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Ennen: Virginia’s new textbook law leaves costs unaddressed
Textbooks weigh heavily on the wallet as much as the backpack, but they will soon become harder for K-12 schools to avoid. A newly signed law, House Bill 2777, requires Virginia schools to base their curriculum around state-approved textbook materials. If all goes as planned, this law will bring about consistent class pacing and make lessons easier to follow. However, it presents a fuzzy financial issue for school districts: the price tag that must be addressed soon. The law will take effect July 2026, leaving only a year for school boards to generate the necessary funds.
Treacy, Agee, Martin and Stottlemyer: Is college worth it? Virginians certainly think so
People seem to disagree passionately about everything these days. But we found a big exception. In a newly released public opinion survey conducted for the Virginia Business Higher Education Council — a nonprofit, nonpartisan partnership that it’s our privilege to lead — more than 90% of Virginians agreed on this: “The most important investment our state can make is to ensure that every Virginia resident is able to achieve the highest level of education that suits their aspirations and abilities, whether that is a skilled trade certificate, an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, or a graduate or professional degree.”
UVa vowed to crack down on criminal students after Yeardley Love’s murder. Did it?
Nearly 15 years ago, after one student-athlete beat another one to death, the University of Virginia intensified its reporting process for students to divulge their arrests and convictions. Had UVa administrators known that lacrosse player George Huguely V had a prior conviction for attacking a police officer, they might have intervened. ... But three more lives would be lost to violence in 2022, when another UVa student with an undisclosed criminal conviction shot five schoolmates.
More Hampton Roads drivers use toll discounts, but millions of dollars are still available
Enrollment is growing in a program that offers millions of dollars of toll relief to Hampton Roads drivers who traverse the Downtown and Midtown tunnels. But the amount of money being used is just a fraction of what state lawmakers secured in the commonwealth’s fiscal budget. Virginia’s 2024-26 biennium budget includes $101 million in toll relief at the Downtown and Midtown tunnels connecting Norfolk and Portsmouth ...
Youngkin vetoed bill to make Black history classes count toward graduation. What’s next?
A Northern Virginia faith leader and parent said she will continue asking state lawmakers to make two African-American history courses count toward the state’s graduation requirements for history, after the governor — who vetoed the measure and whose four-year term is sunsetting — leaves office. Pastor Michelle Thomas, president of the NAACP Loudoun Branch, and Robin Reaves Burke of the Loudoun Freedom Center proposed the concept to state Del. David Reid, D-Loudoun, shortly after the commonwealth added African American History and AP African American Studies to the list of courses permitted to be taught in public high schools.
Yancey: 2 Virginians helped cover up how incapacitated the president was. This wasn’t Biden, though.
A Democratic president is in such poor health that he can no longer run the country. A small circle of advisers keeps even his own cabinet secretaries in the dark about his true condition. Republicans start to publicly question the president’s fitness, and eventually, even the president decides it’s best not to run for another term. The scenario describes very recent events, as documented in the new book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios. However, this scenario also describes the situation more than a century ago involving Woodrow Wilson — a cover-up of a health condition that involved a president born in Staunton, a first lady born in Wytheville and a doctor born in Culpeper County.
VPAP Visual 2025 Conflict of Interest Disclosures
Each year, General Assembly members are required to disclose personal financial holdings that could create a potential conflict of interest with their public duties. Reports filed in 2025 cover the 2024 calendar year.
Lynchburg business leaders speak out against ‘soap opera’ on city council
Over the past week, Lynchburg business leaders have been pushing back against the behavior of members of city council, with some suggesting the council’s conduct could be jeopardizing investment in the city. The discussion was initiated by Dave Henderson, managing partner of Hen + Hound Management Co., the restaurant company that owns The Water Dog in downtown Lynchburg. He sent an email to city leaders and the local news media a day after the council’s most recent meeting on May 13. ... “I needed to get it off my chest,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone would pay attention to the email.” The email had the opposite effect, inspiring other local business leaders to speak out.
American shad: Once a James River staple, it could soon be an afterthought
Over the past four decades, the American shad population in Virginia — specifically the James River — collapsed. Humans are largely to blame. Dams, pollution, commercial fishing bycatch, water withdrawals and invasive species either impede habitat access, hinder spawning, consume living shad or all of the above. Climate change also complicates things. A once-beloved and cherished species in the James River and Chesapeake Bay watershed, the population has steadily declined since the 1970s. In recent years, scientists who attempt to net American shad for the purpose of estimating the population in the James River haven’t caught any.
New approach to cleaning Chesapeake Bay rewards success
The biggest challenge to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay is figuring out where the nutrients that fuel summertime dead zones come from — and a new approach to pollution control is stressing better targeting. For the past few years, environmentalists and marine scientists have been talking about such targeting with what they call an outcomes-based approach to cutting nonpoint source flows of nitrogen and phosphorus. These are the pollutants that rain — flowing off farm fields, parking lots, streets and suburban lawns — carries into the hundreds of streams and rivers that eventually feed the bay. Now, some of the first efforts are emerging.