Nearly two weeks after Albemarle County seized a pit bull named Niko from the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA after hours and euthanized him, against his owners’ and the SPCA’s wishes, questions remain about how and why the decision was made. County officials have thus far refused to disclose the location or provide proof of a humane […]
Several thousand people will be returning home from Virginia prisons over the next two months, due to a new earned sentence credit law that went into effect July 1. While the exact number coming back to the Charlottesville area hasn’t been determined, a new weekly initiative called One Stop Shop hopes to make their landing […]
The fate of thousands of people eligible for release from Virginia prisons under a new state law that goes into effect July 1 may rest with Governor Glenn Youngkin, once the conferenced budget is approved by the General Assembly on Wednesday. The expanded earned sentence credit law, passed with bipartisan support in late summer of 2020, […]
After nearly two months of tension that included firings of high-level staff and public accusations of game-playing and racism against the Montpelier Foundation, the dispute between the foundation board and the Montpelier Descendants Committee has ended. At the May 16 foundation board meeting, the board voted in 11 new members recommended by the MDC, two […]
Hours after a leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion made real the likelihood that Roe v. Wade will be fully overturned by summer, reversing decades of legal protection for a woman’s right to control her own body, protesters gathered in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Charlottesville. “This is so major, because if you […]
Your move, Montpelier Foundation. That was the message delivered by the Montpelier Descendants Committee at an April 28 press conference announcing a slate of 20 candidates for nine spots on the Montpelier Foundation board and demanding the reinstatement of fired staff members who led the archaeological work at the fourth U.S. president’s former home. The […]
The proposed reconfiguration of Buford Middle School was the subject of headlines and hand-wringing for much of the past year, until Charlottesville City Council arrived at a less expensive solution to allow that project to proceed. Now, another long-overdue renovation of a public facility—the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail—is on the table, and questions about the cost […]
A dispute between the Montpelier Foundation board and the Montpelier Descendants Committee over a power-sharing agreement reached last summer has now snowballed into what appears to be a full-on revolt by staff at the fourth U.S. president’s historic estate. “By revoking parity with the MDC and by firing and suspending staff, TMF has attempted to […]
Timing is everything, and that can certainly be said of Montpelier Foundation co-founder William Lewis’ new book, which traces the history and extensive renovation of the fourth U.S. president’s former home. Montpelier Transformed: A Monument to James Madison and Its Enslaved Community was published Monday, April 11, amid an ongoing controversy over a power-sharing agreement […]
Political polarization in the U.S. is extreme. People watch cable news networks that confirm their existing biases; Facebook offers an “unfriend” option, which encourages ideological homogeneity on feeds. A program at UVA, open to the entire Charlottesville community, aims to break down those barriers, one conversation at a time. “We’re really trying to get out […]