In brief: Riggleman’s on committee, VA goes for gold

Riggleman appointed to dig in to January 6  The House of Representatives committee tasked with investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection has hired former Virginia 5th District representative Denver Riggleman as a senior staff member. The Democrats in charge of the committee have been searching for conservatives willing to turn a critical eye to […]

Kicking the can

When the Centers for Disease Control’s eviction moratorium expired on July 31, more than 10 million people across the country were at risk of losing their homes. But on August 3, after  Representative Cori Bush camped out on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in protest for four days, the CDC extended the moratorium until […]

Mask on

On Friday, UVA announced that all students, faculty, staff, and contract workers, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, will be required to wear a mask when on UVA property. The policy took effect at the beginning of this week, and the school says it’ll re-evaluate in September. The university made this announcement as cases of the delta […]

On the rise

Thanks to high vaccination rates, coronavirus cases have remained largely in the single digits in the Blue Ridge Health District over the past three months. But in recent weeks, the highly contagious delta variant—which may cause more severe illness than other strains of the virus—has caused cases to spike. On July 26, the district saw […]

In brief: Youngkin declines debate, Good against vax

Youngkin declines debate, again  Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate for Virginia governor, declined an invitation to debate Democrat opponent Terry McAuliffe this week. Youngkin and former governor McAuliffe were invited to square off in Hot Springs in an event organized by the AARP. McAuliffe has said he’s up for as many as five debates between […]

Spending money

Virginia received $4.3 billion in federal relief funds as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan package Congress passed earlier this year. That sounds like lot of dough, but this spring, state agencies had a chance to submit requests for how the money might be spent. Those agencies’ requests totaled $18 billion. The General […]

From UVA to NBA

Last Thursday, three UVA men’s basketball alums took the first step in their NBA careers. Trey Murphy III, the 6-foot-9, 206-pound guard, was drafted 17th overall to the New Orleans Pelicans, making him the 11th first-round pick from UVA and the ninth UVA player to be drafted under Tony Bennett. Murphy played at Rice University […]

New school?

For over a decade, Charlottesville City Schools has been discussing a massive school reconfiguration, which would move fifth graders from Walker Upper Elementary—which houses fifth and sixth grade—down to elementary school, and sixth graders up to Buford Middle School. Walker would then be turned into a centralized preschool with a range of wraparound services. The […]

Growing together

By Matt Dhillon In the staggering summer heat, Kendall King digs her fingers into the dark topsoil of a new garden bed. She’s kneeling on the back lawn of Visible Records, a gallery and studio space in Charlottesville’s Belmont neighborhood. In the garden, three tall tomato plants climb out of their cages between shoots of […]

‘Pandemic of the unvaccinated’

After two months of steady, relatively low numbers of new COVID cases, Virginia is starting to once again see an increase in new cases each day. On July 23, the seven-day average of new cases in the state was 523, the highest since May 15, according to data from The New York Times.  While the […]