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By GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) has signed five gun-control bills into law and offered amendments on two more passed earlier this year by the General Assembly, delivering the signature legislation that Democrats promised in last year's elections.
By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Gov. Ralph Northam on Saturday signed two measures progressives have long sought, enshrining protections for the LGBTQ community into state law and giving Virginia localities the power to remove Confederate monuments. The bills were among dozens that Democrats — in power in the Executive Mansion and both General Assembly chambers for the first time since 1994 — passed this year that will remake Virginia.
By AMY FRIEDENBERGER, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
In addition to steering Virginia through the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Ralph Northam is reviewing numerous bills before a Saturday night deadline. Northam is making tough decisions about some bills, especially those related to workers and businesses, as he seeks to balance the major priorities Democrats promised to deliver with how to emerge from the coronavirus on strong economic footing.
The Virginia Public Access Project
Update this morning: Data from the Virginia Department of Health shows a timeline of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and a statewide map showing the number of cases by locality. VPAP has added a map of deaths by health district and hospital utilization data from the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.
By ANTONIO OLIVO, LAURA VOZZELLA AND REBECCA TAN, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
The novel coronavirus is taking root inside the Washington region’s nursing homes and assisted-living communities for the elderly, with at least 142 of those sites now affected and two of the nation’s largest outbreaks happening in Virginia and Maryland....As the tally of cases grows, some facilities are worried they soon won’t have enough workers to help their residents — either because of coronavirus infections in those ranks or because they are choosing to avoid the risk of coming in.
By KATHERINE HAFNER, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
After serving her three-year prison sentence, Patsy Sibley Barry was released this week from the Virginia Correctional Center for Women. She was delighted to see her aunt, who came to bring her home, but they couldn’t embrace or even get within 6 feet of each other. Barry had tested positive for COVID-19 the previous week. Physical distancing was a must. Traveling home to Alton in Halifax County in the camper attached to the back of her aunt’s pickup truck was “heartbreaking,” she said.
By NED OLIVER, Virginia Mercury
When layoffs began to surge amid widespread business closures in Virginia, service workers were among the first and hardest hit, initially accounting for more than 50 percent of requests for unemployment benefits. But as the shutdown of normal life has dragged on, workers in more and more industries have faced layoffs. And perhaps counterintuitively, that includes more than 30,000 health care workers, according to data released Thursday by the Virginia Employment Commission.
The Full Report
43 articles, 19 publications
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By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Gov. Ralph Northam has signed bills to roll back restrictions on abortion. The governor on Friday signed Senate Bill 733 from Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, and House Bill 980 from House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria. The bills are known as the Reproductive Health Protection Act.
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press
Nearly 2,000 prisoners with a year or less remaining on their sentences could be eligible for early release under a proposal from Virginia Gov. Northam designed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Northam announced Friday at a news conference that he is adding an amendment to the state budget that would give the Department of Corrections authority to release inmates with one year or less remaining on their sentences.
By FRANK GREEN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
If approved by the General Assembly later this month, the Virginia Department of Corrections will begin releasing inmates with good behavior records and a year or less to serve on their sentences, Gov. Ralph Northam said Friday.
By ALAN SUDERMAN, Associated Press
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has signed several new gun restrictions he championed during this year’s legislative session, cementing gains by gun control advocates they hope will serve as a “blueprint” for states around the country. The Old Dominion has been the epicenter of the nation’s gun debate after Democrats took full control of the General Assembly last year on an aggressive gun control platform.
By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Virginians will be subject to more gun control under legislation Gov. Ralph Northam signed Friday that he and advocates say will save lives. Northam signed five of the seven gun control measures his administration backed that cleared the legislature this year — bills that drew an estimated 22,000 protesters to the state Capitol in January.
By GRAHAM MOOMAW, Virginia Mercury
After Gov. Ralph Northam called for municipal elections next month to be postponed, Virginia registrars are still showing up to work to help people cast ballots. They might end up getting trashed. Or they might end up counting. Until the General Assembly gives the official word later this month, no one knows for sure.
By TYLER HAMMEL, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Nationwide, primary campaigns have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic, but for the two Republican candidates in Virginia’s 5th congressional district the challenge is more complicated. The 5th District Republican Committee has yet to reschedule caucuses and a convention, but results could upset the freshman incumbent Rep. Denver Riggleman. His challenger, Bob Good, a former associate athletics director at Liberty University who has said Riggleman has “betrayed the trust” of conservatives, claims to have enough delegates to unseat him.
By MIKE ALLEN, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Perhaps the odds were just too tough to beat this year. The Washington and Lee University students behind the 2020 Mock Convention were determined, despite a Democratic presidential field with more than 20 candidates, to continue the 112-year-old event’s record for uncanny accuracy in predicting who the nominee will be for the party out of power. Yet Mock Con’s pick, Bernie Sanders, dropped out of the race Wednesday, clearing the way for Joe Biden to become the presumptive nominee to challenge President Donald Trump in the general election.
By KATE MASTERS, Virginia Mercury
Virginia officials have signed a contract with the global management consultant firm McKinsey & Company in efforts to procure more personal protective equipment and testing supplies for COVID-19, the disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus. Virginia Health Secretary Daniel Carey announced the contract at a news briefing on Friday. The state will pay McKinsey roughly $150,000 a week for three weeks, giving the Virginia Department of Emergency Management the option to extend the contract if needed, Finance Secretary Aubrey Layne said in a later phone interview.
By MARK BOWES, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
The Virginia Board of Corrections on Friday approved a plan by Chesapeake Sheriff Jim O’Sullivan to reopen a vacant Chesapeake Jail annex to house inmates who test positive for COVID-19 throughout the Hampton Roads region. The board signaled its enthusiasm for the proposal by voting unanimously, with one member absent, in an emergency teleconference meeting that will allow O’Sullivan to make the facility ready for occupancy immediately.
By JESSICA NOLTE, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
When two of his deputies were diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, it made Virginia Beach Sheriff Ken Stolle ask — are first responders who are exposed to COVID-19 covered under Virginia’s Workmans’ Compensation Act? Stolle released a copy of a letter Friday afternoon he sent to Attorney General Mark Herring with a series of questions asking if and how first responders who become ill from work-related exposure to COVID-19 will be covered under the existing act and related statutes.
By JOHN REID BLACKWELL, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Dominion Energy has shut down one of its two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station after operators discovered what a spokesman for the company called a “small leak of water” in the reactor’s coolant pumps. Unit 2 at the plant in Louisa County was shut down at about 1:30 a.m. on Thursday and remained offline on Friday afternoon. Unit 1 was unaffected and was still operating at 100% capacity on Friday.
By MACY PRESSLEY, VCU Capital News Service
Michael Moore has always enjoyed his job as wine trail guide with Top Shelf Transportation. He said the job is about more than wine. “I get people anything they need,” Moore said. “I’m like a rolling concierge.” Moore, 71, works in the Monticello Wine Trail region, which ecompasses parts of Albermarle and Nelson counties and contains about 35 wineries.
By STAFF REPORT, Loudoun Times
Loudoun County opposes a rate hike request by the owners of the Dulles Greenway, a 14-mile road that connects the Dulles Toll Road to communities in Ashburn and terminates in Leesburg. The county contends the owners of the private road should not be trying to "rush through" a rate hike at a time when the region is dealing with the coronavirus crisis.
By JUSTIN GEORGE, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
“I’m not okay,” Sabrina Lott said as she boarded a Red Line train at the Bethesda Metro station one recent weekday. “It’s just how it is.” Lott, 50, picked out a seat near the doors and sat her backpack down next to her, settling in for the commute home to Southeast from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where she works as an administrative assistant. Today she was lucky: The train was nearly empty, so she didn’t feel the need to don one of the disposable masks she travels with, along with disinfecting wipes.
By MICHAEL MARTZ AND BRIDGET BALCH, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
The day after Canterbury Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center announced the first two deaths from COVID-19 at the skilled nursing facility in western Henrico County, Henrico emergency management officials said they offered kits to test all residents and staff. But the biggest obstacle wasn’t test kits. Canterbury already had secured rapid testing technology from the same Innsbrook-based company used by the county, but the push to test everyone in the stricken rehabilitation facility was stymied by then-current guidance from national and state public health officials to reserve tests for those showing symptoms of the disease.
By LAURA VOZZELLA, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
The doctor in charge of a Richmond-area nursing home with one of the nation's highest numbers of coronavirus deaths says society is partly to blame because of its willingness to "warehouse" the elderly in underfunded public facilities.
By GREG HAMBRICK, Inside NOVA (Metered Paywall)
Gov. Ralph Northam has created a task force to provide support for long term care facilities and nursing homes in the state. “We know there are concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes. Here in Richmond, The Canterbury Nursing Home is tragically dealing with one of the largest concentrations of deaths in a long term care facility in our country,” Northam said during a Friday afternoon press conference.
By PETE DELEA, Daily News Record (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Facebook Twitter Email Print Save Virginia Department of Health's Central Shenandoah Health District investigating a possible COVID-19 outbreak at a Harrisonburg long-term care facility. State officials collected COVID-19 specimens from symptomatic residents. The specimens were sent to the state lab in Richmond. Several were positive for COVID-19. The department, which is working to determine a possible source of exposure, hasn't released the name of the facility.
By BILL LOHMANN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Not long ago, Christie Clarke Hales stood outside an assisted-living facility in Lawrenceville and waved through the window to her 89-year-old mother. “She was so happy, as was I, but she kept saying, ‘Come in, come in,’ and motioning with her hands,” Hales said. “That part was sad, as she could not really understand why I could not come in.”
By MICHAEL MARTZ, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Gov. Ralph Northam is promising a boost in Medicaid reimbursement rates to Virginia nursing homes to help compensate them for the mounting costs of combating the spread of the COVID-19 virus among residents who are already medically vulnerable. Northam said Friday that he will increase reimbursements by $20 a day for each Virginia resident who relies on Medicaid...
By SABRINA MORENO, MEL LEONOR AND BRIDGET BALCH, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Pim Bhut and Khan Tep's main source of coronavirus information comes in the morning, where they’ll sit on the couch of their Henrico County home, before and after breakfast, and flip on the morning news. Tep watches patiently before turning to his wife during commercial breaks. “What did they say?” He’s trying to understand as much as possible, Bhut said, but it’s been difficult.
By MONIQUE CALELLO, News Leader (Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)
Central Shenandoah Health District announced that a resident of the region who was ill with COVID-19 has died. But it refuses to say where and will not explain why. ...“The only information VDH is releasing on deaths is the district in which the person lived,” said Central Shenandoah Health District's director, Dr. Laura Kornegay, when The News Leader asked for locality.
By CATHY DYSON, Free Lance-Star (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
A Stafford County man in his 80s died Saturday at Mary Washington Hospital, becoming the locality’s first confirmed death from COVID-19 and the third in the Rappahannock Area Health District. The family was notified of his death and told he had tested positive for the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, according to a Stafford County press release. No other information about him was available.
By STAFF REPORT, ArlNow
More than 1,000 people have been tested for coronavirus at the joint Arlington County/Virginia Hospital Center drive-through site near Washington-Liberty High School. The county said the site, which opened on March 18, is now testing up to 100 people per day.
By PATRICK WILSON, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Citing safety of volunteers during the coronavirus pandemic, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority asked the region’s biggest hunger-relief organization to stop delivering to Richmond’s public housing communities. Feed More, one of the largest food providers in Virginia, had been providing nonperishable food and fresh produce to the public housing communities before the pandemic began.
By EVAN GOODENOW, Winchester Star (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Field hospitals set up as alternative care sites for an overflow of coronavirus patients at Winchester Medical Center and freezer trucks serving as temporary morgues. Those are the grim, worst-case scenarios, according to pandemic plans created by Winchester and Frederick County governments.
By KIM BARTO, Martinsville Bulletin (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
A nonprofit legal advocacy group wants Virginia renters to know they still have rights during the COVID-19 crisis. As financial fallout from the pandemic continues to spread, the Virginia Poverty Law Center is reminding people that landlords cannot evict tenants, lock them out or cut off utilities without a court order.
By MARK ROBINSON, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
The room at Motel 6 is the only thing keeping Garlena Williams-Pierce and her teenage son off the streets, and they’re at risk of losing it. Each week since last August, the 53-year-old widow has paid the motel’s management $302.64, saving what she could as a cashier at Wendy’s for an apartment. She picked one in eastern Henrico County, in a school zone she believes would give her son Jay, 15, a chance at something she never had: a college education and a well-paying job.
By FRANK GREEN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
The Virginia Coronavirus Fraud Task Force has alerted the CEOs of all the major hospital systems in the state about potentially fraudulent and illegal activity associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Letters sent to hospital leaders outlined the potential criminal consequences of hoarding certain medical supplies identified as scarce in a March 23 executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
By ROBERT SORRELL, Bristol Herald Courier (Metered Paywall - 15 articles a month)
Dozens of cars parked in front of Virginia Avenue Baptist Church on Saturday as Pastor Mike Tyson proclaimed “Sunday is coming!” During a pre-Easter service, congregants gathered in their vehicles along Oakwood Street at Virginia Avenue in Bristol, Tennessee, to hear the sounds of gospel hymns and Tyson’s message. The church, like others in the Mountain Empire, is not holding traditional services inside, but rather, the congregation has been gathering in the parking lot in their vehicles due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
By ALEEM MAQBOOL, BBC
Pastor Landon Spradlin wasn't worried about coronavirus when he went to New Orleans to preach during Mardi Gras. A month later he was dead. "He loved to laugh. He loved to play guitar. He played guitar even when he wasn't supposed to," says Jesse Spradlin of her father, Landon. "He was just the best man in the world." One day when this is all over, the wife and five children of Pastor Landon Spradlin hope to hold a large celebratory memorial for him.
By ADRIAN HIGGINS, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Tom Burford, an expert on heirloom apple varieties who helped restore the fruit’s exalted place in American culture, died March 29 in Bedford, Va. He was 84....Mr. Burford traced his roots to seven generations of apple growers in Amherst and Nelson counties, in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and he came to preserve local and regional varieties in danger of being lost to modernity.
By CATHY JETT, Free Lance-Star (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
Fredericksburg City Council members could have filled in for the “Can you hear me now?” guy in those old Verizon wireless commercials at the start of their special virtual session last week. While they could hear each other, anyone else listening in on their public access channel on TV or the city’s Facebook page could not hear them for the first 10 minutes.
By ALLISON WRABEL, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Despite the potential delay of May elections, local officials in Albemarle County and the Town of Scottsville are still preparing for the election to possibly take place as scheduled....The Scottsville mayor and all seven seats on Town Council are on the May ballot, and Albemarle Registrar Jake Washburne said he and his office are still processing work for the scheduled election.
By JAMEY CROSS, News & Advance (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
In order to combat the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, 47 part-time Lynchburg City employees have been furloughed, City Manager Bonnie Svrcek announced Friday. Svrcek called the decision — the result of an anticipated $5 million revenue shortfall for the 2020 fiscal year — “heart breaking.”
By JEFF E. SCHAPIRO, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
For politicians with gubernatorial ambitions, COVID-19 is an opportunity to raise their profile — to at least try. Jennifer Carroll Foy wants the state to adopt voting by mail ahead of the November election. Fellow Democrat Justin Fairfax organized an online town meeting on the coronavirus’ impact on minorities. Pete Snyder, a deep-pocketed Republican, is offering small loans for small businesses to weather the pandemic.
By MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
So our melanin pigment doesn’t shield African Americans from the coronavirus after all. It was a ridiculous idea that shouldn’t have required Snopes or PolitiFact to debunk. The disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on African Americans is as deadly serious as it was utterly predictable. Yes, racism has left African Americans with a lingering mistrust of medicine and government.
By KEN SRPAN, JEFF KRASNOW, GAILEN MILES AND ANNA CLOETER SRPAN, published in Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
As Coronavirus has taken over our lives, one of the most agonizing things is that we have no idea when it will end. Right now, our concerns are on our health and finances. However, come November, we will decide who will be the next President as well as our representatives in Congress. November may seem a long way off, but it will be here before we know it. The question is whether COVID-19 will still be here as well.
Srpan is chairman of the Roanoke County Electoral Board. Krasnow is vice chairman, Miles is secretary. Cloeter is the director of elections and general registrar for Roanoke County.
By GORDON C. MORSE, published in Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
In September 1918, the Spanish Influenza broke out in Virginia and over the next five months more than 10,000 Virginians died. We’ve been in the clutches of the coronavirus epidemic for a month or so and, on Thursday, officials announced that the Virginian death count had exceeded 100. So, barring a horrendous acceleration of the disease, we are not going to experience the same losses of a century ago. That’s good, right?
Morse's career includes writing editorials for The Virginian-Pilot, speeches for Gov. Gerald L. Baliles and speeches for companies and philanthropic organizations.
By ALLAN STAM, published in Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Our leaders in Richmond and Washington are facing extraordinary challenges. We should cut them some slack. We should be thankful that we are better off than the vast majority of the rest of the world. While this is a small solace for those suffering during these difficult times, having a sense of awe at the challenge we are overcoming can help restore a sense of national pride when many are losing faith in our systems of government and society.
Allan Stam, an expert on leadership, is a professor of public policy and politics at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and is a senior fellow at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs
By TODD NORMANE, published in Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
On behalf of Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC, we are responding to recent public statements seeking to stop all work on the project, which are purportedly based on the current COVID-19 crisis facing our country. MVP is currently following all recommended public COVID-19 health guidelines in our offices, as well as in the field; and we will continue to incorporate additional precautions as updates are made to such federal, state, and local guidelines.
Todd Normane is deputy general counsel for Equitrans Midstream Corp., the operating partner in Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC.
By PETER GALUSZKA, published in Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
On April 5, 2010, the dawn shift was coming to a close at the Upper Big Branch coal mine owned by Massey Energy in Montcoal, W.Va. A defective longwall shearing machine at the troubled mine hit a patch of sandstone, igniting methane gas that had been leaking. As miners scrambled for their lives, the fire touched off a massive coal dust explosion that ripped at speeds of up to 1,500 feet per second for seven miles underground. Twenty-nine men were beheaded, mutilated or asphyxiated.
Galuszka is the author of “Thunder on the Mountain: Death at Massey and the Dirty Secrets Behind Big Coal.”
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