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By PATRICIA SULLIVAN, DANA HEDGPETH AND LAUREN LUMPKIN, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Northern Virginia and Richmond will move to the next phase of shutdown recovery starting Friday, Gov. Ralph Northam announced, as data show the novel coronavirus appears to be slowing its spread across the region. The looser restrictions include opening restaurants for indoor dining at half capacity and allowing gyms and fitness centers to reopen indoors at 30 percent capacity. Most of Virginia entered Phase 2 earlier this month, but Northern Virginia and Richmond opted out because they had been hit harder by the coronavirus. In addition, Northam (D) said Virginia students will return to school in the fall if the state continues to limit the spread of the pandemic.
By SARA GREGORY AND MATT JONES, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Gov. Ralph Northam announced guidelines for schools across the state to let students back into buildings, almost three months after he ordered them to close to stop the spread of the new coronavirus. The three phases align with the three phases of Northam’s plan to gradually “reopen” the state based on testing statistics. Most of Virginia entered Phase 2 on June 5, and remaining localities are scheduled to enter Phase 2 this coming Friday.
By KATE MASTERS, Virginia Mercury
As schools in Virginia prepare to reopen, some teachers still have questions on how the state’s new guidelines will be implemented. On Tuesday, Gov. Ralph Northam announced that K-12 education will follow a phased reopening similar to the rest of the state, with the hope of slowly reintroducing in-person instruction for all students.
By LUANNE RIFE, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Cases of COVID-19 are increasing at a faster pace in the Roanoke Valley since businesses began to reopen and have caused at least a dozen outbreaks in businesses, restaurants, long-term care, a day care and a church. A disproportionate share of the cases are occurring in the Hispanic population, and some of the outbreaks are linked, as a worker brings the disease home and spreads it to family members, who then go to their jobs.
By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
As two legal challenges seek to block the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, Gov. Ralph Northam said Tuesday that the “divisive” symbol has to go. The suits challenge Northam’s plans to take down the most well-known Confederate symbol in the former capital of the Confederacy. One suit, which hinges on language in the deed signed in 1890 giving Virginia control of the statue, led a Richmond judge Monday night to pause the state’s removal plans. A second lawsuit, also filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Richmond, with no decision yet, says the removal would violate federal landmark law.
By PAMELA A. D’ANGELO, Free Lance-Star (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
Responding to questions from those he marched with in a peaceful protest against racism and to honor George Floyd, Rep. Rob Wittman, R–1st District, said during a speech Monday evening that “black lives matter.” One of the congressman’s Democratic opponents, Qasim Rashid, has been pressing Wittman to say those words and to condemn police brutality.
By SARAH VOGELSONG, Virginia Mercury
Over four months after Judge Patricia West’s term expired, leaving the three-member State Corporation Commission short of one commissioner, Gov. Ralph Northam has appointed Jehmal Hudson to fill the vacant seat. The vice president of government affairs for the National Hydropower Association and a previous director of government affairs for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Hudson is the first African American to serve on the powerful body, created in 1902, which oversees Virginia utilities and insurance, securities and banking industries.
The Full Report
52 articles, 19 publications
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The Virginia Public Access Project
Our COVID-19 dashboard makes it easy to track the latest available data for tests performed, infections, deaths and hospital capacity. There's a filter for each city and county, plus an exclusive per-capita ZIP Code map. Updated each morning around 10:00 am.
By ALAN SUDERMAN, Associated Press
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam says students will return to school this fall, but with strict new social distancing guidelines aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus. The guidelines unveiled Tuesday call for students to be spaced six feet apart at their desks and for teachers who can’t maintain that distance to wear masks. The guidelines also call for limiting access to or closing altogether certain mixed spaces, such as school cafeterias.
By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Virginia schools will reopen in phases, with restrictions to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 that will make education look far different than when schools closed in March. Gov. Ralph Northam announced Tuesday long-awaited guidance that outlines how Virginia schools will be able to reopen.
By CLAIRE MITZEL, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Schools will reopen in a three-phase plan similar to the state’s reopening plan, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Tuesday during his afternoon COVID-19 briefing. “To be clear, all Virginia schools will open for students next year, but the school experience will look very different,” Northam said of the 2020-21 school year beginning in August.
By JOHN BATTISTON, Loudoun Times
All public and private schools in the commonwealth will be able to provide in-person instruction to a select group of students under “Phase 2” of the “Forward Virginia” reopening plan, state officials said during a COVID-19 update Tuesday afternoon. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and Virginia Superintendent of Public Education James Lane said students in pre-K through third grade, English language learners and students with disabilities will receive in-person instruction under “Phase 2,” and student-based summer camps will be permitted to operate.
By NED OLIVER, Virginia Mercury
Gov. Ralph Northam said Tuesday he is confident he will prevail over a legal challenge that is temporarily blocking crews from removing a massive statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond. But a UVA legal scholar says the outcome of the lawsuit, filed by a descendant of the family that gifted the property to the state in 1890, is far from certain.
By LAURA VOZZELLA AND GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Tuesday vowed to fight a temporary injunction from a Richmond Circuit Court judge that prevents the state from immediately removing the statue of Robert E. Lee that towers 60 feet above this city's Monument Avenue. “We’ve been preparing for this for a year,” Northam said in a news briefing. “This is a statue that is divisive; it needs to come down and we are on very legal solid grounds to have it taken down.”
By MARIE ALBIGES, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Saying he would bring an “important perspective” to the conversation around criminal justice reform, Virginia’s governor on Tuesday named Norfolk Police Chief Larry Boone to a state panel tasked with recommending public safety policy. Gov. Ralph Northam announced Boone’s appointment during a press conference in Richmond, praising him for marching with demonstrators during a protest calling for police reform in Norfolk last week.
By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, is representing two business owners in lawsuits against Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, over the governor’s COVID-19 executive orders. Linda Park, a restaurant owner in Fredericksburg, and Jon Tigges, a wedding venue owner in Northern Virginia, are suing Northam over the restrictions he put in place in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
By PAMELA D'ANGELO, WVTF
On Monday evening in the tiny, rural town of Montross on the Northern Neck, Republican Congressman Rob Wittman marched with about 100 of his constituents in a peaceful protest of racism and honoring George Floyd.
Associated Press
A Virginia state trooper has resigned after he claimed in a text message that he coughed on a driver he ticketed in hopes of spreading the coronavirus. Virginia State Police began an internal investigation into Jacob Gooch after the texts surfaced during a homicide investigation in Arizona. Gooch’s brother, Mark Gooch, is charged in the killing of Sasha Krause, a Sunday school teacher who disappeared from a Mennonite community in New Mexico earlier this year.
By MEL LEONOR, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
A broad swath of Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation is backing a sweeping police reform bill prompted by nationwide protests against police brutality and racism in the criminal justice system. The Justice in Policing Act unveiled Monday would limit legal protections for police in the case of misconduct, create a national database of use-of-force incidents, and ban the use of chokeholds by police, among other measures.
By BILL WYATT, Martinsville Bulletin (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
The corporate offices of Bassett Furniture in Bassett have been closed since Friday because of a COVID-19 scare that put company protocols into high gear. “Late Thursday an associate made us aware they had exposure — household-related,” Bassett Vice President of Human Resources Eddie White said Tuesday. “We had been working with a skeleton crew until June 1, when we reopened for everyone.
By JOHN R. CRANE, Danville Register & Bee
Buitoni Food Company has entered into an agreement to buy the North American Buitoni business from Nestle USA Inc., including the 240,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Danville. Buitoni Food Company will be based in Stamford, Connecticut, and the Danville plant — which has 525 full-time employees — will continue to operate, according to its parent company Brynwood Partners.
By KATE ANDREWS, Va Business Magazine
A Pulaski-based company is poised to go commercial with technology that removes coal ash and other chemical pollutants from the air — extracting chemicals that can be recycled and sold for industrial use.
By ALEX KOMA, Washington Business Journal (Subscription required for some articles)
Arlington County looks set to hand JBG Smith the reins on the construction of a second eastern entrance to the Crystal City Metro station, one of the promised transportation improvements that was instrumental in luring Amazon to the neighborhood.
By JUSTIN GEORGE, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Spurred in part by the surge in ridership from last weekend’s protests, Metro has tweaked its pandemic recovery plan to add capacity on trains and buses as the Washington region continues its reopening.
By HENRI GENDREAU, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Virginia Tech is weighing the renaming of its Lee Hall dorm once again. But the building has nothing to do with Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general whose monument in Richmond Gov. Ralph Northam intends to take down as soon as possible. Named for Claudius Lee, an 1896 alumnus and a Tech electrical engineering professor, the dorm has faced numerous calls to be renamed ever since history students in the 1990s discovered a yearbook claiming Lee as a campus Ku Klux Klan leader.
The Breeze
The Office of the Provost released a “Fall Schedule 2.0” at approximately 11 a.m. Monday. While the academic calendar for the fall 2020 semester won’t change, students and faculty will see changes in their day-to-day schedules. . . . According to a university email, previously unused, larger spaces like the Madison Union Ballroom will be used to allow in-person class meetings. Meeting times are also being adjusted to allow for regular cleaning throughout the day. Additionally, JMU is attempting to maintain in-person classes for first year students and students taking in-person labs.
By JESSICA NOLTE, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Old Dominion University released plans Tuesday evening for reopening in the fall semester with on-campus instruction. Under the proposed blueprint, the university would begin classes on Aug. 15 and end the semester by Nov. 25, according to a letter to faculty and staff. The plan eliminates the school’s fall break.
By SARAH PULLIAM BAILEY, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Faced with outrage from black alumni and the resignation of at least three African American staffers, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. has deleted and apologized for a two-week-old tweet that showed a face mask decorated with a photo of a person in Ku Klux Klan robes and another in blackface.
By MELISSA KORN, Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required)
Community colleges around the country are embarking on reviews of how they teach future police officers, aiming to make changes at the beginning stages of law-enforcement training amid intense scrutiny of policing tactics in the U.S. . . . Meanwhile, Virginia’s community college system established a panel last week to examine the curricula it uses for law enforcement officers at its 23 colleges. The goal, said Chancellor Glenn DuBois, is “to ensure that we are doing all that we can to train officers who can effectively protect, serve and earn the trust of every Virginia community.”
By ROBYN SIDERSKY, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Of the roughly 388,000 coronavirus tests given in Virginia since the pandemic began, fewer than 10% have tested positive, according to numbers reported by the Virginia Department of Health on Tuesday morning. The seven-day state positivity rate is 8.9%, dipping below 10% for the first time since VDH started releasing the number. The rate excludes antibody tests.
By MEL LEONOR, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
The Virginia Department of Health says it has a running backlog of 13,000 COVID-19 test results that have not been reported to the public. The agency also announced late Monday that it will add a different set of 13,000 backlogged tests to the public dashboard that includes Virginia’s COVID-19 data, which could appear to skew the data.
By NATHANIEL CLINE, Loudoun Times
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced Tuesday that northern Virginia, including Loudoun County, may enter into the second phase of the state’s COVID-19 reopening plan on Friday. Northam (D) delayed northern Virginia from entering the second phase because state officials needed more time to review the region's health metrics. Nearly a week later, the improving metrics have swayed Northam's decision to grant northern Virginia and the City of Richmond the opportunity to enter the second phase.
By MEL LEONOR, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Richmond and Northern Virginia will move into the second phase of the state’s gradual reopening this Friday, a week behind the rest of the state. Richmond and the counties and cities in the Washington area had delayed reopenings at the request of local leaders, who suggested that higher case incidence and density required a slower approach.
By JULIA MARSIGLIANO, Williamsburg-Yorktown Daily (Metered paywall - 3 articles per month)
The city of Williamsburg tested 199 city employees for the coronavirus on May 14 but it remains unclear how many employees tested positive. Officials declined to release that information. “The City isn’t disclosing the results of an employee’s test as it is a personnel matter,” Steve Roberts Jr., the city’s interim spokesman, wrote in a text message Monday afternoon.
By ALI SULLIVAN AND ZACH JOACHIM, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
About a thousand protesters gathered around the city’s monument to Christopher Columbus in Byrd Park on Tuesday evening to stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples. Protests across the country have prompted national reckoning with the historical injustices perpetuated against African Americans.
By EDUARDO ACEVEDO, HANNAH EASON AND ANDREW RINGLE, Commonwealth Times
Demonstrators in Richmond protesting the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody, gathered for the 11th night on Monday in Monroe Park to march toward the city’s police headquarters. More than 150 protesters gathered outside the Richmond Police Headquarters on Grace Street around 9 p.m., facing a group of officers equipped with shin guards and helmets. Demonstrators sat in silence on the ground outside the building’s parking garage as police reinforcements arrived.
By ROBYN SIDERSKY, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
The Port of Virginia will join ports around the country when it suspends operations for an hour Tuesday in honor of George Floyd.
By LISA VERNON SPARKS, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Hampton police said it made no arrests during a three-night citywide curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. that began June 3 and ended Saturday morning. City officials requested the emergency order curfew from Gov. Ralph Northam following two nights of civil unrest, as demonstrators protested racism, police brutality and the death of George Floyd.
By KATHERINE HAFNER, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
The Portsmouth Police Department has taken unspecified “corrective action” against two officers the chief said violated standards of conduct during an encounter with protesters in Norfolk on June 1. That evening, a group of about 200 protesters carrying Black Lives Matter signs made their way from Lowe’s near Military Circle onto Interstate 264 as part of a demonstration. Norfolk police were aware of the planned event, the department said.
By SALEEN MARTIN AND JOSH REYES, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Tuesday would’ve been India Kager’s 32nd birthday. Instead of celebrating, her mother, Gina Best, was hoping to speak in downtown Newport News about the death of her daughter at the hands of Virginia Beach police. Best was one of several mothers invited to Tuesday night’s “A Mother’s March” to talk about their children, police and how the public interacts with them.
By AMY FRIEDENBERGER, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
A Confederate monument outside the Botetourt County Courthouse was splashed with red paint overnight Tuesday. The obelisk is situated between two cannons and is surrounded by a fence in front of the courthouse in Fincastle. There was also red paint on the fence and a cannon.
By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press
The U.S. military is rethinking its traditional connection to Confederate Army symbols, mindful of their divisiveness at a time the nation is wrestling with questions of race after the death of George Floyd in police hands.
By DAVE RESS, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Allegations of sexual abuse of Hampton Roads children by four retired or inactive priests are now under review by the Catholic Diocese of Richmond. None of the four are currently serving in active ministry, the diocese said Monday. None have served in the diocese in recent years.
By ANTONIO OLIVO, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Fairfax County moved Tuesday to speed the purchase of body cameras for its police force, a change years in the making that has gained renewed urgency after a county police officer used a stun gun on a black man without provocation Saturday.
By NEAL AUGENSTEIN, WTOP
In Virginia, two schools in Prince William County and one in Fairfax County named for Confederate generals could soon have new names. After a week of local protests following the death of George Floyd, while being restrained by Minneapolis police officers, Prince William County Public Schools Superintendent Steve Walts said the school system should rename Stonewall Jackson High School and Stonewall Middle School. . . . In Fairfax County, the community engagement process will resume June 22 on the proposal to rename Robert E. Lee High School, in Springfield.
By KENYA HUNTER, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
About 100 Hanover County students, parents and teachers protested outside a School Board meeting Tuesday, saying racism is present in the school system’s culture and demanding new names for Lee-Davis High School and Stonewall Jackson Middle School as the board met in closed session to discuss a lawsuit over the school names.
By JOHN REID BLACKWELL, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
The name of Confederate Hills Recreation Center in Henrico County could change within the next week. The Henrico Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday night by consensus to change the name of the county-owned recreation facility at 302 Lee Ave. to The Springs Recreation Center at the suggestion of Supervisor Tyrone Nelson.
By KIMBERLY PIERCEALL AND STACY PARKER, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
It only took a pandemic for an unlikely, albeit fairly obvious, alliance to form. Tourists, meet Norfolk-Virginia Beach. The travel destination duo is hoping to appeal to would-be vacationers living within a tank of gas by launching a joint marketing campaign led with the slogan: “Together at Last.”
By ELIZABETH BELL, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Small businesses in Chesterfield County that have been hurt by COVID-19 can begin applying for a $10,000 grant next week. The $5 million Back in Business program, which was created in partnership with the county government and the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce, will fund 500 grants to help businesses recover and reopen.
By TREVOR METCALFE, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Chesapeake businesses struggling because of the response to the coronavirus pandemic can apply for a new grant program from the city’s economic development authority. The Small Business COVID-19 Recovery Grants are for businesses that have not been successful in obtaining loans from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program or the Emergency Injury Disaster Loan program, the city said Monday.
By ALISSA SKELTON, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
A former state finance secretary turned private business owner plans to run for mayor of Virginia Beach in November. Jody Wagner, 64, will face off against Bobby Dyer.
By CLAIRE MITZEL, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
The Franklin County School Board on Monday night voted to amend its dress code to ban clothing with displays of the Confederate flag, reversing course after voting against a ban less than six months ago.
Roanoke Times Editorial (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Virginia, having answered the philosophical question on whether to take down Confederate monuments, now faces a practical one. What do you do with all these statues? The suggestion that they should all be put in museums is a fine sentiment but not a realistic one for a simple reason: Load-bearing floors.
Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Tradition holds that sometime around 1953, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what was most likely to change history or knock governments off course. Macmillan famously responded, “Events, dear boy, events.” Whether he really said those words is in question. The accuracy of them is not.
By THOMAS HADWIN, published in Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Roanoke Gas Co. has 30 days to save its customers more than $100 million dollars. They should do it. A clause in the utility’s contract with the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) allows it to cancel its 20-year agreement if the pipeline is not in commercial operation by June 1, 2020.
Hadwin served as an executive for electric and gas utilities in Michigan and New York. He lives in Waynesboro.
By TIFFANY RAY, published in Free Lance-Star (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
I have an interesting relationship with the notion of freedom. As a girl growing up in the Tidewater area of Virginia during the cultural revolution that was the 1990s, “girl power” dictated that I was free to be anything I dreamed. Something as trivial as my gender shouldn’t prevent me from reaching for the stars. As the daughter of Army veterans, I observed the reverence for the sacrifices of our military service members.
Tiffany Ray is vice president for student services at Germanna Community College.
By LAMONT BAGBY, MAMIE LOCKE AND JAY SPEER, published in Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
We are thrilled that Gov. Ralph Northam has signed the Virginia Fairness in Lending legislation, a historic, bipartisan measure that fixes the commonwealth’s long-standing problem with predatory lending. The new law institutes strong safeguards for borrowers and creates a level playing field for responsible lenders.
Del. Bagby, D-Henrico, is chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus; Locke, D-Hampton, is chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Speer is the executive director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center.
By JEFFREY M. BOURNE AND JAY JONES, published in Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Walter Scott. Alton Sterling. Sandra Bland. Marcus David Peters. Breonna Taylor. Philando Castile. Stephon Clark. George Floyd. These are the names of black Americans murdered by police officers since 2014. George Floyd’s brutal execution in Minneapolis has stirred a movement across this country to demand justice.
Jeffrey M. Bourne represents the 71st District in the Virginia House of Delegates. Jay Jones represents the 89th District in the Virginia House of Delegates.
By ROBERT WINN, JANICE UNDERWOOD AND ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, published in Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Our nation is in the grips of a disease that has plagued us for more than 400 years. This particular disease does not require the expertise of a doctor for a diagnosis. Its symptoms are unmistakable: inequities of housing, education and employment. Other symptoms include unfair policing, food insecurity and a lack of access to quality health care. The most toxic of its symptoms, however, is the dehumanization of other human beings, which — like a defective immune system — induces the body to attack itself.
Robert Winn, M.D., is the director of the VCU Massey Cancer Center. Janice Underwood, Ph.D., is the first Cabinet-level chief diversity officer for the office of Gov. Ralph Northam. Abigail Spanberger represents Virginia’s 7th District in the U.S. House.
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