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Earle-Sears reaches out to Black churchgoers in GOP bid for governor
It wasn’t the stereotypical political event: no buses, no signs, no impassioned speeches. Instead, there was Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears at the door of Antioch Baptist Church, greeting congregants as they came for the 10 a.m. service at the Fairfax County church. . . . On the campaign trail bidding to be Virginia’s next governor, Earle-Sears, a devout evangelical Christian who on Monday held an online prayer call for the flood victims in Texas, pauses regularly to worship with fellow believers.
Republican group dumps $2 million into Virginia attorney general race
The Republican Attorneys General Association is pouring $2 million into the Virginia Attorney General race between Republican incumbent Jason Miyares and Democrat Jay Jones. The RAGA says the investment is more than any GOP committee in a statewide Virginia race in 2025. The race between Miyares and Jones is one of the top ones to watch in Virginia as the state elects a new governor, Lt. governor, and members of the House of Delegates.
Report identifies major gaps in regional response to homelessness
The Fredericksburg Regional Continuum of Care’s Homeless Helpline is the primary access point for housing assistance in Planning District 16, which includes Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties as well as the City of Fredericksburg. But from July through December of 2024, the helpline was only able to refer one in 10 households to shelter out of the 1,256 who called seeking assistance, . . . The helpline’s limitations were just one troublesome aspect of the report, which also noted that housing in the region is becoming increasingly unaffordable, eviction rates are on the rise and racial disparities are disproportionately affecting Black households.
Formerly ousted U.Va. president has questions about Ryan’s departure
Teresa Sullivan first wants to make one thing clear: She doesn’t have any inside scoop on what took place behind the scenes with the unexpected resignation of University of Virginia President Jim Ryan, whose last day leading the university was Friday. “I’m 1,400 miles away,” she says, having moved to Texas following her retirement last year as a member of U.Va.’s faculty. “I don’t understand what happened. For starters, does the Justice Department have some evidence of wrongdoing? What is the evidence? Did the board play any role in this, or do they just stand by and accept the resignation? I don’t know. Did the governor play any role? I don’t know.” Other than questions about Ryan’s resignation in June, which he acknowledged was due to the federal government’s pressure to oust him from the university he led since 2018, what Sullivan has is experience and context.
Youngkin appoints longtime power lobbyist to citizen board that regulates power plants
Gov. Glenn Youngkin appointed Ron Jefferson, a longtime lobbyist for Appalachian Power, to the State Air Pollution Control Board on Friday. Jefferson worked for Appalachian Power for at least 17 years, according to the lobbying records maintained by the Virginia Public Access Project. Appalachian Power provides electrical power to most of southwest Virginia. Power plants, particularly those powered by fossil fuels, make up a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions.
Coming in first, fourth or last? The ballad of Glenn Youngkin
As rankings go, is No. 4 really that bad? On its face, the political reaction to Virginia’s precipitous drop in CNBC’s all-important “Top States for Business“ rankings — we got the news that our long-time rival, North Carolina, supplanted the Old Dominion as No. 1 on Thursday morning — somehow feels both alarmist and apropos. “It’s terrible,” Democratic House Speaker and Portsmouth Del. Don Scott told the RTD’s Michael Martz on Thursday, pointing out CNBC’s emphasis on federal job cuts and tariffs in this year’s rankings: ... Gov. Glenn Youngkin, of course, dismissed the drop on X. “CNBC’s new methodology this year is thrown off by a new subjective metric that mistakenly ascribes substantial risk to Virginia from the federal government’s presence in the Commonwealth,” Youngkin wrote.
Osprey came back from the brink once. Now chicks are dying in nests, and some blame overfishing
Stepping onto an old wooden duck blind in the middle of the York River, Bryan Watts looks down at a circle of sticks and pine cones on the weathered, guano-spattered platform. It’s a failed osprey nest, taken over by diving terns. “The birds never laid here this year,” said Watts, near the mouth of Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. “And that’s a pattern we’ve been seeing these last couple of years.” Watts has a more intimate relationship with ospreys than most people have with a bird — he has climbed to their nests to free them from plastic bags, fed them by hand and monitored their eggs with telescopic mirrors.
Youngkin turns to AI to cut more red tape across Virginia Government
Days after declaring victory in his administration’s push to cut regulatory red tape by 25%, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is now looking to artificial intelligence to help push that number even higher. In an executive order issued Friday, Youngkin announced Virginia will launch the nation’s first “agentic AI” pilot program designed to streamline state regulations and guidance documents. The initiative will scan thousands of pages of agency rules using generative AI to identify redundancies, contradictions and overly complex language — all in the name of efficiency.
Fredericksburg Planning Commission unanimously recommends disapproval of Gateway data center
Thomas Johnson spent some time working at Hugh Mercer Elementary School, which means he was already familiar with a couple of the proposed transmission line routes for a data center project discussed at Wednesday’s Fredericksburg Planning Commission meeting. “With what I see, one goes through the car [rider] line and one goes through the play area,” said Johnson, a planning commissioner. “So, both would be very difficult obstacles for that entity.” Ultimately, concerns surrounding the transmission lines that would be required to feed power to the proposed 2.1 million square foot campus led to the project’s undoing.
Residents look to historical tourism to preserve Cumberland County’s past and create economic opportunities for its future
Robin Stocks is 69 and lives in Midlothian but grew up in Cumberland County. A Black Army veteran, she said her life wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for the Pine Grove School she was allowed to attend during the era of Jim Crow segregation. “Everything about the school molded us for the rest of our lives,” Stocks said. . . . That school’s history — as well as that of the other schools, churches and homes the African American community relied on in the central Virginia rural community — is what several community members are pushing to preserve as an economic driver in the region instead of a proposed landfill: historical tourism.