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State may not be able to identify cause of Lake Anna illnesses
More than 2 1/2 weeks after at least 25 people got sick from visiting Lake Anna over the Memorial Day holiday, the Virginia Department of Health hasn’t identified a single cause of the outbreak. “It is possible we might not be able to identify the source,” according to a news release. “VDH’s investigation is ongoing.” The state agency announced on June 6 that it was looking into a cluster of gastrointestinal illnesses in people who were in the Lake Anna area over the holiday weekend. Three of every four people involved were children who developed E. coli infections.
Loudoun Democrats Allege Helmer’s Behavior Led to Creation of Sexual Harassment Policy
Four current and former high-ranking members of the Loudoun County Democratic Committee came forward Monday to accuse Dan Helmer, one of the candidates running in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District’s tight Democratic primary, of behavior that led to the local party instituting a sexual harassment policy. Former LCDC chairs Avram Fechter, Lissa Savaglio, Alfonso Nevarez and current Deputy Chair David Bauer said in a draft press release obtained by NOTUS to be released later Monday that they are making this claim as individuals and not on behalf of the organization or a campaign. They said that they are coming forward now after being asked questions by media outlets.
Charlottesville police oversight board and city had same attorney during police records fight
While the Police Civilian Oversight Board was struggling with the city to regain access to police records, the City of Charlottesville hired the Board’s attorney. That means, the Board and the City were represented by the same attorney while the Board was trying to negotiate access to those records, which the Charlottesville Police Department had stopped sharing in October.
Pentagon shoots down Youngkin concerns over Chinese solar panels
The Department of Defense is rejecting recent concerns that a project to install solar panels on the roof of the Pentagon and other installations would use Chinese materials. The Pentagon pushback came after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin penned a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last week expressing concerns that a $104 million, taxpayer-funded plan to add solar panels to the Pentagon and other installations would make use of Chinese materials, which the governor warned would have “significant implications for U.S. national security.”
In Virginia, Bob Good’s Republican Primary Has Split the MAGA Movement
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia stepped off a tour bus wrapped in “Trump 2024” decals one afternoon last week in the south-central Virginia with a simple message: Representative Bob Good of Virginia, the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, was a traitor to former President Donald J. Trump. “We need loyalists,” Ms. Greene barked at about a dozen voters gathered on the baking cement of a parking lot in Goochland. Mr. Good, she said, had “kicked Trump when he was down, and went and endorsed another candidate.”
Warner hand-delivers $650K in federal funding for new housing center for Charlottesville
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner headlined an event Friday morning at Charlottesville’s largest subsidized housing complex, where he delivered a check for hundreds of thousands of federal dollars to fund a new center to assist area residents find affordable housing. The Virginia Democrat spoke on a roundtable with Mayor Juandiego Wade, CEO of the nonprofit Piedmont Housing Alliance Sunshine Mathon and other city officials, community leaders and residents already living in the Kindlewood development in downtown Charlottesville.
Norfolk judge rejects police Flock camera evidence
A Norfolk Circuit Court granted a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained by the city’s Flock license plate reader cameras without a search warrant, ruling the Fourth Amendment protects the right to privacy. “Installing a global positioning system (GPS) device on a vehicle to track a citizen’s whereabouts is a search and requires a warrant,” Judge Jamilah LeCruise wrote in a five-page ruling. “The Court finds that due to the breadth of FLOCK cameras covering the entire City of Norfolk and the storage component is also akin to a GPS device and requires a warrant.”
A school board reinstated Confederate names. It split the community again.
A.D. Carter V worries about the pressure he’ll feel next year when he walks through the doors of the newly renamed Stonewall Jackson High School — a Black student forced to pay homage, every day, to a Confederate icon of the Lost Cause. “It’s not going to be the happiest place,” he said. “I’m walking in there knowing that this name signifies that I wasn’t originally intended to go there nor allowed to go there.” Carter is one of five high-schoolers who joined a lawsuit filed recently by the Virginia NAACP against the Shenandoah County School Board over its decision last month to restore the names of Confederate leaders at two schools after they were removed in 2020.
With so many choices in primary races, will Virginia consider ranked choice voting?
Virginians will not lack choices when they go to the polls on Tuesday to vote in Republican and Democratic primaries for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. But in many races, they may end up with party nominees who win without a majority of votes cast or even much of a plurality. ... So is it time for Virginia to broaden use of ranked choice voting to ensure that winners receive at least 50% of the vote? "The 2024 primaries are about the best case you'll ever see for ranked choice voting," said Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg ...
Eight writers: Actually, no. There is just the one Richmond
We write, as a group of Richmond Jews, to challenge the damaging, one-sided narrative put forth in the articles published under the headline “Tale of two Richmonds” last Sunday, which claimed to show how “the Israel-Hamas war is viewed by Jewish and Palestinian people in the Richmond area.” The article reinforces a divisive framing that pits Jews and Palestinians on opposing sides of the conflict instead of recognizing that it is Israel, not “Jews,” besieging the Gaza Strip. Additionally, it erases the experiences and perspectives of Jews like us, who recognize that Jewish safety is, and always has been, bound to Palestinian safety, and whose Jewish ethics compel us to stand in unshakable solidarity with our Palestinian siblings here in Richmond and across the globe.