Virginia voters will notice two constitutional amendments on the ballot in November, and given past history, they’ll probably pass them, despite legal experts concerns that such amendments clunk up the state constitution. The first amendment on the ballot enshrines an existing right-to-work statute that prohibits employers from requiring union membership. The second allows spouses of […]
Carmelo “Carmine” Carrozza, who claimed he had cancer and collected paychecks from The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs while taking a job at the Darden School Foundation, was sentenced October 5 to 14 months in prison for wire fraud and ordered to pay more than $48,000 in restitution, according to a release from the […]
UVA professor emeritus Rouhollah K. Ramazani, better known as Ruhi, died October 5 from complications of a fall at age 88. The Edward R. Stettinus professor of government and foreign affairs at UVA came to the school in 1952, after decamping quickly from Iran, where his life could have been in danger had he stayed. […]
David Connolly used to gaze out the windows of his Afton Mountain home and see twinkling lights and the occasional headlight in the valley below. That was before Zenith Quest International “fired up the lights,” he says, of its already controversial, 84,000-square-foot firearms and ammunition distribution warehouse smack in the middle of Nelson County’s scenic […]
In a normal election year, the incumbent Republican 5th District congressman would run for re-election and win. That’s how it works. Incumbents are always favored, and in a gerrymandered district, they’ve already picked their voters. Turns out 2016 is anything but a normal election year. At the top of the ticket are two of the […]
A just-printed Albemarle County Police Department pamphlet was intended to build trust and cooperation between citizens and law enforcement during interactions that are now under a national spotlight. Its content, however, has alarmed some local attorneys, who say the guide’s instructions are incorrect or even unconstitutional. “The document is very concerning,” says Legal Aid Justice […]
Ever wonder why Virginia’s vaunted flagship university gets such paltry state funding? To the filmmakers of Starving the Beast, that’s an ideological decision. The documentary, produced by Violet Crown owner Bill Banowsky, connects the dots between a movement to cut funding in public universities that started around Ronald Reagan’s presidency. The Texas-based filmmakers—University of Texas […]
As Charlottesville continues to grapple with its Civil War history and the statue of General Robert E. Lee on his trusty steed, for a while at the Cville Pride Festival September 17 in Lee Park, Traveler sported a multicolored boa in a bit of ironic subversion. Until someone called the police. “Confederate fabulous is not […]
Governor Terry McAuliffe popped into Mincer’s on the Corner this afternoon because he likes to visit small businesses—and he needed a new polo shirt. “Extra large,” says McAuliffe. “I’m pumped.” He was in Charlottesville to speak to UVA scholars at the Center for Politics and he’d had lunch “with Larry and Terry—” Professor Larry Sabato […]
Up the road, Culpeper County denied a permit in April to the Islamic Center of Culpeper, which wants to build a new mosque, and the Department of Justice is now taking a look at that action. Here in Charlottesville, members of the Islamic Society of Central Virginia, which cut the ribbon on its own facility […]