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By JENNA PORTNOY, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Virginia voters go to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in an unusual primary election colored by the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to a contested Republican race to determine who will face Sen. Mark R. Warner in November, there are six contested races in House districts across the state, and a small number of local races.
The Virginia Public Access Project
On the eve of today's primary elections, 60,000 Democratic voters in four congressional districts already had cast ballots. With a statewide U.S. Senate primary on their ballot, Republicans had cast fewer than half as many early votes. For both parties, the vast majority of absentee votes were cast by mail.
By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Once Republicans in Virginia decide on their nominee to run against Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in November, the incumbent wants to debate the GOP nominee three times. Warner’s campaign announced Monday that it is challenging the winner of Tuesday’s GOP primary to three general election debates, including one at a historically Black college focused on racial equality and justice.
By GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
It was an explosive question, delivered by text message, and Rita Davis was ready for it: Could the governor simply take down Richmond's divisive statue of Robert E. Lee? As legal counsel to Gov. Ralph Northam, Davis had been researching that very topic for a year. Now it was being posed by her colleague, Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Brian Moran, who had just watched a crowd angry about police violence against African Americans gather outside a state office building as Northam (D) held a news conference inside.
By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
The Virginia Department of Health reported Monday that the statewide total for COVID-19 cases is 58,465 — an increase of 471 from the 57,994 reported Sunday. The 58,465 cases consist of 55,949 confirmed cases and 2,516 probable cases. Also, there are 1,620 COVID-19 deaths in Virginia — 1,517 confirmed and 103 probable. That’s an increase of nine from the 1,611 reported.
By KATE MASTERS, Virginia Mercury
Until Friday morning, even leaders in the long-term care industry had no idea the state was about to reverse course on releasing the names of nursing homes and assisted living facilities with COVID-19 outbreaks. The sudden move came after months of the Virginia Department of Health insisting that state law prevented it from doing exactly that.
By ALEXA DOIRON, Williamsburg-Yorktown Daily (Metered paywall - 3 articles per month)
As schools across Virginia start to make plans to return in the fall, parents are looking at alternative education options. Anne Miller, president and executive director of the Home Educators Association of Virginia, said inquiries about homeschool options have increased dramatically since the pandemic. In the past three months there have been 3,000 new members to the association’s Facebook page and 2,000 new requests to join through the website.
The Full Report
41 articles, 25 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 NEAL AUGENSTEIN, WTOP
The Rappahannock County prosecutor who had declared “total hatred” for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam over the Confederate monument issue — and accused him of “being dragged around by the pubic hair by the commie left of his party” — told WTOP he is sorry about his choice of words.
By ALICIA PETSKA, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Del. Sam Rasoul said Monday he plans to seek a state opinion directing police to release footage of officer-involved deaths to surviving relatives once an investigation is closed. Rasoul, D-Roanoke, announced his plans while appearing in support of the family of Kionte Spencer, an 18-year-old who was shot and killed by Roanoke County police in 2016.
By ALAN SUDERMAN, Associated Press
Virginians are picking Republican and Democratic nominees for various congressional races Tuesday via low-key primary elections. Republicans will pick among three political newcomers to challenge U.S. Sen. Mark Warner in the general election this fall. Although Warner nearly lost six years ago, no big name Republican chose to challenge him this time.
By MIKE GOODING, WVEC
President Donald J.Trump has now weighed in on Tuesday's Virginia Second Congressional District Primary. He has given his "complete and total endorsement" to Scott Taylor, calling him in a tweet, a "fighter" who is "strong on the border, the military and the second amendment."
By BRYAN MCKENZIE, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
It’s been postponed due to pandemic, prolonged by court order and thinned by political party conventions, but Central Virginians still will get a chance to weigh on which candidates they want to see on a November ballot. Virginia’s primary election for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives seats will finally take place Tuesday.
By MARIE ALBIGES, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Be prepared for socially distanced lines, mask-wearing volunteers and plenty of available hand sanitizer at the voting booth during the second election held during a pandemic in Virginia. Tuesday’s primaries will see one statewide race to determine the GOP candidate to run against U.S. Sen. Mark Warner in November, as well as several races for the party nominee in congressional districts in Hampton Roads.
By DAVID MCGEE, Bristol Herald Courier (Metered Paywall - 15 articles a month)
City voters can expect some minor polling place changes today as Virginia Republicans select a U.S. Senate candidate to run in the November general election. Three candidates will appear on the ballot — Alissa Baldwin, 42, a teacher at Nottoway County Public Schools with no previous political experience; Daniel Gade, 45, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel from Mt. Vernon who served for 20 years, formerly taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and now teaches at American University; and Thomas Speciale II, 51, of Woodbridge, who has served in the Army Reserves since 1987.
By GRAHAM MOOMAW, Virginia Mercury
U.S. Rep. Denver Riggleman, the only Republican victor in Virginia’s four competitive congressional races in 2018, was just ousted by conservative constituents upset he officiated a gay wedding. Riggleman claims he was railroaded, suggesting the party’s highly unusual drive-through convention may have been tainted by voting fraud. State Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, who has built a substantial social media following and remains the only declared Republican candidate for governor in 2021, recently said the party keeps losing because of “spineless eunuchs” within the GOP ranks.
By ELISHA SAUERS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 1 article a month)
Sentara’s $93.5 million center that will bring together cancer specialists and services throughout the region is finished. The Sentara Brock Cancer Center, which went under construction two years ago at the corner of Virginia Beach Boulevard and Kempsville Road, is a place where people can receive diagnosis and treatment under one roof.
By STAFF REPORT, Martinsville Bulletin (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
Drake Extrusion is investing in a new manufacturing facility in Henry County that will bring in 30 jobs to expand its position in the colored yarn and fiber industry. A release from the governor’s office on Monday said Drake, which employs 187 at the 790 Industrial Park Drive in Ridgeway, would invest $6.9 million and take over a vacant building on that same road.
By ALLISON WRABEL, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
As Virginia moves towards its third phase of reopening after shutdowns induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, area hotels are starting to see positive signs after months of decimated revenues. Boar’s Head Resort and the Graduate Charlottesville will be reopening this week, and the new Quirk Hotel, which initially opened in March, reopened earlier this month.
By CAT MODLIN-JACKSON, WVTF
On a sleepy street corner in the Blue Ridge foothills, DeShanta Hairston’s bookstore is booming. She opened Books and Crannies in 2016, hoping to give her hometown a place to come together over a shared love of reading. Then the killing of George Floyd shook the world from a pandemic haze, and Hairston took to Twitter to speak her truth.
ArlNow
Metro plans to reopen the Clarendon and Virginia Square Metro stations in Arlington, starting Sunday. The stations — along with 15 others throughout the Metrorail system — closed in late March as the pandemic caused ridership to plummet and Metro started rationing cleaning supplies. Most are set to reopen this weekend.
By FATIMAH WASEEM, Reston Now
Construction of the Silver Line extension into Loudoun County has cleared a major hurdle. Crews with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority have begun the process of tying in the current Silver Line with the extension.
By JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Access to this article limited to subscribers)
Three James Madison University buildings with names honoring Confederate leaders could soon be renamed. The university announced Monday that its administrators are recommending to JMU’s governing body to change the names of Ashby, Jackson and Maury halls. The move comes after calls from JMU students, campus organizations and alumni to revisit the names.
By MARYANN XUE, Cavalier Daily
A list of demands written by U.Va. Survivors in collaboration with Mason for Survivors at George Mason University and Culture of Respect Educators — all groups dedicated to sexual assault prevention — is quickly gaining traction after a series of sexual assault allegations posted by an anonymous Twitter account brought heightened scrutiny to sexual violence on Grounds.
By MICHELLE ANDREWS, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
The notice from the Virginia tax department puzzled a Charlottesville couple in October. It said their state income tax refund had been reduced because of an outstanding medical debt to the University of Virginia Medical Center. Instead of $220, they received $110. Mystified, they contacted U-Va. for details about the unpaid bill. The answer astonished them. The medical center had asked the tax department to withhold the money for medical care their son received in 2001 and 2002.
By ROBYN SIDERSKY, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
The percentage of coronavirus tests that came back positive continues to drop in Virginia, with the seven-day percentage falling to 6.5% Monday, state data shows. As of Monday, 555,607 viral tests had been done in the state, an increase of 12,421 tests reported from Sunday to Monday, according to data from the Virginia Department of Health.
By TOM DEMPSEY, WUSA
As areas around the DMV continue to make progress on reopening, hospitals could face a long road ahead as restrictions remain in place at many medical facilities. Due to the need to treat coronavirus patients, hospitals in both Maryland and Virginia had to cancel elective surgeries for several weeks. . . . On Monday, the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) estimated that hospitals around the state could see a combined loss of around $3.6 billion this year.
By GRACE MAMON, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
After months of telehealth, patients can now get back to a (mostly) normal experience with medical practices in the area. Many practices closed their doors in March due to COVID-19, except to essential or emergency patients. With social distancing precautions, increased sanitation, patient screening and other modifications in place, most medical practices are again available for the everyday patient.
By RANDY ARRINGTON, Page Valley News
The Virginia Department of Health reported 29 new cases of COVID-19 in Warren County over the weekend. The City of Winchester had the next highest tally within the Lord Fairfax Health District with 13 new cases. Frederick County had 11. The spike in new cases in Warren County doesn’t appear to be connected to the outbreak in recent weeks at the Rappahannock-Shenandoah-Warren Regional Jail just north of Front Royal. On June 15, RSW reported on its website that, “We have no active cases of COVID-19 in inmates or staff.”
By DAVID MCGEE, Bristol Herald Courier (Metered Paywall - 15 articles a month)
Nearly one-fifth of this region’s COVID-19 cases have been diagnosed during the past two weeks, prompting Ballad Health officials to urge residents not to drop their guard against the virus. A total of 138 new cases of the novel coronavirus have been reported since June 9 in the 10 counties and two cities of far Southwest Virginia and 10 counties of Northeast Tennessee, according to both state's health departments.
By MEL LEONOR, ALI SULLIVAN AND JUSTIN MATTINGLY, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
On the 25th consecutive day of demonstrations in Richmond, a group of about 100 protesters set up an encampment outside Richmond City Hall on Monday evening. Dubbed “Reclamation Square,” according to a banner and pamphlets handed out to the crowd, the protesters at the encampment demanded police reforms from city leaders.
By MARK ROBINSON, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Citing public safety 25 days into civic unrest, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said Monday he wants to remove Confederate iconography from the public sphere immediately. He told the City Council that his administration is seeking a legal avenue to remove the controversial statues lining Monument Avenue before the city gains authority over them next week, on the heels of requests from council members worried about escalating tensions.
By ROBERTO ROLDAN, WCVE
In a presentation to Richmond City Council on Monday afternoon, Mayor Levar Stoney threw his support behind numerous demands from Black Lives Matter protesters. Stoney presented what he calls a “Road Map for Reimagining Public Safety” in Richmond. The road map is a list of proposals to begin addressing police reform in the city. Included in his plan, is the creation of a civilian review board for police misconduct and a new system for ensuring that mental health professionals respond to suspected mental health crises alongside police, known as a Marcus Alert.
By FRANK GREEN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Richmond police said Monday that six people were arrested Sunday night after a rope was tied around the J.E.B. Stuart statue and police declared an unlawful assembly. “The action was taken as protesters threw objects at the officers and tied a rope to the statue in an apparent attempt to pull it down — an action that would have put many people at risk of being hit,” police said in a prepared statement Monday.
By CALEB AYERS, Danville Register & Bee
A group of protesters staged in front of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles Select in Chatham on Monday after an incident last week involving claims an office manager told a Black man from Danville that “I’m sick of your kind.” Sylvia Rigney, the office manager of the DMV Select who lost her job as a result of the incident, told the Register & Bee the allegations of her making a racist comment are untrue.
By RYAN MURPHY, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Johnny Reb is gone. So too is almost all of the 60 feet of marble that held the bronze Confederate soldier high above Norfolk’s downtown for nearly all of the past 113 years.
By SARAH VOGELSONG, Virginia Mercury
Last week, the Supreme Court handed a victory to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline when it ruled that the U.S. Forest Service had the authority to allow the project to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail. But the end of that battle has seen the revival of another, more fundamental conflict: whether the pipeline really is needed.
By DICK ULIANO, WTOP
As Confederate statues and symbols fall, the Fairfax County, Virginia, school board is scheduled to vote Tuesday evening on a recommendation to change the name of Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield. The process has been delayed since March because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the Fairfax County Public School system got back on track with an online public hearing Monday — the final hearing before Tuesday’s expected vote.
By KARA CLARK RODRIGUEZ, Loudoun Now
A Saturday morning Zoom town hall organized by Sen. Barbara Favola (D-31) focused on the topic at the forefront of many Loudoun parents’ minds: What exactly will school look like when it reopens for in-person learning? Favola was joined by Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Eric Williams,Del. Kathleen Murphy (D-34), School Board member Atoosa Reaser (Algonkian), and Leslie Sale, director of the Virginia Department of Education’s Office of Policy.
By ROBERTO ROLDAN, WCVE
Richmond City Council approved new rules for residents looking to rent out their homes on sites like Airbnb and VRBO. The new ordinance came out of a year-long public engagement process by the Department of Planning and Development Review. Short-term rentals have been illegal under local law, but under the new ordinance, property owners can list with sites like Airbnb if they pay an annual $300 permitting fee. That fee would go toward a 3rd-party monitoring program. The city is also requiring short-term rental operators to live in the home for 185 days each year.
By CATHY JETT, Free Lance-Star (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
Fredericksburg City Public Schools suspended an emergency mobile feeding program Monday that has provided thousands of free breakfasts and lunches to city children since schools closed in March. Brian Kiernan, the school system’s food service director, said it became clear at a staff meeting last week that the program was taking a toll on the staff and volunteers who’d helped provide more than 25,000 breakfasts and 60,000 lunches over the past 10 weeks.
By JAMEY CROSS, News & Advance (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Lynchburg City Schools added new meal distribution sites at Bedford Hills and Paul Munro elementary schools, the division announced Monday. Two days’ worth of meals are delivered to several neighborhood centers and, now, a total of six of the division’s schools from 11 a.m. to noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
By TRACY AGNEW, Suffolk News Herald
A member of the Suffolk School Board has sued the board, and most of the rest of its members individually, due to what the lawsuit states are repeated violations of the state’s open-meetings laws. Board member Sherri Story is suing Chair Phyllis Byrum and Vice Chair Dr. Judith Brooks-Buck, along with members Karen Jenkins, Lorita Mayo and Tyron Riddick. Story’s attorney, Kevin Martingayle, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Suffolk Circuit Court.
Virginian-Pilot Editorial (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
The next manager in Virginia Beach will have to deal with coronavirus recovery — representing both a public health and an economic crisis — as well as calls to address systemic racial injustice at a time the city must hire a new police chief. Add to those the need to quickly and effectively address the threat posed by rising sea levels, the responsibilities of leading the largest city in both the commonwealth and the region, and the duties that accompany a $2 billion operation with 7,000 employees.
Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
In the days following the initial agitated protests and riots in Richmond, signs that the demonstrations had evolved into peaceful protests were heartening. Marches and bicycle rides replaced looting and vandalism. Wednesday night saw what has become a rarity in RVA — a quiet night without the sounds of helicopters or sirens outside bedroom windows.
Free Lance-Star Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)
Who doesn’t love our national parks? A national survey done by Republican and Democratic pollsters a few years ago revealed that 87 percent of U.S. voters believe that parks, forests, monuments and wildlife areas play an essential role in the quality of life in their states.
By MAY NIVAR, PAUL BERRY, ASHLEY REYNOLDS MARSHALL AND GIL BLAND, published in Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Like the statues and other obvious symbols of racism that are coming down, we’re on the verge of an overdue revolution. We’re seeing significant shifts in our racial, economic, political, cultural and justice systems that have unfairly and systematically oppressed the African American community since their arrival as enslaved laborers on the shores of Virginia in 1619.
Nivar is chair of the Virginia Asian Advisory Board; Berry is chair of the Virginia Latino Advisory Board; Marshall is chair of the Virginia Council on Women; Bland is chair of the Virginia African American Advisory Board.
By SUSAN PAYNE, published in Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Our country is facing unprecedented impacts from the coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic and Virginia’s tourism and hospitality industries have been especially hit during this time. Travel is usually big business for the commonwealth. In 2018, visitors to Virginia spent $26 billion, which supported 235,000 work opportunities and contributed $1.8 billion in state and local taxes.
Susan Payne is chair of the board of directors of Virginia Tourism Corporation
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