Radio silence: Progressive station signs off; Saga sacks six, gears up for more acquisitions

WPVC has been a reliable progressive talk radio voice on Charlottesville’s airwaves since 2015. But on June 17, the low-frequency station went off the air. Michigan-based corporation Saga Communications has reshaped the Charlottesville radio landscape in recent months—Saga has laid off staff from the local stations they own, and filed legal petitions to shut down […]

Foot on the gas: Anti-pipeline activists fight on, undeterred by Supreme Court

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would be allowed to cross underneath the Appalachian Trail. Dominion Energy, the pipeline’s main backer, has characterized the Supreme Court’s decisions as a significant step forward for the controversial project. If completed, the pipeline would carry natural gas 600 miles from West Virginia […]

Denver’s done: Far-right challenger Bob Good wins 5th District GOP nomination

  In his two years in the House of Representatives, Denver Riggleman sided with Donald Trump on 94.5 percent of votes, according to FiveThirtyEight. But that wasn’t conservative enough for central Virginia’s Republican loyalists, who ended Riggleman’s run in Congress after just one term. At a June 13 drive-thru party convention, Riggleman lost the nomination […]

In brief: Back to school, pricey police, fiery resignation

Back to school, more or less “All Virginia schools will be open for students next year,” said Governor Ralph Northam at a press conference last week. “But the school experience will look very different.” Northam laid out his administration’s guidelines for the reopening of Virginia’s schools, fully detailed in the state’s 135-page “Recover, Redesign, Restart” […]

Cops out: City schools remove SROs, while county holds off

In light of the ongoing protests against police brutality and systemic racism, school districts across the country have cut ties with police—including here in Charlottesville. On June 11, Charlottesville City Schools announced it was discontinuing its memorandum of understanding with the Charlottesville Police Department, ending its current school resource officer program. Instead, the district says […]

Medical field grads face uncertainty

By Claudia Gohn UVA sent its Class of 2020 off into the world (virtually) on May 16. Graduating during a pandemic, with record levels of unemployment and an economic depression likely to last for a long time, means an uncertain future for all of them. But young people entering the medical field are facing unique […]