“I’m going to kill a fifth during this lecture,” announced one student, holding a bottle of whiskey aloft as his classmates tuned in for a Zoom meeting of a UVA data science class. “I can hear you,” the professor said back. As coronavirus has swept the nation, universities across the country have had to go […]
Charlottesville has an affordable housing crisis: that’s not exactly breaking news. Local activists have been working for years to elevate the issue, and the city government has become more and more responsive. The most recent city budget devotes $31.2 million over five years to various affordable housing initiatives. (The city has announced it will […]
On March 7, Virginia’s legislature passed the Conference Substitute to House Bill No. 1537, which will allow localities to control the placement of their war memorials. In other words, our city will soon be allowed to remove the statues of Confederate generals from our parks. After the violence of Unite the Right in August […]
Down at the narrow end of East Market street, past the eclectic, slanting houses of the Woolen Mills neighborhood, there’s a little white chapel. It’s been there since Christmas of 1887, perched on the bank of the Rivanna River at the very edge of the City of Charlottesville. The history shows: the white paint […]
Mike Bloomberg’s Charlottesville campaign office is cavernous—and, on a Wednesday afternoon with the Virginia primary less than two weeks away, totally empty. The ninth-richest man in the world set up shop across the street from Friendship Court, one of Charlottesville’s largest low-income housing neighborhoods, but it doesn’t seem to have led to any foot traffic. […]
Keeping our waterways swimmable, fishable, and drinkable seems like an uncontroversial goal—but the Trump administration apparently disagrees. Since assuming control, the administration has made a series of efforts to weaken long-standing protections for America’s waterways. Local environmental groups have grave concerns about the potential effects of these suggested laws in Virginia and across the country. […]
The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, a historic preservation group that installed a monument to Confederate soldiers in Winchester last year, is now angling for a $1.6 million grant from the state of Virginia for the creation of a different kind of monument—an African American history center. Some local black history organizations have expressed concerns. “We […]
Gwen Cassady has lived a lot more life than could fit into a half-page newspaper profile. She’s been homeless four times, and spent a period living out of an office on the Downtown Mall. She’s been to 64 countries, as well as a royal Saudi compound, earned two degrees from UVA, and is currently enrolled […]
“FUND OUR SCHOOLS” read the twinkling electric signs over the Dairy Road footbridge on the evening of January 29. Students, parents, teachers, and activists held the individual letters, making the simple demand that the state devote more money to public education. The message was met with a stream of supportive honks from drivers on the […]
A report from a private consulting firm has concluded that Charlottesville and Albemarle disproportionately arrest black people, and that race-based disparities exist in the treatment of individuals in otherwise similar situations. The report analyzes adult arrest data from the beginning of 2014 through the end of 2016. During that period, more than half (51.5 percent) of […]