A week after Sweet Briar’s board of directors announced plans to close the 114-year-old women’s college in Amherst, shock and grief among students, faculty and alumnae has given way to anger, defiance and questions about the basis for the decision. “I just think it was handled so badly,” said Sweet Briar biology professor Lincoln Brower, one […]
Plans for a downtown business district funded by a 13-cent tax on properties on and near the Downtown Mall have been put on hold after numerous property owners objected. But proponents of a Community Improvement District (CID), researched and proposed by a committee of Downtown Business Association (DBA) members, hope there’s still a future for […]
In our first-ever Tech Issue, we’re taking a look at four relatively young startups whose founders chose to root them here. Their reasons for doing so are varied, and so are their ventures. But whether they’re in app development or designing cancer cures, they share an outlook we see again and again among local technology […]
DNA taken from beneath the fingernail of the victim in a 2005 sexual assault in Fairfax is the only evidence tying Hannah Graham’s accused killer, Jesse Matthew, to the Northern Virginia attack, according to court documents filed in Fairfax County and reported by NBC29. The documents allege that Matthew choked the woman and penetrated her […]
The owners of Albemarle Square and a local Wendy’s have hired state Senator and former attorney general candidate Mark Obenshain to file a federal lawsuit against VDOT and Federal Highway Administration officials over the planned grade-separated interchange at Rio Road and Route 29. The suit, filed March 6, alleges that VDOT failed to get a […]
A three-person city panel ruled that J.R. Harris, the Charlottesville Fire Department mechanic who was fired in October because his bosses said his work was a safety hazard and because a liquid alleged to be alcohol was found in his desk, should be reinstated. The one-sentence February 26 letter to Harris said, “After considering oral testimony […]
Believe it or not, there is some actual good news concerning the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama-care) in Virginia. With the most recent enrollment period now ended, it turns out that the number of residents signing up for health insurance on the federal exchange has far exceeded expectations, with around 385,000 Virginians taking advantage of […]
Virginia’s diverse and vibrant economy includes substantial urban areas, but the dominant industry continues to be agriculture, which provides in excess of 300,000 jobs and adds over $50 billion annually to our economy. Virginia has relied on agriculture from the time of the earliest colonists who cultivated food crops to feed their families. Eventually they […]
According to the National Association of Home Builders, windows are the most common building component homeowners employ to improve the energy efficiency of their home. On the other hand, Consumer Reports points that even with energy savings, it will take many years to recoup the cost of replacing existing windows. Still, new windows can spiff […]
Lena Seville first came to Charlottesville more than a decade ago when she transferred to UVA from Virginia Tech to study environmental science and the application of environmental thinking to planning and design. She said she grew to love the community and stayed, and for the last several years, she’s been a full-time activist and […]