VaNews Oct. 2, 2019
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** FROM VPAP
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** VISUALIZATION: LOBBYIST COMPENSATION ([link removed])
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The Virginia Public Access Project

Differing ways lobbyists calculate their compensation makes it difficult to compare how much companies, trade association and advocacy groups spend each year. VPAP presents two measures of lobbyist compensation -- total spending and average spent per lobbyist.


** STATE ELECTIONS
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** SENATOR CHASE INTENSIFIES ATTACKS ON FELLOW REPUBLICANS ([link removed])
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By BEN PAVIOUR, WCVE

Sen. Amanda Chase (R-Midlothian) doubled down on attacks against her fellow Republicans after she was expelled from a local party chapter on Monday, calling the state party “bankrupt” and appearing to liken colleagues to cockroaches. Chase was kicked out of the Chesterfield GOP after she attacked Karl Leonard, the county’s Republican sheriff, and seemed to support his independent rival in the November 5 elections.


** RURAL DEMS BAND TOGETHER IN DEEP-RED DISTRICTS ([link removed])
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By LISA PROVENCE, C'ville Weekly

Ten Dems running in solidly red General Assembly districts—like the ones that dissect Albemarle County—are doing what rural folk have always done: banding together to help each other out. They’ve formed a coalition called Rural Groundgame, hired a few staffers, and are sharing resources on how to reach the voters who face the same rural issues.


** RURAL DEMOCRATS CELEBRATE COMMUNITY AND MORALE BEFORE ELECTIONS ([link removed])
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By KATHLEEN SHAW, Daily News Record (Subscription Required)

Democrats running to represent parts of the Valley came out to Weyers Cave on Tuesday to meet with constituents and show their unified support going into the November elections. After spending the day meeting with high school and college students and visiting a hemp farm in Port Republic, Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine came out to the event at Valley Pike Farm Market.


** CLEANING UP VIRGINIA VOTER ROLLS ([link removed])
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By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

This ain’t Chicago, so you don’t get to vote in Virginia if you are dead. Or, for that matter, if you’ve been convicted of a felony, or been found by a court to be unable to care for yourself, or registered to vote in another state, or if you’re not a citizen.


** STATE GOVERNMENT
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** FIRST VAPING-RELATED DEATH OF A VIRGINIA RESIDENT IS CONFIRMED BY STATE OFFICIALS ([link removed])
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By C. SUAREZ ROJAS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

The first death of a Virginia resident linked with e-cigarette use, or vaping, has been confirmed by the Virginia Department of Health amid an outbreak of vaping-related lung illness throughout the country.


** VIRGINIA RESIDENT DIES FROM VAPING-RELATED LUNG INJURY ([link removed])
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By JESSICA NOLTE, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

The Virginia Department of Health confirmed the state’s first death from a lung injury associated with e-cigarette use. The death was reported Thursday from a hospital in Greensboro, N.C. It was later confirmed that the person was an adult from southwest Virginia. The Virginia Department of Health is not providing any other information about the patient


** CLEAN ENERGY ORDER IS MET WITH PRAISE, PUSHBACK ([link removed])
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By JEFF LESTER, The Post

A good start toward a necessary goal, say environmental advocates. An economic disaster in the making, say advocates for Virginia’s fossil fuel industries and related businesses. That was the early reaction to an executive order Gov. Ralph Northam signed Sept. 17. The governor established these goals: By 2030, 30 percent of Virginia’s electric system will be powered by renewable energy resources; by 2050, 100 percent of Virginia’s electricity will be produced from carbon-free sources such as wind, solar and nuclear.


** CONGRESS
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** SEN. TIM KAINE MAKES STOPS IN THE VALLEY ([link removed])
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By MEGAN WILLIAMS, Daily News Record (Subscription Required)

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine made several stops in the Valley on Tuesday to talk about legislation and meet with students and community members. The Democrat’s first stop of the day was to talk with high school students and educators about vaping and his sponsoring of a bill that would change the legal age to purchase cigarettes or vaping products from 18 to 21. “Vaping has wiped out the progress we’ve made” on tobacco use, Kaine said.


** ELAINE LURIA VISITS YORKTOWN, SAYING NARY A WORD ABOUT IMPEACHMENT ([link removed])
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By DAVE RESS, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Hanging on the ropes of the boxing ring alongside his congresswoman, moments before he dared her to rip off some push-ups, D’Shawn Wright asked what everyone wants to know: Why is Washington so divided? Can’t you get together on anything?


** ECONOMY/BUSINESS
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** AFTER SCC REJECTED SOME OF ITS PLANS, DOMINION FILES RETOOLED GRID TRANSFORMATION PROPOSAL ([link removed])
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By MEL LEONOR, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Dominion Energy is back before state regulators with a refreshed proposal for how it will spend millions in excess earnings, pitching a plan that backs away from contested work on some vulnerable power lines and that would introduce a pilot program for charging electric cars.


** HAMPTON ROADS ECONOMY IN 2018 WAS A “YEAR TO REMEMBER,” NEW ODU REPORT SAYS ([link removed])
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By KIMBERLY PIERCEALL, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Hampton Roads spent 10 years waiting for its economic rebound, watching the number of jobs lost during a recession and then military sequestration finally return by 2017. Or, to put it another way, the region was like, “Moses outside the promised land,” watching as Charlotte, Raleigh and Austin, among others, recovered far quicker, “wondering what did we do wrong," said Robert McNab, Old Dominion University economist


** TRANSPORTATION
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** INTERSTATE 81 WORK PLAN INCLUDES MORE CAMERAS, MESSAGE BOARDS ([link removed])
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By JEFF STURGEON, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

Dozens more cameras and electronic message boards will go up in the next six months to improve safety of motorists on Interstate 81. That work will precede up to two decades of construction to pave new lanes, lengthen lanes for incoming and exiting traffic, improve shoulders and perform similar work so the road carries more traffic more safely, all paid for with new taxes effective this year.


** HIGHER EDUCATION
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** PROBE STARTS AFTER RU STUDENT NEWSPAPERS GO MISSING ([link removed])
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By SAM WALL, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

The disappearance of most of a one-day run of Radford University’s independent student newspaper is prompting questions about the timing and possible motive. Approximately 1,000 of the total 1,500 copies of The Tartan printed Sept. 18 were gone from as many as 22 of 32 racks around the school’s campus sometime between late that afternoon and the following morning.


** VIRGINIA OTHER
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** DATA SHOW POVERTY AND INCOME TRENDS IN VIRGINIA ([link removed])
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By ADAM HAMZA, VCU Capital News Service

Richmond’s poverty rate dropped dramatically, Loudoun County had the nation’s highest household income and the gap between rich and poor widened in Virginia. Those are key takeaways from a voluminous set of economic data released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau.


** THE MOST IMPORTANT PROFESSION FIGHTING SEA-LEVEL RISE YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF ([link removed])
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By SARAH VOGELSONG -, Virginia Mercury

Billy Almond knows Virginia Beach. He knows where the roads meet the water and where, increasingly, the water is rising to meet the roads. He remembers what the city looked like when he was a child on 84th Street, where when he stepped out of the house he saw the Atlantic Ocean in one direction and First Landing State Park in the other. Now the work he’s doing is dedicated in large part to ensuring that those two things — land and sea — remain in balance.


** LOCAL
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** ALEXANDRIA, ARLINGTON TAKE FIRST STEPS TO COLLABORATE AS AMAZON GROWTH LOOMS ([link removed])
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By PATRICIA SULLIVAN, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Alexandria and Arlington elected officials took their first tentative steps Tuesday toward working together to address the expected growth and disruption brought by the arrival of Amazon’s second headquarters in the next decade.


** FOR FIRST TIME, ALL ALEXANDRIA SCHOOLS RECEIVE ACCREDITATION ([link removed])
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By JACK MOORE, WTOP

Two schools in Alexandria, Virginia, that had fallen short on key quality measures in recent years have now been fully accredited by state officials — marking the first time every public school in Alexandria has received accreditation since the statewide education bench marks went into effect 20 years ago. The school accreditation ratings were released by the Virginia Department of Education Sept. 30.


** FAIRFAX COUNTY SUSPENDS OFFICER WHO COOPERATED WITH ICE ([link removed])
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By STEPHEN DINAN, Washington Times

Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. said Tuesday he suspended an officer who cooperated with federal deportation officers by turning over an illegal immigrant he encountered during a traffic stop — a move the chief said violated department policy. Chief Roessler didn’t identify the officer but said he “deprived a person of their freedom” by cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.


** GRAY WON’T DROP OUT OF CHAIRMAN’S RACE OVER TWEETS, 3 FELLOW REPUBLICANS RESPOND ([link removed])
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By DANIEL BERTI, Prince William Times

Republican John Gray says he won’t drop out of the race for Prince William County’s top elected post despite the recent revelation of numerous inappropriate tweets on his Twitter account.


** NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL EARMARKS MONEY FROM CASINO LAND SALE FOR SCHOOL REPAIRS ([link removed])
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By RYAN MURPHY AND SARA GREGORY, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Money from the recently approved casino land sale will go to repair two crumbling Norfolk high schools, Norfolk City Council decided Tuesday at a hastily called special meeting. Under the terms of the deal with the Pamunkey Indian Tribe to sell 13.4 acres near Harbor Park, that could be more than $10 million.


** WARRENTON SERIOUS ABOUT EXPANDING ITS BOUNDARIES ([link removed])
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By LAWRENCE EMERSON, Fauquier Now

The Town of Warrenton soon could seek to expand its size through annexation. After a year of county and town staff discussions, Warrenton’s council spent an hour in closed session Saturday reviewing a consultant’s financial analysis of property under consideration and discussing potential negotiations with Fauquier’s board of supervisors.

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** EDITORIALS
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** DRIVING THE REVOLUTION ([link removed])
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Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

When Gottlieb Daimler built the world’s first truck in 1896, the new technology brought a slew of questions. Was buying gasoline easier than feeding a horse that pulls a carriage? What was the right speed limit? How would a truck react to a rut in the road? Change brings uncertainty. More than 120 years later, the trucking industry is wading through another set of questions tied to the latest wave of technology — self-driving vehicles. Virginia is driving the automated revolution and search for answers.


** VIRGINIA VOTERS’ $6 BILLION DECISION ([link removed])
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Free Lance-Star Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

On Sept. 16, Gov. Ralph Northam signed an executive order directing all executive branch agencies to “develop a plan of action to produce 30 percent of Virginia’s electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030 and 100 percent of Virginia’s electricity from carbon-free sources by 2050.” That’s a tall order, considering that the bulk of Virginia’s electricity currently comes from natural gas (53 percent), nuclear (31 percent), and coal (9 percent).


** COLLEGES MUST ADAPT WITH CHANGES TO HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATIONS ([link removed])
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Daily Press Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

In short order, students graduating high school will have already dedicated several years toward achieving their career goals. For years, the designation was only achieved by small numbers of highly motivated students. Now, it’s the route many high schools are taking as a greater emphasis is being placed on students to begin their career ascension earlier in life.


** NEWSPAPERS GO MISSING, RAISING CONCERN ([link removed])
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Daily Progress Editorial (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

There’s consternation at Radford University over the apparent theft of student newspaper copies. The circumstances raise suspicions of an assault on free speech. The Tartan carried two stories on its front page that some people might have seen as either unflattering to the university or negative in general.


** PORTSMOUTH MUST SEIZE DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY ([link removed])
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Virginian-Pilot Editorial (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

There is a discussion under way in Portsmouth about how the city’s downtown will look in the coming years, where it will locate several of its most critical public services and how it plans to pay for all of it. But rather than have that conversation in City Council chambers or a series of public forums, it’s being conducted in courtrooms and behind closed doors — with city residents on the outside left to wonder what their elected officials are doing.


** THE C-WORD AT GEORGE MASON ([link removed])
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Roanoke Times Editorial (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

George Mason University has made the news and likely in a more controversial way than the school would like. The Associated Press reported recently that a $50 million donation to the university’s law school — the largest in the institution’s history — came with some interesting strings attached.


** OP-ED
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** MAPES: PRESIDENT WORKING ON BEHALF OF VETS ([link removed])
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By TINA MAPES, Published in the Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

President Donald Trump promised to provide economic opportunity and quality health care to military veterans, and that’s exactly what he’s done. Since veterans make up nearly 10% of Virginia’s population, this is an issue that should be near and dear to our hearts. As a candidate in 2016, Trump came to Virginia Beach with a comprehensive plan to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs and ensure that this country is fulfilling its promises to its brave veterans.

Tina Mapes is the chair of the Virginia Beach Republican Party.


** HERNANDEZ: WORKERS BETTER OFF WITHOUT PRO ACT ([link removed])
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By JC HERNANDEZ, Published in the Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

When the U.S. Supreme Court last year reaffirmed First Amendment protections for public employees, it was a landmark victory for workers who did not want to be coerced into joining a union just to keep their jobs and who did not want to support political causes with which they disagreed. Now those hard-won gains are already under siege, and seven Virginia members of the U.S. House are among those doing the threatening, including freshman Reps. Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria.

JC Hernandez is state director of Americans for Prosperity-Virginia.


** CLARK: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PORT OF VIRGINIA ([link removed])
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By KIMBERLY CLARK, Published in the Danville Register & Bee

The maritime industry is more than the ships that carry cargo across the seas. It also includes the companies that transport goods to and from ports. Essentially, it comprises multiple stakeholders each step along the supply chain. In Virginia, hundreds of those participants belong to the Virginia Maritime Association (VMA).

Clark is the chairwoman of the Southern Chapter of the Virginia Maritime Association. She is also the logistics manager for Hooker Furniture Corp., headquartered in Martinsville.
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