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Crisis averted, fares hiked: What Metro’s new budget means for riders
After months of financial challenges and threats to shutter rail stations and bus lines, Metro has a new budget that avoids catastrophic service cuts. But it still comes at a cost to riders. The transit agency’s board passed a $4.8 billion budget last week for the coming fiscal year that will maintain rail and bus service levels but raise fares by 12.5 percent.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at Virginia Tech challenge university’s account of events
Students and faculty held a press conference at Virginia Tech on Thursday evening to challenge the university’s account of a pro-Palestinian encampment that was dismantled late Sunday night, resulting in 82 trespassing arrests. After the encampment was broken down by Virginia Tech police late Sunday night with assistance from Virginia State Police and local police departments, the university has continued to suppress student-led protests by “heavily policing, intimidating, and threatening retaliation against its own students and faculty who want to continue exercising their constitutional rights,” said Desiree Poets, an assistant professor in the political science department at Virginia Tech.
Dominion responds to lawsuit over environmental concerns of offshore wind project
In the past few months, multiple whales, including a right whale who had recently given birth, died along the Virginia coast, causing some groups to question the advancement of wind energy off the coast. Three public interest groups, as well as two individuals, filed a lawsuit against Dominion Energy and the Biden administration, [hoping] to delay the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Commercial (CVOW) project.
Conservative groups challenge wind farm project; Dominion says it’s still on track
Three groups that are challenging Biden administration energy policy as climate change alarmism want to block work on Dominion Energy’s offshore wind project. The groups — Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, The Heartland Institute and National Legal and Policy Center — say the Biden administration’s push to develop wind farms threatens the endangered North Atlantic right whale.
Protesters call for VCU president’s resignation, condemn police response to demonstrations
Pro-Palestine protest organizers gathered on the lawn outside the James Branch Cabell Library at Virginia Commonwealth University on Thursday afternoon and called for university President Michael Rao’s resignation or removal on the heels of Monday’s violent showdown between police and demonstrators. The clashes, which came after protesters set up an encampment on the lawn outside the library, resulted in 13 arrests and numerous reported injuries to both police and protesters.
Adkins: 250 years later, Native Americans have a chance to reclaim the narrative
The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is a momentous occasion for the United States. It’s a time to celebrate the ideals enshrined in that document — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, for the Chickahominy people and other Native American tribes, this anniversary carries a more complex weight. The declaration, for all its eloquence, wasn’t written with us in mind. It spoke of freedom from tyranny, a right blatantly denied to my ancestors through broken treaties and forced removal from our lands.
Virginia Guard, Finland in formal partnership
The connection was forged nearly 25 years ago when soldiers from the Virginia National Guard‘s 29th Infantry Division served alongside soldiers from Finland on a peacekeeping rotation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Now, Virginia’s Guard is the official state partner of Finland’s Defense Forces. Gov. Glenn Youngkin made it formal during a visit to Helsinki on his four-nation trade mission, signing a partnership agreement with Finnish Minister of Defense Antti Häkkänen.
Police raze pro-Palestine encampment at VCU; students outraged
Pro-Palestine VCU students protested what they called the ongoing genocide in Gaza on Monday, April 29, by building an encampment on campus. The protest began with song and dance and ended with pepper spray, smoke bombs and 13 arrests by police. The incident comes amid a wave of pro-Palestinian protests and consequential arrests on college campuses across the country. In Virginia, at least 94 protesters in total have been arrested at Virginia Tech and the University of Mary Washington over the last week. Students started peaceful protests at the University of Virginia and Christopher Newport University on Tuesday, April 30, and at James Madison University on Wednesday, May 1, according to reports by multiple Virginia newspapers.
Friday Read Centuries ago, Black freedmen found refuge harvesting oysters. A descendant carries on their legacy.
On a warm spring morning, Mary Hill is on a boat working her oyster grounds just north of the Crittenden Bridge in Chuckatuck Creek. “I’ve got about 500 acres out here,” she says, pointing to markers dotting the creek, which feeds into the Nansemond River. Thousands of oysters in buckets already line the boat’s perimeter while Hill and two colleagues lower a dredge into the water. The metal cage scrapes the bottom of the oyster beds. The crew raise it up, dump the bounty and start sifting through oyster shells, tossing small ones back into the water to replenish the reefs. To Hill, these mornings out on the water are more than just a job. It’s her family legacy.
Yancey: Cumberland County teacher is a model for how he’s led students to research state’s history
In March 2023, a historical marker was unveiled at Roanoke College. The subject matter was unusual enough: It recognized Kim Kyusik, a leader in the Korean independence movement, who had been a student at the Salem school in the early 1900s. At a time when segregation was the order of the day in Virginia, Roanoke College had made a concerted effort to recruit students from Korea. Between 1894 and 1930, some 30 Korean students matriculated at Roanoke College. Research by Roanoke College professors Whitney Leeson and Stella Xu suggests that Roanoke College at the time had more Korean students than any other college in the United States.