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By JAMI FRANKENBERRY,
Virginian-Pilot
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As Gov. Glenn Youngkin prepared to sign an unprecedented name, image and likeness bill Thursday in Richmond, he harkened to his playing days. “I want to be very clear that had the NIL rules been in place when I was in college, I would not have had an NIL deal,” joked Youngkin, who averaged just 1.4 points game in four years as a basketball player at Rice University. Youngkin signed into law a bill that grants Virginia colleges unprecedented freedom to administer name, image and likeness benefits to athletes.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ANDIE VIGLIOTTI,
WDVM-TV
U.S. Senators for Virginia, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, introduced federal gun legislation Tuesday on the 17th anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting.
The bill’s provisions are modeled from Virginia’s statewide gun legislation passed in 2020 that a release from Kaine’s office called “commonsense gun violence prevention measures.”
VaNews April 19, 2024
By MATT BUSSE AND MARKUS SCHMIDT,
Cardinal News
A California-based manufacturer is looking at opening a lithium-ion battery plant in Lynchburg, backed by a $100 million federal award. State Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, confirmed that a state commission approved an additional economic incentive package for the company, Applied Materials, on Thursday. Peake, who is not a member of the commission, said it’s anticipated the company will add about 100 jobs to the city. “I’m happy any time we get a major employment investment in Lynchburg,” Peake said.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By DAVID TEEL,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
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As state politicians and university administrators led the drive for pioneering compensation opportunities for college athletes in Virginia, coaches anxiously awaited the final legislation. Ryan Odom, Tony Elliott and Brent Pry were not disappointed. They joined dozens of others Thursday morning at the Patrick Henry Building in Richmond, where Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed House Bill 1505, giving in-state schools virtual autonomy in providing name, image and likeness compensation to athletes.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By LAURENCE HAMMACK,
Roanoke Times
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Federal authorities arrested a Pulaski man Thursday on charges of participating in the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol. Carson Lionel Rees is accused of entering restricted grounds, demonstrating in the Capitol building and two counts of disorderly conduct, according to documents filed in Roanoke’s federal court. Rees, whose age was not available, is the 11th person from Western Virginia to be charged with joining thousands of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, at the urging of then President Donald Trump.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ASHLYN CAMPBELL,
Daily News Record
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A little more than $1 million in federal funding that Congress approved this March will go toward creating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math hubs across Virginia — but the effort that got the Commonwealth there came from an educator in the Shenandoah Valley’s backyard. Amy Sabarre, the Harrisonburg City Public Schools STEM director and the president of the Virginia STEM Education Advisory Board, helped secure that $1,028,000 for STEM education, an accomplishment that took the teacher 10 years of persistence.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By NATHANIEL CLINE,
Virginia Mercury
Two Virginia school divisions are slated to launch a pilot program intended to help reduce youth involvement in gangs and violent behaviors with guns but it’s unclear if the initiative will be fully funded, as lawmakers go back to the drawing board to work up a new state spending plan.
On April 2, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed legislation to create the Community Builders Pilot Program that will start with Roanoke and Petersburg City Public Schools students entering the eighth grade. Pupils in both districts face high rates of gun violence and cases of students bringing firearms to school.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By DAVE RESS,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
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The calls roll in, 24 hours a day. Sometimes, it's abuse as a relationship becomes unbearable. Sometimes, money worries are unsurmountable. Sometimes, it’s the depths of depression so severe that there seems no way out. Sometimes, delusions that won’t leave a sufferer in peace. Virginia’s 988 crisis line fields them all, some 8,000 a month. And as implementation of the 988 crisis line lags nationally, it is evolving in Virginia into a place to take a first step to getting help before mental troubles reach a point of no return.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By MICKEY POWELL,
Winchester Star
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Acquiring safety improvements for the stretch of Va. 7 (Harry Byrd Highway) on Blue Ridge Mountain ultimately could be an issue of who has more political clout in Richmond. Is it Clarke County, a small agricultural community of roughly 15,000 residents? Or, is it Loudoun County, an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., with a population of about 420,000? Clarke failed in its attempt, so county officials are letting Loudoun try.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By PETER CARY,
Piedmont Journalism Foundation
It seemed like a great deal when residents of rural northwest Prince William County decided in 2021 to sell their properties for a new data center alley known as the “Prince William Digital Gateway.”
With contracts to sell for up to $900,000 an acre, they expected to split their real estate tax bills with their data center buyers upon sale and walk away with big profits.
Now, however, that sweet dream has turned into a nightmare — at least, a tax nightmare. The supervisors rezoned the land for data centers, but two lawsuits have blocked the land sales, leaving landowners in limbo. Meanwhile, the land is now considered much more valuable and, therefore, their taxes due have spiked dramatically.
VaNews April 19, 2024
