Governor Abigail Spanberger has said she wants to protect Virginians from harmful federal overreach. If that is true, this is a moment to prove it. This week, Hanover County confirmed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement intends to purchase a...
Some want Northam, Fairfax, and Herring to resign. Some want them to stay in office. And almost half of Virginians polled just weren't sure. Virginians have low approval ratings of Gov. Ralph Northam and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, but most people say no one should resign or be impeached, according to a recent poll by the University of Virginia’s...
They sang songs of resilience, held hands and promised to continue fighting for environmental justice. That was the scene Tuesday night in a middle school gymnasium where more than 700 people gathered to hear former Vice President Al Gore and a prominent civil rights leader, the Rev. William Barber II, draw connections between poverty, racism,...
A flurry of bills addressing affordable housing and high eviction rates in Virginia cities moved forward in the House and Senate this week. Three bills on those issues have passed both chambers and have been sent to Gov. Ralph Northam to be signed into law. Several other measures have passed one chamber and are awaiting a floor vote in the other....
The commissioner of the Virginia Department of Health faces backlash after stating that most white people are unconsciously “pro-white” and “anti-black.” Dr. Norman Oliver’s remarks came through a weekly message last week sent to VDH employees. Oliver, who is African-American, was addressing the controversy over the discovery of a racist photo on...
"We have had it with the old Democratic Party. We're here for a new vision," declared activist Rebecca Keel during last week's public funeral vigil, held in front of the Capitol building. Late last week, at the foot of Virginia's Capitol building just before dusk, approximately 50 people gathered around a coffin. Members of the group held their...
The yearbook image of two young men, one dressed in blackface and the other in KKK robes, is searing and ugly, reminding us of our relatively-recent and openly-racist past. That one of the young men is -- or even just could be -- Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam makes that ugliness feel particularly low, taste particularly galling, and...
The combination of a failed run for school board, a casual post on the Nextdoor app, and an NAACP meeting may seem like the add up to an unlikely origin story for Richmond’s most talked about new radio show. However, taking the mundane machinations of city government and injecting them with personality and civic spirit could practically be the...
Virginians could see an additional $5 charge on their power bills after Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox and a bipartisan group of legislators announced an agreement Thursday to clean up large ponds of toxic coal ash throughout the state. The $3 billion plan is to remove coal ash -- the residue from power plants --...
In the wake of debates about the toxic byproducts of coal, local power plants are taking the heat -- and local government is taking a stand through legislation. Coal ash, the toxic byproduct of its namesake energy source, has been at the forefront of recent environmental debates, despite the deep roots of the problem. What historically served as...
