“The Charlottesville area has a wonderful diversity of trees, and a climate that allows them to grow into old age,” says Robin Hanes, who heads up the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards’ Notable Trees Project. “We have some fine specimens just out right where everybody drives or walks.” The Tree Stewards, who plant, tend, and advocate […]
“The Charlottesville area has a wonderful diversity of trees, and a climate that allows them to grow into old age,” says Robin Hanes, who heads up the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards’ Notable Trees Project. “We have some fine specimens just out right where everybody drives or walks.” The Tree Stewards, who plant, tend, and advocate […]
By Sydney Halleman Very little at UVA resembles normal academic life these days. Many students are taking their classes entirely online, and those who returned to Grounds wear masks outdoors and are not allowed to congregate in groups of more than five people. Recruiting events for clubs and Greek life are held via Zoom. Last […]
As if COVID-19 weren’t enough, central Virginia is fighting another plague, only this one—the emerald ash borer—threatens our trees. The beetle may look like a tiny jewel— it’s a bright metallic green, small enough to sit on a penny— but it’s been scything down local ash trees like a malevolent Paul Bunyan. “No ash tree […]
When Andjelika Milicic began looking at colleges, she felt like a lab rat. Her parents, originally from Serbia and Bosnia, did not go to college, and she was the oldest of her siblings, leaving her with no one to guide her through the application process. “I did not know what I was doing whatsoever,” says […]
Pipeline pushback In June, environmental activists celebrated as Dominion Energy canceled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have carried natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina, passing through central Virginia. A little further west, however, the fight continues, as construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline inches along. Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission […]
Early in-person voting began in Virginia on September 18. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, more than 1.4 million Virginians have already cast their vote or requested a mail ballot. Still, there are plenty of us who haven’t voted yet. If you’re unsure what you’ll see when you stop by the registrar’s office or […]
“As early as the middle of the seventeenth century, the government of Virginia was a government of the tobacco planters, by the tobacco planters, and for the tobacco planters. Restrictions on the suffrage and distribution of representative seats secured their political dominance,” writes historian Brent Tarter in his 2019 book Gerrymanders. Four hundred years later, […]
Late last month, UVA had to put Clemons Library in time out for bad behavior. The university shut down its largest study area for two hours, in an attempt to air the place out after staff noticed that just 75 percent of students were wearing face coverings. Then, four days later, the same thing happened, […]
A fond farewell Charlottesville superstar John Conover, 74, passed away over the weekend. Conover arrived in town in 1970 and started a printing press, before serving as a city councilor from 1980 to 1984. He later worked as an attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center, served on the board of Live Arts, and helped […]
For months, a state eviction moratorium prevented tenants from being forced out of their homes for not paying rent. But at the beginning of this month, the Virginia Supreme Court declined to extend the ban before it expired September 7, pointing to a new Centers for Disease Control order prohibiting evictions until the end of […]