Forest fracking: Understanding the decision on drilling in the GW

Early on a Tuesday morning last month, Sarah Francisco got an e-mail she’d been waiting years to receive. Francisco, a senior attorney at the Virginia office of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, is the conservation group’s point person on the U.S. Forest Service’s long-delayed management plan for Virginia’s George Washington National Forest. The […]

Should schools be required to report rape? Some victim advocates say no

Two weeks after the publication of a Rolling Stone story alleging a brutal rape and a culture of covering up sexual assault at UVA rocked the community, officials are responding to angry calls for action with proposals: State lawmakers are rolling out plans for legislation that would require school administrators to report any evidence of […]

Name changer: Trademark claim threatens local restaurant

With former UVA scholar Edgar Allan Poe dead now since 1849, you might think everything about him is in the public domain. Not so. Just ask the owner of Poe’s Public House on the Corner, who may have to change his restaurant’s moniker after he received letters warning him that the name is taken. Joe […]

A tangled Webb: Virginia’s one-term senator aims for the White House

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, bi-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics. If you had asked us a month ago to name which politician would be the first to officially challenge Hillary Clinton’s (as yet unannounced) bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, we probably would have picked former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, or perhaps Vermont’s […]

Lights, cameras, substation: Corner safety in focus

Hannah Graham’s name was not mentioned in the University of Virginia press release about a safety advisory committee’s recommendation for a police substation on the Corner, but the second-year’s national-spotlight disappearance from the Downtown Mall in September and the subsequent discovery of her remains was clearly the impetus. It’s also driving a heightened awareness of […]

Calling West Main ABC “a menace,” locals petition for closure

More than 30 prominent Charlottesvillians, including Delegate David Toscano, City Councilor Bob Fenwick, neighborhood association presidents and West Main Street business owners, have signed a letter to the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control demanding that the West Main Street store be moved because of the unsavory behavior it brings to the neighborhood. “The store […]

U.S. Attorney Heaphy steps down, takes defense position

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia Timothy Heaphy is stepping down and switching sides in the courtroom, having accepted a position as head of “White Collar Defense and Government Investigations” for an international firm in Richmond, according to a November 25 press release announcing his departure, which will take place at the end […]

Leaked search warrant reveals DNA link in Harrington case

A search warrant first obtained by NBC29 and reported by The Daily Progress reveals that the forensic link connecting Hannah Graham’s accused abductor Jesse Matthew to the Morgan Harrington case is DNA taken from the “wooden tip” of a cigar butt found in Matthew’s wallet and from Harrington’s shirt, which was found on a bush […]

Alum launches fundraiser to support sexual assault victims at UVA

This story is part of our ongoing coverage in the wake of the Rolling Stone story on rape at UVA. There’s more: An in-depth look at the University’s sexual assault policy, a Q&A with Board of Visitors member Helen Dragas on her reaction to the story, responses from the Rolling Stone reporter and women she interviewed as well […]