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Despite residents' objections, Four Seasons board backs data center plan
Over the loud objections of several residents, the Four Seasons homeowners’ association board of directors voted unanimously Wednesday to endorse a plan to allow up to five data centers on undeveloped land between their over-55 community and Interstate 95. The vote came after a packed town hall meeting in the Four Seasons community room, where several residents pleaded with the board not to endorse a move to open the densely forested area behind their community to data centers. One person spoke in support of the project.
Ex-Virginia Beach prosecutor avoids jail time after pleading guilty to stealing crime victim funds
A former Virginia Beach prosecutor who pleaded guilty in March to embezzling money from crime victims to fund his gambling addiction will not serve jail time. James Spero Panagis Jr., 46, was sentenced last week to three years supervised probation along with a five-year suspended sentence. He pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement of greater than $500, two felony counts of uttering a forged check and two felony counts of embezzlement by a public officer.
A year before declaring independence, colonists offered ‘Olive Branch’ petition to King George III
Alarmed by the policies of President Donald Trump, millions turned out last month for protests around the United States and overseas. Mindful of next year’s 250th anniversary of American independence, organizers called the movement “No Kings.” Had the same kind of rallies been called for in the summer of 1775, the response likely would have been more cautious. “It (‘No Kings’) was probably a minority opinion in July 1775,” says H.W. Brands, a prize-winning scholar and chair of the history department at the University of Texas at Austin.
Loudoun Supervisors Support Dominion Plans for Transmission Line in Existing Rights-of-Way
County supervisors this week affirmed support for plans by Dominion Energy to build a transmission line up through south Loudoun using existing rights-of-way. The Morrisville to Wishing Star line is planned to span three counties and will be 36.5 miles long. Of those, 4.8 miles are planned in Loudoun from the Mosby substation, which is south of Braddock Road and just north of the county line, to the planned Wishing Star substation, which will be built north of Rt. 50 along Northstar Boulevard.
Buc-ee’s just opened its first Va. location. It is truly a behemoth.
Want to microdose Texas this summer? Start in the roasting asphalt parking lot at Buc-ee’s. Wipe the sweat from your brow as you shovel down a bun stuffed with 13-hour-smoked and barbecued brisket, and sip the Styrofoam cup of cream soda on the hood of your car. Lock eyes with the red-capped, bucktoothed beaver, whose cartoon face appears on gas pump awnings, towering highway signs and just about everywhere else at the 74,000-square-foot country store. Virginia welcomed its first iteration of the Texas-based chain in Rockingham County, six miles south of James Madison University, with much fanfare on Monday.
‘This is our university’: UVA faculty, lawmakers push back against Jim Ryan’s forced exit
University of Virginia’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis will act as president while the board works on finding a replacement for outgoing President Jim Ryan, the UVA Board of Visitors announced on June 30. But some UVA faculty members say the board’s statement is premature. It’s too early to discuss replacements, they say. They plan to contest Ryan’s ouster — and hopefully reverse it.
Ramadan: Losing pandemic-era tax credits would devastate Virginia
Across Virginia, too many families still gather around the kitchen table facing impossible choices — what to pay now, what to delay, what to go without. But in recent years, one essential need has been made a little easier: health insurance. For over 350,000 Virginians, expanded access to affordable coverage through the federal marketplace has been a lifeline. That relief is thanks to the Enhanced Premium Tax Credits (EPTCs) — a bipartisan response to the pandemic that helped lower premiums and stabilize working families. But this progress is now at risk. These tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress acts. If they’re allowed to lapse, premiums will skyrocket — and the consequences will be felt immediately.
Wittman, Kiggans back Trump bill, despite Medicaid cuts
Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st, and Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-2nd, may have crossed the line they drew for protecting Virginia's Medicaid program, voting on Thursday to pass the budget package that would make deeper cuts to the health care safety net than the bill that the House of Representatives had approved in late May. Wittman and Kiggans, facing reelection challenges in swing districts next year, had signed letters to Republican leaders that said they could not support legislation that would reduce Medicaid health coverage for vulnerable populations.
Elimination of DEI played out differently at VCU and UVa
When state and federal officials told Virginia Commonwealth University to scrub DEI from every corner of campus, the university's administrators went straight to work. They dissolved the university's central office for diversity, equity and inclusion and started reviewing the work of DEI employees. They even hired a consultant to check their work. At the University of Virginia, however, things played out much differently. Its board voted to eliminate the university's office for DEI, but what the school's administration did next is unclear. Weeks later, federal officials and conservative alumni accused UVa making change too slowly.
Friday Read Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.