Governor Abigail Spanberger signed Senate Bill 62 into law late Thursday night, creating a pathway for courts to revisit certain marijuana-related convictions handed down before legalization. The bill, officially titled “Modification of sentence for marijuana-related...
"Virginia voters will be able to respond to what’s happening in America. It’s important that they understand their role and capacity to impact the direction the country is going and that’s true power, true democracy." - Lt. Governor-elect, Ghazala Hashmi A British colleague visiting Richmond told me not too long ago that “politics should never be...
"No one should have to live this way." - Delegate Mike Jones The fact that masked agents of the state are operating outside the rule of law, without accountability, shouldn’t be a conversation we’re having in America, let alone Virginia in 2025. Yet here we are, almost one year into an experiment which has seen masked ICE agents terrorize...
Editor’s note: As the holiday shopping season begins, we are encouraging Richmonders to support independent businesses, you can find a list of those in our ongoing “Support Local, Vote Local” 2025 Readers’ Poll, which highlights hundreds of local shops, restaurants, and services across the region. Every dollar spent locally makes a...
Fall of Freedom bills itself as “an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation.” The organizers aren’t pulling punches: they argue that democracy is under attack, threats to free expression are rising, dissent is being criminalized, and institutions, including the arts, are being bent toward...
Every morning at 9 a.m. in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, the world stops. Cars freeze in the streets, trams halt mid-track, and pedestrians stand silent as the national anthem plays. It lasts a minute, a ritual pause to remember the dead and remind the living what they’re fighting for. Dr. Jeffrey Young stood too, still and listening. A trauma surgeon from...
"Congress has forgotten to serve the people they represent." -- Lisa Vedernikova Khanna I often ask myself, what is the American Dream? Is it the white picket fence and a two-and-a-half-kid household? Maybe you picture the Statue of Liberty welcoming new arrivals to a land of promise or hear a faint echo of the Constitution’s preamble. ...
Editor’s Note: This story includes remarks from a national webinar hosted by the Hemp Industry & Farmers of America (HIFA) on Friday, November 8, 2025, before Senator Mitch McConnell’s hemp amendment was inserted into the government funding package over the weekend. The comments reflect the industry’s final warning before the language...
And Governor elect Spanberger urges Democrats to reopen government, not prolong fight Virginia’s senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, find themselves on opposite sides of a Senate proposal to reopen the government, a sign of rising Democratic tension as the shutdown drags into its sixth week. The proposed agreement, brokered by a bipartisan group...
At the Richmond Convention Center on Tuesday, supporters of Abigail Spanberger gathered to mark a turning point in Virginia’s history. By night’s end, Spanberger, a former CIA officer and three-term congresswoman, became the Commonwealth’s first woman governor. Her victory led a broader Democratic sweep across the state, wins for lieutenant...
