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By JILL PALERMO,
Prince William Times
In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a Civilian Conservation Corps, and about 2,000 of its members worked from 1935 to 1942 to build what is now Prince William Forest Park.
On Monday, President Joe Biden made an Earth Day stop at that park, one of Prince William County’s two national parks, to announce what he called “two major steps forward” in his proposals for fighting climate change — including that the new “American Climate Corps” is now open for applications for the first time.
VaNews April 23, 2024
By LUCA POWELL,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
A Richmond man associated with the white supremacist group Patriot Front is accused of striking a police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol building. Nathaniel Noyce of Richmond is charged with assaulting law enforcement officers, civil disorder, and violence and disorderly conduct at the Capitol.
VaNews April 23, 2024
By ERIC KOLENICH,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
For two years, the city of Richmond pitched a new minor-league baseball stadium as a project that would have no impact on the city’s taxpayers.
This month, however, city leaders made a significant pivot. Deciding the old plan had become too expensive, they announced a new financing structure. The city will issue general obligation bonds and, if the worst-case scenario unfolds, the city would have to delay programs or raise taxes to pay off the debt.
VaNews April 23, 2024
Virginian-Pilot
Editorial
(Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
By signing a bill last month that abolished child marriage, Gov. Glenn Youngkin made Virginia one of only a dozen states to prohibit the practice and the first Southern state to do so.
That’s a landmark for the commonwealth, one that should have earned unanimous support in the legislature. Those who voted against, including three Republicans from Hampton Roads, should account for their opposition.
VaNews April 23, 2024
By BEN PETERS,
Inside NOVA
President Joe Biden on Monday during an Earth Day stop at Prince William Forest Park made a series of announcements aimed at fighting climate change, including $7 billion to expand access to residential solar installations through the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Solar for All” program.
The president, speaking alongside Democratic members of Congress in the Prince William wilderness, also announced that people can now apply to join the American Climate Corps. The initiative is modeled after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps and aims to put more than 20,000 young Americans to work fighting the impacts of climate change while gaining skills to join the clean energy workforce.
VaNews April 23, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
Craig County was home to just 4,892 people in the most recent census and is getting smaller in each subsequent estimate. The third least-populated county in the state, Craig is a beautiful land of mountains and valleys with virtually no industry — 78% of the workers leave the county every day to work.
The state of Virginia also says it’s almost as capable of paying for its own school as Prince William County in Northern Virginia is, with one key difference.
In the state’s funding formula known as the Local Composite Index, Prince William County, the land of more than 40 data centers where payrolls are calculated in the billions, saw its ability to pay for schools drop — while Craig County saw its supposed ability rise.
VaNews April 23, 2024
By GRAHAM MOOMAW,
Virginia Mercury
The Bedford County School Board filed a lawsuit seeking $600,000 in damages from the father of a special needs student, claiming the man’s abrasive communications with school staff about his son’s treatment over the last three years amounts to illegal intimidation and harassment.
In court filings, Bedford resident David Rife insists he’s the one being intimidated, noting that the county school board sued him shortly after he filed a complaint with the Virginia Department of Education saying local school officials weren’t following the individualized education program, or IEP, designed to accommodate his son’s learning disability and improve his reading skills. When he filed the complaint, Rife told state officials he feared he would face retaliation locally, according to court documents.
VaNews April 23, 2024
By ADELE UPHAUS,
FXBG Advance
After several years of remaining flat, in-state tuition at the University of Mary Washington will increase by 2% next year.
“A small increase, still below the rate of inflation, is needed to support state-mandated compensation actions for faculty and staff and the continued success of academic programs and the campus experience,” the university wrote in a press release Monday afternoon.
VaNews April 23, 2024
By MICHAEL HEMPHILL,
Cardinal News
Outside his hometown of Roanoke, Edward R. Dudley lived a life of a civil rights hero.
Special assistant counsel to Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
First African American to run for statewide office in New York on the ticket of a major party.
First African American to serve as an administrative judge in New York State.
And most prominent: first African American U.S. ambassador. But within Roanoke? “He’s such a brilliant guy, my dad,” lamented his 81-year-old son, Edward Dudley Jr. “But nobody knows about him.”
Until now.
VaNews April 23, 2024
By MEGHAN MCINTYRE,
Virginia Mercury
Both residents and Virginia Department of Forestry officials agree: Callery pear trees, including the much-loathed Bradford pear variety, aren’t just offensive to the nose — they’re detrimental to the state’s environment.
A new state program is what led approximately 300 residents to the department’s headquarters in Charlottesville this past weekend, each having chopped down at least one pungent, invasive Callery pear in exchange for a native tree species.
VaNews April 23, 2024
