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By LISA ROWAN,
Cardinal News
Police arrested 82 people, including 53 current students, late Sunday night and early Monday at a pro-Palestine encampment on the lawn of the Graduate Life Center at Virginia Tech.
All were charged with trespassing, a university statement said Monday afternoon.
This appears to mark the largest arrest of students on campus since May 12, 1970, when 107 students were taken in after occupying Williams Hall as part of a protest of the Vietnam War and the fatal shooting of four students just days earlier at Kent State University, according to university records and the Collegiate Times, the student newspaper.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By GRAHAM MOOMAW,
Virginia Mercury
Sen. Laschrece Aird, D-Petersburg, says it’s “revisionist history” for city officials to accuse her of inappropriately meddling in the city-run process of picking a casino developer, but she hasn’t offered her own explanation for a casino letter Petersburg council members say the city manager was coerced into signing.
Petersburg had been seeking General Assembly permission to pursue a casino project that would only move forward if city voters approve it in a ballot referendum. As the state legislature was about to take an April 17 vote on whether Petersburg should get that permission immediately, city officials claim they received a “demand” from Aird to sign a letter saying Petersburg intended to award the project to Bally’s Corporation, a national gambling company based in Rhode Island.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By CHARLIE PAULLIN,
Virginia Mercury
An environmental organization is asking the federal government to list the saltmarsh sparrow, a bird living on wetlands on the east coast, including Virginia, for protection under the Endangered Species Act due to expected losses from sea level rise and human development.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the saltmarsh sparrow population dwindled from 212,000 in 1998 to 60,000 in 2012. That number was expected to be 28,215 in 2020, according to projections from the 2012 survey.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By ELIZABETH BEYER,
News Leader
(Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)
With the filing deadline passed and campaigns ramping up on their spending, the June primary race is well underway for federal office in Virginia. All of Virginia's 11 U.S. House of Representatives seats, along with Democratic U.S. Senator Tim Kaine - who occupies one of two U.S. Senate seats in the commonwealth - will be up for election in November. Six U.S. House districts will have contested primary elections on June 18. Kaine does not have a Democratic primary challenger and will not appear on the June ballot.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By ANNA BRYSON,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
The Richmond School Board is out of compliance with part of its agreement with the state and could lose some state funding if board members do not come together to meet its contractual obligations to attend annual training. The agreement, called a memorandum of understanding, is in place because of the district’s troubled schools. State Superintendent Lisa Coons sent a letter to the Richmond School Board on Wednesday to notify its members of their requirement to fulfill annual professional development and training requirements.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By EM HOLTER,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)
The city of Richmond filed a motion in Circuit Court on Friday challenging a $250,000 whistleblower complaint that alleges the city withheld public information and unlawfully fired an employee to cover it up.
Connie Clay, the city’s former Freedom of Information Act officer, filed the 17-page complaint on March 1. In it, Clay alleges she was unlawfully terminated by Petula Burks, the city’s strategic communications and civic engagement officer, on Jan. 19 for “refusing to engage in illegal and unethical activities in violation of FOIA.”
VaNews April 30, 2024
By JILL PALERMO,
Prince William Times
A move to expand data centers into the mid-county area has been dealt a blow by the Prince William County Planning Commission.
Commission members recommended unanimously last week that the supervisors say no to an application to turn the Colchester Industrial Park on Dumfries Road into another data center complex. The area is few miles south of the former Parsons Farm, also on Dumfries Road, which was recently rezoned to allow for 85-foot data centers.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By JESS KIRBY,
Loudoun Times
(Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Loudoun County firefighters voted to approve their first collective bargaining agreement after 16 months of negotiations with the county, the firefighters’ union announced this week. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the contract on May 7 to decide whether it can take effect. Represented by the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 3756, also known as the Loudoun Career Fire Fighters Association, the firefighters’ contract represents Loudoun County’s first ever collective bargaining agreement with public employees.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
Texas likes to proclaim “Don’t mess with Texas.”
Don’t mess with Southwest Virginia, either.
I’m not sure what happens if you mess with Texas — I’ve never tried — but a writer for Axios Richmond tried to mess with Southwest Virginia by making a dismissive reference to “whatever the hell is west of Roanoke.” That led to me writing a column to defend the western part of the state, which in turn led to a reader in Arlington saying he’d never been to this part of the state, so I offered to give him some travel advice — yours.
VaNews April 30, 2024
By DANIEL EGITTO,
ArlNow
A bill to add more flights to Reagan National Airport is moving forward despite opposition from Virginia’s senators.
Senate and House negotiators have reached an agreement to add five more daily round-trip flights to the airport. The 1,069-page reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration will now head to the Senate floor, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation announced today (Monday).
The proposed change comes despite an analysis by the FAA itself, which reportedly found that five more round trips would result in an extra 12 hours of delays each day.
VaNews April 30, 2024
