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Kempsville High baseball season ended over ‘racism, hate speech, and harassment’ within team
Kempsville High School’s baseball season is over after “a lengthy investigation” found that “racism, hate speech, and harassment” have been prevalent on the team for multiple years, according to a note principal Melissa George sent to parents in recent weeks. “After our lengthy investigation after we received allegations of racism on the baseball team earlier in April, we have found that racism, hate speech, and harassment have been an ongoing issue for multiple years,” George wrote in the message, first reported by WTKR. “Due to additional information we have through our investigation, at this time we are forfeiting (the May 2) game against (Princess Anne).”
Complaints spark second review of Prince William Digital Gateway area property values
After weeks of complaints, criticism and landowner appeals, the Prince William County assessor’s office on Monday revised its sky-high assessments of properties inside the planned Prince William Digital Gateway data center corridor. Roughly half the property valuations dropped, but half went up — the result of the county eliminating one discount but replacing it with a new one. But even for those whose assessments are now lower, there is no joy in Mudville. That’s because Digital Gateway-area landowners’ assessments remain in the millions, and their tax bills will be in the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands.
Segregation skyrocketed among Virginia’s Latino students in past 30 years
Richmond Public Schools had the highest levels of school segregation between white and Latino students in Virginia in 2022, according to a Stanford University analysis of federal data. The combination of ethnicity, poverty and language create a “triple segregation” among Latino students that’s been overlooked for decades and “left to fester,” said Gary Orfield, co-director of the UCLA Civil Rights Project. Latino students’ federal right to desegregation didn’t happen until nearly 20 years after the Brown v. Board ruling with the 1973 Supreme Court case Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver.
Schapiro: A Wilder ride for Rao and Youngkin
Doug Wilder always says the loud part louder. In a little-noticed speech this past weekend, the former governor and ex-Richmond mayor artfully laid into the president of Virginia Commonwealth University, Michael Rao, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who appoints the overseers of VCU and more than a dozen other taxpayer-financed colleges and universities. Wilder has attacked both men before. His speech wasn’t necessarily more of the same, though, because Wilder had a different audience. He spoke to newly minted, politically focused university graduates who, he implied, should not follow Rao’s and Youngkin’s examples.
Virginia changes educational benefit for veterans’ families
Veterans and their family members who planned to use an educational benefit from the state are calling recent changes to the program “the largest rollback of veteran benefits in Virginia history.” The Friends of VMSDEP, which stands for Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program, are referring to state budget bills signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin this week. The new legislation changes the nature of the benefit and shifts control from the Department of Veterans Services to the State Council of Higher Education Virginia, or SCHEV.
MacArthur Center redevelopment still likely several years away, Norfolk official says
While a gleaming vision for the transformation of the city’s struggling downtown shopping mall has been revealed, Norfolk’s economic development director is cautioning anyone who is looking for construction barrels anytime soon. Instead, Sean Washington, who has led the city’s economic development efforts for nearly two years, wants to make clear that the rendering and possibilities shared by Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander at his recent state of the city address are “very much so conceptual” and that there is still “a long road ahead.”
Unsealed federal lawsuit alleges Omega Protein skirted U.S. citizen ownership requirement
A recently unsealed federal lawsuit alleges that the lone menhaden reduction fishery in the Chesapeake Bay broke federal law by creating a shell company to cover-up its foreign ownership, routing profits to a Canadian company instead of keeping them in Virginia. Benson Chiles and Chris Manthey, two private investigators involved in environmental conservation efforts, brought forward the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2021 against Omega Protein under the False Claims Act, saying the company violated the Jones Act and American Fisheries Act by not disclosing that its owners are family.
UVa president says he’s willing to accept consequences for breaking up campus protest
“If all of you decide I’m not the right leader, that’s your choice,” said University of Virginia President Jim Ryan. “That’s how I feel.” Though no university officials have publicly called for Ryan to resign, Ryan's tone and demeanor were marked by a resignation of their own at the university's Faculty Senate meeting last Friday. Ryan, alongside Provost Ian Baucom, university Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis and UVa Police Chief Tim Longo, spent an hour answering questions during Friday's meeting of the Faculty Senate, a governing body of roughly 90 faculty representatives from across the university’s 12 schools charged with advising UVa’s leaders on “matters affecting the welfare of the University."
Henrico approves zoning for 622-acre technology park
Henrico County approved a request from developer Hourigan to rezone 622 acres in Varina as an extension of the White Oak Technology Park. Early drawings for the project included a property with 13 buildings that were all shown as data centers. ... Central Virginia is perfectly poised along the “global data hub” and the infrastructure to host data centers. Subsea fiber optic cables — two from Europe and one from South America — come ashore in Virginia Beach, then travel west along the Interstate 64 corridor to eastern Henrico before turning toward Northern Virginia.
Forever chemical cleanup could cost Fauquier County $44M
Fauquier County now has a price for cleaning up its drinking water. It could cost the county about $44 million to upgrade its drinking water wells to meet new EPA standards, officials say. More than a third of Fauquier County’s drinking water wells would need those upgrades because they tested over the limit for forever chemicals. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to deadly cancers, impacts to the liver and heart and immune and developmental damage to infants and children.