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Wet spring keeps Virginia crops growing despite early summer’s blazing heat
This week Virginia has set new heat records and come close to beating old ones for this time of year. The Richmond airport recorded a temperature of 99 degrees at the hottest part of the day on Tuesday, Roanoke reached 99, and Alexandria reached 98. Those high temperatures come at a crucial time for many crops growing across the commonwealth. “We are at a critical point for certain crops like corn that are either about to pollinate or our pollinating and so it will have an impact,” said Wilmer Stoneman, vice president of agriculture development and innovation for the Virginia Farm Bureau.
Suhas Subramanyam on his path to Congress (and a road trip not taken)
When Suhas Subramanyam was a teenager, he got competing invitations. One group of friends wanted to drive to Florida to volunteer for John Kerry’s campaign. The other wanted to drive there to volunteer for George W. Bush. “They both asked me if I wanted to come, and I said no to both,” he says. He didn’t vote in that election at all, he says. As a student at Tulane University in New Orleans, “I didn’t care about politics as much at the time. It really wasn’t until Hurricane Katrina hit the city and I got involved in community activism that I realized politics is important.”
Republicans announce campaigns against Vindman in 7th District
Politicking is already gearing up for the 2026 midterm election. A self-proclaimed “proud MAGA Republican” from Prince William County announced Tuesday his candidacy for Congress in Virginia’s 7th District. John Gray of Woodbridge is the second Republican candidate in less than a week to announce they were running against Vindman next year. Republican Virginia State Sen. Tara Durant, of Fredericksburg, announced her campaign for the U.S. House seat currently held by Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman on June 18, according to article in Daily Caller.
Virginia hospitals bracing for Medicaid changes
A budget and tax bill moving through Congress could devastate rural hospitals across Southwest Virginia, potentially forcing closures, major job losses and cuts to essential services, health care leaders are warning. “The reconciliation bill currently before congress, as written, will lead to the closure of rural hospitals and will have a disproportionate impact on Red States. Not sure there is any other way to put it,” Alan Levine, CEO of Ballad Health, wrote on X on June 17. Ballad, the dominant health care provider in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee, serves some of the region’s most rural and medically underserved communities, where its hospitals are often the only source of inpatient care for miles.
Virginia’s unemployment rate is continuing to slowly climb
Virginia's unemployment rate has been steadily increasing for the last five months. That's the first time Virginia has seen rising unemployment numbers for that long since the Great Recession almost 20 years ago. John Provo at Virginia Tech says some of that is tied to manufacturing losses in rural areas. "Layoffs at Volvo Trucks in Pulaski, a closure of Georgia Pacific lumber supply facility in Emporia, and there are a couple of others," Provo says. "But I think these are companies that are anticipating a slowdown, and they’re tied to consumer markets ultimately."
Wagner: Stop the PREVAIL Act from raising drug prices
Recently, the Virginia General Assembly took a big step in lowering prescription drug prices. A bipartisan bill passed both the House and the Senate that would create a board to oversee prescription drug prices, identify excessively priced medications, and recommend strategies to lower costs, including potential price caps. This bill represented a long-overdue recognition that the status quo is unsustainable and unfair to working families.
Democratic congressional candidates make their pitch to succeed the late Gerry Connolly
Local Democrats seeking to succeed the late Rep. Gerry Connolly sought to distinguish themselves from a crowded field yesterday (Wednesday), outlining how they would represent Virginia’s 11th Congressional District if elected. Nine of the 10 candidates vying for the Democratic nomination attended the party’s lone forum at the Reston Community Center in Hunters Woods ahead of a primary election on Saturday (June 28).
GOP ticket to hold rally amid differences
After two months of running separate campaigns, all three members of the Republican statewide ticket are scheduled to appear together next week. Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, Attorney General Jason Miyares and conservative radio host John Reid will appear alongside Gov. Glenn Youngkin at a July 1 rally in Vienna. “We are ready to win this in November — up and down the ballot,” Earle-Sears, the party’s nominee for governor, wrote on social media in a post announcing the event. In another post, Reid, the nominee for lieutenant governor, said he was eager to campaign with Earle-Sears and Miyares, but alluded to at least some conflict among the candidates.
Williams: Trump’s phony Confederate name game is child’s play
In 1964, singer-songwriter Shirley Ellis penned a hit song of nonsensical rhymes called “The Name Game,” whose second verse went like this: Lincoln! Lincoln, Lincoln, bo-bin-coln Bo-na-na fanna, fo-fin-coln ... Her song came to mind as the Trump administration does its bit to restore Confederate surnames to Army bases, with a puerile twist. In the process, it’s reversing changes made several years ago through an act of Congress.
Yancey: Earle-Sears and Spanberger ditch a Virginia tradition. Will they even debate at all?
Virginia, like the seasons, once had four great political traditions. All now seem to be discarded, trampled over by changing times. The great springtime rite of passage once was the Shad Planking, a fish roast (shad cooked on wooden planks over an open fire) in Sussex County that was more remembered for the political speeches than the cuisine.