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By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
One-third of the localities that are rated the best able to pay for their own schools also have more than 50% of their students living in poverty.
That’s a fact, based on data from the Virginia Department of Education.
Now here’s an opinion: That doesn’t seem right.
The culprit here is the Local Composite Index, the funding formula that determines a locality’s ability (or inability) to pay for its own schools — and therefore determines how much the state will pay to make up the difference.
Bath County, Lancaster County and Surry County are among nine localities all scored at .8000 — the highest score possible, meaning they are more able to pay for their schools than anybody else.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By DAVE RESS,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
Gov. Glenn Youngkin is headed to Europe next week on his third international trade mission. He is scheduled to meet with President Alexander Stubb of Finland as well as with business executives, trade associations and officials there and in Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich, Germany; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Zurich, Switzerland. … The aim is to further strengthen Virginia’s economic and cultural connections, which already include the 119 German firms operating here, 30 from Switzerland, 13 from Denmark, and eight from Finland.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By CAITLYN BURCHETT,
Virginian-Pilot
(Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
More than half a billion dollars in construction is in the works at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth as the Navy modernizes the historic yard to repair current and future high-tech warships. Norfolk Naval Shipyard, with roots dating back to 1767, is about five years into a modernization process to better support the maintenance of Ford-class aircraft carriers and Ohio-, Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines. The modernization will allow the shipyard to get warships battle-ready at a quicker pace, Mark Edelson, program executive officer for industrial infrastructure, told the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance during a meeting last week.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By CHARLIE PAULLIN,
Virginia Mercury
Another attempt to impose tighter regulations on the menhaden fishery in Virginia was defeated Tuesday and interested parties again called for the state to study the menhaden population.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted 5-3 to deny a petition from the Chesapeake Legal Alliance that sought to limit the catch of Omega Protein, the lone menhaden reduction fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.
Recreational fishing groups and other supporters of a cap have argued that overfishing menhaden, a tiny, yet nutrient rich fish, is causing the decline of the Bay’s striped bass population.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By SALVADOR RIZZO AND KARINA ELWOOD,
Washington Post
(Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
A 24-year-old woman who sued school officials in Fairfax County, Va., for millions of dollars, saying they mishandled allegations more than a decade ago that she was raped, lost her case Wednesday when she was unable to convince a federal jury that the school system had failed her. The woman, identified in legal records only by the initials B.R., testified through tears at times in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that she was bullied and harassed in 2011 as a student at Rachel Carson Middle School in Herndon, a pattern of abuse that she said escalated to gang rape.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By GRAHAM MOOMAW,
Virginia Mercury
After a closed meeting that lasted more than an hour and a half, the Petersburg City Council abruptly voted Wednesday to pick Baltimore-based Cordish Companies as the developer that will have a chance to build a casino in the economically struggling city.
There was nothing on the council’s meeting agenda indicating such a monumental decision could be happening on Wednesday afternoon, and council members quickly left the mostly empty auditorium without explaining the move to the handful of reporters in attendance. Several members said “no comment” when approached.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By ERIC KOLENICH,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
Virginia Commonwealth University Health is seeking to terminate a deal that pays the city of Richmond $56 million, VCU president Michael Rao said Wednesday. The health system agreed to give the city a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, as part of a failed redevelopment project at the Public Safety Building downtown. State lawmakers have called for VCU Health to end the payments, but Mayor Levar Stoney objected, saying the health system should pay what it contractually owes.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By BEN PETERS,
Inside NOVA
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to raise taxes on data centers in hopes of making good on the promise that data center revenue will help to offset the county’s residential tax burden. … The data center rate hike will bring Prince William County more in line with its neighbors in how it taxes the tech hubs.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By TAD DICKENS,
Cardinal News
President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed into law a legislative ultimatum to social media giant TikTok: sell or be banned in the United States.
In Virginia, one very prominent voice was glad to see it happen. Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, is certain that TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is beholden to its country of origin, China. That poses multiple problems, including reaping U.S. citizens’ data and influencing them with propaganda, Warner said in a recent interview.
VaNews April 25, 2024
By BILL ATKINSON,
Progress Index
(Metered paywall - 10 articles a month)
City Council unanimously chose a familiar face as its preferred casino vendor Wednesday night, but the choice took a back seat to what happened once the special meeting was adjourned. Instead of sticking around to talk about the economic potential of that decision or the next steps in the process of pushing the idea to Petersburg’s voters, councilors quickly dashed to their cars in the Petersburg Public Library parking lot. Some of them declined to comment while others walked stone-faced without saying a word as they approached reporters waiting outside for reaction.
VaNews April 25, 2024
