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State cuts off money to agency supporting halfway homes for recovering addicts
For several years, Virginia’s halfway homes for recovering addicts have been managed by an independent, non-governmental group. That will soon change to the dismay of some local recovery home operators. Language in this year’s budget takes nearly $2 million away from the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences, or VARR. The organization certifies group homes, of which there are more than 100 in Richmond and Henrico. It also monitors those homes, investigates complaints and sets standards of care.
Richmond mayor: ‘Not in the city’s best interest to burn bridges’ over VCU Health tax payments
As another year’s due date comes and goes, the City of Richmond is throwing in the towel in its fight with VCU Health over $56 million in real estate tax payments that were tied to a failed downtown development. June 5 was supposed to be the deadline for the annual payments that the health system agreed to make over 25 years when it signed on to anchor the ill-fated redevelopment of the city’s old Public Safety Building site. But the city is no longer looking to collect. Mayor Danny Avula, who took office in January, said Richmond will not continue to pursue the payments ... In an interview with BizSense, Avula said he also is not interested in pursuing litigation against the health system – an option his predecessor, Levar Stoney, had threatened before leaving office last year.
Adams, Brownlee and others: Under President James Ryan, UVA is flourishing
The Jefferson Council, a group that purports to be “protecting” the University of Virginia’s legacy and upholding its core principles, has decided instead to attack President James Ryan’s leadership in a newspaper ad. To be clear, The Jefferson Council has no official university association, and was, in fact, co-founded by Bert Ellis, who was recently removed from the university’s board of visitors by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The council is tragically out of touch and an embarrassment to today’s university, which continues to flourish, and remains a robust, forward-thinking institution ...
Youngkin: Virginia is turning the tide on fentanyl deaths
Virginia is seeing real progress in reducing overdose deaths. For the first time in years, data shows overdose deaths are declining nationwide — and here in the commonwealth, we’re helping drive that trend. Virginia reported a 44% decrease in overdose deaths over the past year and a 46% drop from its peak in 2021. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Virginia’s year-over-year decline in overdose deaths between November 2023 and November 2024 was among the largest in the country.
Youngkin and Pillion: United to stop fentanyl deaths
Since its inception in 2023, National Naloxone Awareness Day is a time to acknowledge the danger of the synthetic opioid, fentanyl, as well as the importance of the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone. On this day, Virginians are reminded that on average three Virginians lose their life to fentanyl every day. However, it is also a moment to celebrate Virginia’s recently achieved, 44% year-over-year drop in fentanyl-related overdose deaths — among the most significant declines nationally — and a 46% decrease from its peak in 2021.
Moran: Scammers are everywhere. Here’s how to stop them
Under two separate gubernatorial administrations, I was honored to serve as the secretary of public safety and homeland security. In that role, I was responsible for keeping Virginians safe and overseeing various layers of state law enforcement. With each passing year, the threats that we faced grew and evolved. Year after year, however, one threat became larger and larger — the alarming rise in sophisticated financial scams.
Yancey: 81 years ago, Allied forces landed in Normandy. Many units from Virginia were in the first waves of D-Day.
Bob Sales lied about his age. He wanted to join the National Guard but was just 15. His father didn’t seem too worried. “Don’t worry, because he won’t last a week,” his father told his mother. This was 1941, and the United States was still at peace. The Amherst County teen who fibbed about his age lasted a lot more than a week, and, come one December morning that year, the United States was no longer at peace. Eighty-one years ago today, Sales was on a boat bobbing in the waters off the coast of France. It was June 6, 1944, and an operation we remember today as D-Day, the largest successful amphibious assault in history. It may not have seemed that way to Sales at the time.
Lynchburg NAACP demands school board reverse ban of public schools advocate
The Lynchburg branch of the NAACP is demanding the school board reverse its decision to ban a longtime city schools advocate from speaking at future meetings after he went beyond his allotted time during the public comment period at Tuesday’s board meeting. When city resident Danny McCain said he would sit down only after the school board agreed to meet with him to discuss the achievement gap between Black and white students in Lynchburg, board Vice Chair Martin Day suggested he might need to call the police to have him removed from the meeting room.
Martinsville City Council member sues city manager and sheriff’s deputy
Martinsville Councilman Aaron Rawls is pursuing a civil rights lawsuit against City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides and Sheriff’s Deputy Reva Keen. Filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Danville, the lawsuit stems from a prior incident in which Rawls was escorted from a public meeting. The suit alleges that Rawls’ removal is a violation of his First, Fourth, and 14th Amendment rights.
Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor talk about how they’d fight Trump while working with GOP legislators
The field of Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor is packed, with six hopefuls who hail from Hampton Roads, the Richmond area and Northern Virginia. In part two of the questions posed by Cardinal News to candidates, we ask them how they plan to push back against actions by the Trump administration, if elected.