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Spotsylvania approves water use agreement for data center
Data centers require heavy use of water to cool the equipment in the facilities that power the Internet, something Spotsylvania County leaders have addressed while approving numerous developments. Before approving numerous data center developments, the county established an agreement with developers, including Amazon, to construct a re-use water system to be used to cool the facilities.
Holbrook and Williams: Sentara should invest more to improve regional health
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money,” said the late Sen.Everett Dirksen. Now comes the shocking news that Sentara Health System lost $1.5 billion on health insurance ventures according to its 2024 publicly available audited financials. One of these was Sentara Holdings Florida, an HMO bought for $225 million in December 2022 which lost $290 million over the next two years. All that “real money” would have made a profound impact if it had been invested back into Hampton Roads where it came from. Yes, we are thankful for Sentara’s pledge to give $35 million annually for 10 years to the Macon and Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences at Old Dominion University, but it should have been much more and should have been given much earlier.
Atkinson: Halt menhaden harvest until studies determine its effects
With summer in full swing, Chesapeake Bay fishermen, birders and environmentalists are once again faced with the harsh reality that menhaden, the most important fish in the sea, are scarce. Even Omega Protein, the Canadian-owned menhaden reduction fishery (i.e. reduces the fish to animal feed), and its partner Ocean Harvesters, with its spotter planes and huge purse seine nets, is having trouble finding them.
Lund: ‘Go see’ Virginia exhibit about the Vietnam War
A Vietnam veteran and I met in a small-town, fast-food restaurant in Southside Virginia some years ago to talk about his military experience. He wanted someone to listen; I wanted someone to write. I direct Home and Abroad, a free writing program for the veteran community that offers writing seminars, individual coaching and professional printing of participants’ work. We both felt what he had to say was important enough to be shared.
Williams: George Mason must take a stand against federal overreach
You didn’t think they’d stop at UVa, did you? The U.S. Department of Education is coming after George Mason University, alleging the use of race in the hiring and promotion of faculty members, part of its latest, legally dubious attack on diversity, equity and inclusion. And a second civil rights investigation, also launched this month, alleges that the Fairfax-based school “discriminated on the basis of national origin (shared Jewish ancestry) by failing to respond effectively to a pervasive hostile environment for Jewish students and faculty.”
Who was arrested in Virginia’s immigration crackdown? State, federal officials won’t say.
The Virginia Homeland Security Taskforce has been busy this year, arresting more than 2,500 people in the United States illegally. That’s according to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who boasted the arrest data during a July 2 news conference at the Virginia State Police headquarters in Richmond. But while the governor’s office has described the 2,512 people arrested as “violent criminals who are illegally in the United States,” neither Youngkin’s office nor state or federal agencies involved in the operation have provided any documentation about those arrested to be able to verify who they are, what they were charged with or whether they’ve been deported.
Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears visits Newport News Shipbuilding
When Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears arrived at the Victory Arch near Newport News Shipbuilding Friday, she couldn’t help but feel like she was back home again. It was in 2001 when she emerged on the political landscape, taking down longtime Democratic Del. Billy Robinson. “I feel like in my old stomping ground — this is where my children grew up,” Earle-Sears said. “People really need to see you, so that is why I am in our great Hampton Roads.”
'People are scared': N.Va. Korean community faces tariffs
Steve Lee hasn’t seen costs increase yet for the products he imports from South Korea for the specialty chicken franchise he runs here in the heart of Fairfax County’s thriving Korean community. But Lee, a former Democratic candidate for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, knows it’s coming if President Donald Trump carries through on his latest threat to impose a 25% tariff on most goods coming from one of the United States’ most reliable trading partners. . . . “Eventually (the cost of) products from Korea coming over will change, and our consumers will have to pay for it. And it hurts.”
Bearinger: What, exactly, are we pledging allegiance to?
It’s a few minutes before 10 a.m. on July 4, and I’m sitting in the Robins Family Forum at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond, feeling the anticipation. Every seat in the auditorium is filled; and the museum staff are busy outside, directing visitors into a second room across the lobby where they can watch the event on livestream. We’ve all come to witness and be part of a “Ceremony to Honor New Citizens,” otherwise known as “naturalization.” Most of us in the room are citizens by right, having been born in the United States. But in the center of the auditorium are 82 men and women from 39 countries who are here to become citizens by choice.
As U-Va. president leaves, faculty say board failed to protect university
University of Virginia faculty passed a vote of no confidence Friday in the school’s governing body, saying it failed to protect against “outside interference” by the Trump administration that led to the eventual resignation of President James E. Ryan. The vote by the U-Va. faculty senate — which came on Ryan’s last day in office — called on the board to provide faculty with an “immediate and complete accounting” of its response to inquiries by the Justice Department in recent months.