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Friday Read ‘This is a document with frequent flyer miles’: The curious journey of Chesterfield County’s 1749 charter
In an inconspicuous reading room on the third floor of the Library of Virginia, work is underway to restore a seminal document in the history of Chesterfield County – the 1749 Commission of the Peace, now considered the county’s original charter. ... It is a difficult piece of parchment to miss. Not only does it still have its original ribbon-and-wax seal, but it’s about 80 inches diagonally from corner to corner — the size of a very large television. Despite that, the charter has had an extraordinary journey over more than 275 years — disappearing multiple times along the way before ending up in the library’s hands in 2017.
More Federal Workers Are Flooding the Job Market, With Worsening Prospects
After Matt Minich was fired from his job with the Food and Drug Administration in February, he did what many scientists have done for years after leaving public service. He looked for a position with a university. Mr. Minich, 38, was one of thousands swept up in the mass layoffs of probationary workers at the beginning of President Trump’s second administration. ... In March, about 45 minutes after Mr. Minich accepted a job as a scientist in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, the program lost its federal grant funding. Mr. Minich, who had worked on reducing the negative health impacts of tobacco use, observed that he had the special honor of “being DOGE-ed twice.”
Va.’s international trade already disrupted by U.S. trade war
Amid rising tariffs and U.S. threats to its trade partners, Virginia’s international exports fell sharply while imports rose in the first three months of the year. The value of the state’s exports fell by 12.5% compared to the same period in 2024, the largest drop in the last decade, falling from $5.7 billion to $5 billion. Exports to Canada, the state’s largest trading partner, fell 5%, according to the most recent data from the International Trade Administration. At the same time, imports grew 14% as companies boosted inventory in anticipation of rising tariffs. This shot up Virginia’s trade deficit by more than $5 billion. At the same period last year, the trade deficit stood at $3 billion.
Warner, Kaine condemn GOP tax bill over gun silencer rollback
Virginia’s Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, D-Va., are slamming the Republican spending plan moving through Congress, warning that tucked among its billion-dollar tax cuts for the wealthy is a dangerous gift to the gun industry that rolls back long-standing safety rules for firearm silencers. In a blistering joint statement Thursday, the senators said the proposal would weaken gun laws that have been in place since 1934 by eliminating registration and ownership requirements for silencers, also known as suppressors — devices that muffle the sound of gunfire and make it harder for law enforcement to respond to active shooter situations.
Former Virginia congressman reports back from Ukraine
Former Virginia Congressman Denver Riggleman has been busy since he left office, including doing humanitarian work in war-torn Ukraine. He returned from his most recent trip early Thursday morning after spending recent days dodging drone strikes. In a video shot on one night of his trip, the former Fifth District Congressman turned humanitarian, writer and podcaster can be seen running from Russian drones as they strike the Ukrainian port city of Odessa.
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.
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.
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 ...
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.
Yancey: Grid operator warns of possible summer power shortage. Congress is trying to slow growth of solar energy.
The good news is that the lights (and the air conditioning) will probably come on this summer. The bad is that word “probably.” PJM Interconnection, the organization that runs the regional power grid of which Virginia is a part, has warned that under “extreme scenarios” it may not have enough power this summer, and will need certain users to reduce their electricity usage. This is the first time that PJM has issued such a warning. ... Increasingly, though, PJM is turning up in the news through no fault of its own: Thanks largely to the growth of data centers in Northern Virginia (but also the growth of data centers everywhere and our general desire to plug in more devices), we’re seeing power demand grow, both nationally and especially in Virginia.