As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, the turmoil and division the country faces feel more 1850s than 1776. Historian Matthew Pinsker’s Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln, released earlier this year, draws from a trove of private letters and documents to reveal that the president we celebrate as a saintly martyr […]
For the past 50 years, Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall has been a site in and of transition. The blocking off and bricking up of East Main Street, completed on July 3, 1976, converted the city’s main drag into a pedestrian promenade and central business district that aimed to keep consumers and community members in place. But […]
We know a little about how Jerome Jones lived. We don’t know for certain when he died. We know from his obituary that Jerome Lee Jones was born on June 13, 1966. We know he worked at the University of Virginia for 20 years, that he rooted for the Dallas Cowboys, that he “loved the […]
We’re so back. Tourism spending in Charlottesville and Albemarle surpassed pre-pandemic levels in 2024, as visitors poured $989.8 million into the regional economy. With Monticello and other historic sites celebrating the United States’ 250th anniversary, and the Downtown Mall marking its 50th year, the area’s aiming to boost that haul past $1 billion in 2026. […]
Transgender Americans have seen big changes to their health care in the last 18 months. While medical and surgical interventions for young trans patients under age 19 are now banned by the federal government, leading to policy shifts at health systems across the Commonwealth, more subtle changes to adult transgender care are surfacing, too, including […]
The Foilies were written by EFF’s Beryl Lipton, Dave Maass, and Aaron Mackey and MuckRock’s Dillon Bergin, Kelly Kauffman, and Anna Massoglia. For the last six years, a class of journalism students at the University of Nevada, Reno, has kicked off each semester by filing their first Freedom of Information Act requests. The assignment: Request […]
John McGuire lay there, unable to get up, watching his arm move without him, and slow, and stop. In 2006, the former Navy SEAL was a self-employed fitness coach. Then, while jumping on a trampoline, he fell. According to McGuire, his C4 vertebra punctured his spinal cord, paralyzing him from the neck down. At the […]
In these divisive times, there’s one thing everyone agrees on: Traffic here is terrible. With road improvement projects going on all the time—especially now, in construction season—why does it seem our roads aren’t keeping up with traffic? Because, in fact, they aren’t. Charles Proctor, planning manager for Virginia Department of Transportation-Culpeper District (which includes Charlottesville, […]
It took two years and four multi-day hospitalizations before Kenny Belew, 47, finally knew what left him writhing in pain, his gut raw and inflamed, his midsection almost comically distended. “I looked like I was pregnant,” says Belew, of Palmyra, recalling the moment just before he was carted off by ambulance for a nine-day hospital […]
When you’re exploring local art galleries, attending an author event, or going to see a concert or play, it’s easy to see Charlottesville as a city that’s invested in arts and culture—a refuge of the type of creative self-expression and community-building that often feels under attack these days, whether by artificial intelligence, federal funding priorities, […]
Speakers at the 2026 Tom Tom Festival have had six months to mull this year’s aspirational central theme: Courage. And mull it they have. Ahead of the festival—which runs April 22 to April 26 and will draw more than 27,000 attendees to various downtown Charlottesville venues for talks, music, dancing, food, and more—contributors ranging from […]