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By KARRI PEIFER,
Axios
Richmond police are ramping up patrols in “hotspots” and activating an 11 p.m. curfew for teens in response to a spate of gun violence that killed four teenagers in the past two weeks.
Eight Richmond Public School students have been shot, and four of them killed since Easter. Elementary school students were among the youngest victims; a 14-year-old middle school student was the youngest killed.
In an emotional press conference Monday, Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards, Mayor Stoney and RPS superintendent Jason Kamras pleaded with the community to help them curb the sudden increase in violence.
VaNews April 16, 2024
By STACY PARKER,
Virginian-Pilot
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Windsor Woods resident Bob Jennings woke up in the middle of the night as Hurricane Matthew pummeled Virginia Beach in 2016. He saw water rising toward his house.
Jennings had lived there for 30 years, and it had never flooded. He started to put towels by the front door, but then water started coming through the walls.
“There was water all behind me,” Jennings said. “It got worse and worse.”
VaNews April 16, 2024
By EMMA COLEMAN,
Roanoke Times
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U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google and Meta regarding the continued presence of a video depicting the murders of two Roanoke journalists. In August 2015, Alison Parker and Adam Ward with Roanoke’s WDBJ news channel were shot and killed by a former colleague during a live broadcast. A third person, Vicki Gardner, was seriously wounded during the attack, which the gunman recorded on video.
VaNews April 15, 2024
By CONNOR WORLEY,
WHRO
Day after day of the same back-breaking, laborious routine: Load. Lift. Secure. Seal.
Monotonous, but little-by-little the progress on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was visible.
It’s formally known as the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge Tunnel; named after the man who spearheaded the project. It opened 60 years ago on April 15, 1964.
Prior to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, travelers had two options to navigate between Tidewater Virginia and the Eastern Shore: take a ferry across the Chesapeake Bay or take a circuitous seven-hour drive up, over and down.
VaNews April 15, 2024
By MICHAEL MARTZ AND DAVE RESS,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
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When the General Assembly comes back to town Wednesday, the big question is about compromise – whether one is possible on Gov. Glenn Youngkin‘s proposal to reject the legislature’s $1 billion sales tax on digital services or whether his record 153 vetoes means finding accord on a state budget is out of reach.
Legislators are unlikely to overturn any vetoes – most were on legislation that passed on essentially partisan lines in a nearly evenly divided House of Delegates and state Senate. It takes a two-thirds vote to override a veto.
VaNews April 15, 2024
By DWAYNE YANCEY,
Cardinal News
When Gov. Glenn Youngkin sent the bill legalizing so-called electronic skill games back to the General Assembly with amendments, one of those amendments directed that 5% of the tax revenue from the games go toward improving Interstate 81 — a wonderful talking point on the western side of the state, where complaining about I-81 is more common than complaining about the weather.
However, other amendments that the governor added would effectively ban the games from almost everywhere in Virginia, rendering that dedicated I-81 revenue stream almost meaningless.
VaNews April 15, 2024
By CHARLIE PAULLIN,
Virginia Mercury
One of the 200-plus amendments Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed for the state budget would delay a ban on single use plastics beyond a timeframe set as part of a compromise the legislature made a few years ago.
Amendment 148 “shifts the effective date of the prohibition on use of polystyrene containers from 2025 to 2028” for retail food establishments with 20 or more locations around the state, and from “2026 to 2030 for smaller restaurants.”
VaNews April 15, 2024
By JOHN R. CRANE,
Danville Register & Bee
EPL America Inc. in Danville is expanding its manufacturing facility, investing $37.4 million and adding 24 new jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Friday. The company will upgrade its 200,000-square-foot facility and add new machinery. The additional equipment will allow EPL, formerly known as Essel Propack, to grow into the beauty and cosmetic markets and serve customers interested in replacing existing plastic products with laminate tubes, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
VaNews April 15, 2024
By DAVE RESS,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
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Last year, when Bobby Bowen, a young Southside Virginia farmer, told his wife that Tyson Foods was shutting its Glen Allen chicken processing plant, she started crying. And he figured it meant an end to his dreams of following his dad and grandfather working the family farm — a dream his dad had tried to discourage him from following. But now that he and other chicken farmers who had supplied Tyson have banded together in the new Central Virginia Poultry Cooperative, they've found a new and very different kind of poultry market: eggs from free range hens.
VaNews April 15, 2024
By EVAN GOODENOW,
Loudoun Times
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The law firm representing former Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler says the school division stiffed them on legal fees incurred for representing Ziegler. The School Board hired the firm, Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore, in April 2022 to represent "any school official in any legal proceeding," according to the suit, which was filed on April 10 in Loudoun Circuit Court. But the firm says the school division has never paid its bills for those services and has an outstanding balance of $617,000.
VaNews April 15, 2024
