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Army awards Virginia Tech $5M to fend off drone attacks
Virginia Tech is adding a new level of drone defense research with $5 million from the U.S. Army. Five months after a rash of mysterious drone sightings along the East Coast, the university announced the award to its well-established uncrewed aerial systems, or UAS, research, according to a news release. The award will create the Counter UAS Research and Testing Center, with the unmanned aircraft experts at the Virginia Tech National Security Institute and the Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership leading the way. The goal is to help the Department of Defense and law enforcement deal with threats from both novice drone users and bad actors, according to the release.
Trump says he’s pardoning Virginia sheriff convicted on bribery charges
President Donald Trump said Monday that he is pardoning a former Virginia sheriff who was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a jury convicted him on federal bribery charges for deputizing several businessmen in exchange for cash payments. Former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins, 53, was found guilty on fraud and bribery charges and sentenced in March. But on Monday, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that Jenkins and his family “have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden DOJ.”
Trump pardons former Virginia sheriff convicted of bribery, fraud
President Donald Trump announced on Monday his pardon of former Culpeper County, Virginia, sheriff Scott Jenkins, who was convicted of federal bribery and fraud charges in December. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Jenkins was a victim of the “Biden Department of Justice, and doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail.” Jenkins was sheriff for 12 years before being voted out of office after his indictment on bribery charges.
Regional library near Richmond undergoing big changes
The Pamunkey Regional Library system north of Richmond will serve only two counties come July. The regional library had been a stable community pillar since the 1940s. For decades, the regional library lent books to people in the counties of Hanover, Goochland, King William and King and Queen. As of July 1, only Hanover and Goochland will remain. The cooperation ended in 2023 when King and Queen County told the others it wanted to leave the library system for financial reasons. King William eventually followed suit in the aftermath.
Wittman and McClain: Congress steps up to protect children online
As a mother and a grandfather, we care deeply about the online safety of America’s children. Advancements in artificial intelligence hold immense potential, but sadly, children are being irreparably harmed online by deepfake exploitation with little to no legal consequences. Our nation has been addressing bullying for years now. But sharing deepfakes and exploiting nonconsensual intimate imagery goes far beyond bullying. This is criminal behavior that demands swift and decisive action. As the digital world constantly evolves, our laws must, too.
Legnini: That ‘big, beautiful bill’ will devastate Va. families
The U.S. Senate will soon vote on a bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives, which will determine the fate of programs that provide access to medical care and food to millions of Virginia households otherwise unable to afford them. The proposed bill is an outright attack on people in poverty, via cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.
Ennen: Virginia’s new textbook law leaves costs unaddressed
Textbooks weigh heavily on the wallet as much as the backpack, but they will soon become harder for K-12 schools to avoid. A newly signed law, House Bill 2777, requires Virginia schools to base their curriculum around state-approved textbook materials. If all goes as planned, this law will bring about consistent class pacing and make lessons easier to follow. However, it presents a fuzzy financial issue for school districts: the price tag that must be addressed soon. The law will take effect July 2026, leaving only a year for school boards to generate the necessary funds.
Loudoun Co. sheriff renews call for elementary school resource officers
Loudoun County Sheriff Michael Chapman wants to begin expanding the school resource officer program to the Virginia county’s 65 elementary schools, as part of the agency’s first public strategic plan. “We certainly have made a request to expand our SRO program to elementary schools — we’ve done that for several years now — but unfortunately, we haven’t met with success,” Chapman told WTOP. As recently as last year, Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Aaron Spence, while supporting the current SRO program, has stated he didn’t think expanding the armed officers in elementary schools would be beneficial.
UVa vowed to crack down on criminal students after Yeardley Love’s murder. Did it?
Nearly 15 years ago, after one student-athlete beat another one to death, the University of Virginia intensified its reporting process for students to divulge their arrests and convictions. Had UVa administrators known that lacrosse player George Huguely V had a prior conviction for attacking a police officer, they might have intervened. ... But three more lives would be lost to violence in 2022, when another UVa student with an undisclosed criminal conviction shot five schoolmates.
More Hampton Roads drivers use toll discounts, but millions of dollars are still available
Enrollment is growing in a program that offers millions of dollars of toll relief to Hampton Roads drivers who traverse the Downtown and Midtown tunnels. But the amount of money being used is just a fraction of what state lawmakers secured in the commonwealth’s fiscal budget. Virginia’s 2024-26 biennium budget includes $101 million in toll relief at the Downtown and Midtown tunnels connecting Norfolk and Portsmouth ...