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By MICHAEL MARTZ,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
A Virginia legislative panel unanimously approved state incentive packages on Thursday for two manufacturing projects, one in Manassas for semiconductor chips and the other in Lynchburg for lithium ion batteries. The Major Employment Investment Project Review Commission, known as MEI, approved both packages after a closed-door presentation by state economic development officials, but provided no details about the incentives for the projects, which have not been formally announced.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ERIC KOLENICH,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
The demolition of Richmond’s Public Safety Building, a valuable piece of city-owned downtown real estate, is scheduled to begin in one to two weeks, according to a spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University Health.
The removal of the building, long considered an eyesore, is the first step toward its redevelopment. VCU Health agreed to pay for demolition as part of its failed redevelopment plan. It hired Henrico County-based DPR Construction for $5 million, according to city records.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By ELIZABETH BEYER,
News Leader
(Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)
Four reproductive health care bills were sent back to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk for his signature or veto following the Wednesday General Assembly reconvene session, when lawmakers met to consider the governor’s action on legislation passed during the regular 2024 session.
The legislative body sent four bills that the governor had amended back to his desk in their original form after rejecting the amendments, for his veto or signature. He has 30 days to act on the bills.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By EVAN GOODENOW,
Loudoun Times
(Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Former Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler is scheduled to stand trial from Feb. 3 to Feb. 7, 2025. It will be his second trial on the same misdemeanor charge after a judge last month set aside the September 2023 guilty verdict on one count of illegally retaliating against a special education teacher in 2022. The same jury acquitted Ziegler on a separate misdemeanor retaliation charge.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By KELLY ROSKAM,
published in
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
With the conclusion of Virginia’s veto session, Gov. Glenn Youngkin refused to do more to protect individuals, most of whom are women, experiencing domestic violence. Violence against partners and family members is a public health epidemic. The danger is amplified for victims of domestic violence when combined with the prevalence and accessibility of firearms. To protect victims, survivors and the public, domestic abusers are often prohibited from possessing firearms; yet enforcement of those prohibitions are lacking. By vetoing bills aimed at strengthening our domestic violence and firearms laws, Gov. Youngkin chose to protect abusers and their firearms rather than victims and public health.
Roskam is director of law and policy at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By PETER CARY,
Piedmont Journalism Foundation
It seemed like a great deal when residents of rural northwest Prince William County decided in 2021 to sell their properties for a new data center alley known as the “Prince William Digital Gateway.”
With contracts to sell for up to $900,000 an acre, they expected to split their real estate tax bills with their data center buyers upon sale and walk away with big profits.
Now, however, that sweet dream has turned into a nightmare — at least, a tax nightmare. The supervisors rezoned the land for data centers, but two lawsuits have blocked the land sales, leaving landowners in limbo. Meanwhile, the land is now considered much more valuable and, therefore, their taxes due have spiked dramatically.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By DAVE RESS,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
The calls roll in, 24 hours a day. Sometimes, it's abuse as a relationship becomes unbearable. Sometimes, money worries are unsurmountable. Sometimes, it’s the depths of depression so severe that there seems no way out. Sometimes, delusions that won’t leave a sufferer in peace. Virginia’s 988 crisis line fields them all, some 8,000 a month. And as implementation of the 988 crisis line lags nationally, it is evolving in Virginia into a place to take a first step to getting help before mental troubles reach a point of no return.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
Shenandoah County is debating whether to change the names of two schools — by changing them back to Confederate names that were retired in 2020.
That would certainly put Shenandoah County in a unique category: Lots of places have taken the names of Confederate figures off of public buildings, but I’m hard pressed to find any who have then turned around and restored those names.
In Shenandoah County’s case, Stonewall Jackson High School became Mountain View High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary became Honey Run Elementary. A vote in 2022 to restore the original names failed on a 3-3 vote. However, the three school board members who wanted to keep the new names are now gone, and the three who wanted the Confederate names are still there — so the issue is live again.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By JEREMY C. YOUNG AND SAM LAFRANCE,
published in
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
Opponents of diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education argue that dismantling DEI offices and initiatives on campus won’t negatively impact the academic freedom of faculty to teach relevant subject matter in their classes. So how do they explain what happened recently in Virginia? Early this semester, in an apparent effort to thwart new diversity requirements in general education curricula at Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration requested and received syllabi for 27 courses.
Young is the Freedom to Learn program director at PEN America. LaFrance is the editorial manager for free expression and education at PEN America.
VaNews April 19, 2024
By RALPH BERRIER JR.,
Roanoke Rambler
The Rev. Bill Lee believes it’s raining manna all over Roanoke.
Lee stood before a roomful of listeners and recounted the story from Exodus of the miracle food from heaven that sustained the Jewish people as they wandered in the wilderness after their escape from Egypt. He asked his audience, Black and white people, church-goers from congregations across the city, if they believed manna still covered the ground today.
“What sustains us?” he asked. “What is all the stuff that God has made available to us, the manna, that we are not picking up? God didn’t stop giving manna in 2024. It’s everywhere.”
Lee’s examples were not honey-flavored crackers from the Old Testament. Instead, he pointed to modern-day opportunities that seem like miracles to someone who grew up in a rural area in the 1950s and ’60s like he did, opportunities such as a community college system that’s available to anyone.
VaNews April 19, 2024
