaders and U-Va. alumni to threaten sweeping funding cuts and compel the school’s president to resign. Brown is one of several key architects of President Donald Trump’s wide-reaching campaign to root out liberal ideology from higher education who graduated from the prestigious universities the president has emboldened them to transform. Driven by personal experience, the staffers are pushing to overhaul the progressive culture they feel has come to dominate elite colleges and universities.

VaNews July 11, 2025


New Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan includes staggered goals after 2025 deadlines weren’t met

By VALERIE BONK, WTOP

Cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay is a big feat, and the targets from a plan set in 2014 with a deadline of this year weren’t quite met. The new Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement has four thematic goals with staggered goals and varying targets to meet for each subcategory. Maryland Secretary of Natural Resources Josh Kurtz said that those main goals are “healthy landscapes, clean water, engaged communities and thriving habitat and wildlife.” He said by breaking them down, officials were hoping to make them easier to navigate and give everyone involved clear and attainable targets, compared to the 2014 plan.

VaNews July 11, 2025


Richmond grapples with legacy of Confederate statues amid Trump DEI orders

By CHRIS SUAREZ, VPM News

Ideas of how to memorialize and teach American history continue to clash five years after the purge of Confederate statues along Monument Avenue. Many cheered as the statues came down, witnessing a landmark moment that many considered impossible in their lifetime. Others still wish to see them restored. Two months into his new administration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” . . . Legal experts and analysts say the order is unlikely to revive Richmond’s monuments, as they were local and state property, not under the jurisdiction of the federal government. But the president’s actions signal his willingness to wrest control of cultural institutions and mold American national identity.

VaNews July 11, 2025