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VaNews

Most Read Articles March 18, 2024


1

VPAP Visual Virginia Population Change by County

The Virginia Public Access Project

Estimates from the United States Census Bureau show that Virginia’s population grew by nearly 37,000 people (0.4%) from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023. See how each locality’s population changed in the same time period.


2

Road-kill free-for-all and Virginia’s favorite pollinator: A handful of quirky new laws

By ELIZABETH BEYER, News Leader (Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)

Gov. Glenn Youngkin acted on a stack of 50 more bills Thursday, signing 30 into law and vetoing 20. Amid the partisan squabbling, some unique pieces of bipartisan legislation have made it through the gauntlet. Among those are bills to raise the age for jury duty exemptions, recognizing Virginia’s favorite pollinator, and a road-kill free-for-all. Here are some of the quirkiest pieces of legislation to be passed, so far.


3

Democrats criticize Youngkin’s appointment of Yesli Vega to Board of Health

By ANDREW CAIN, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

Virginia Democrats are criticizing Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointment of Prince William County Supervisor Yesli Vega to the State Board of Health. Vega, who lost a close 2022 congressional contest to Democrat Abigail Spanberger in the 7th District, drew fire on abortion early in her campaign for celebrating the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and for appearing to suggest that impregnation might be less likely as a result of rape.


4

Youngkin poised to include Potomac Yard arena funding in budget

By ALAN KLINE, Washington Business Journal (Subscription required for some articles)

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin seems poised to make changes to the state’s budget bill to include funding for a new $2 billion sports arena and entertainment complex in Alexandria — with or without input from the state Senate. The Republican governor said in a radio interview Thursday that while his preference is for the Senate to follow the House and include arena-related funding in its budget proposal, he has the ability to amend the budget before signing it into law. “We need to get the Senate to do the work. They’ll recognize the exact same thing that the House has …”


5

Kepone in Hopewell: How a roach poison made the James unsafe for commercial fishing for 13 years

By LUCA POWELL, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

The roach poison was as fine as flour, and it looked like it, too. Dale Gilbert would come home caked in the stuff. So would Thurman Dykes, Frank Arrigo and the other 135 workers who baked up Kepone for Life Science Products, beginning in March 1974. Many had been lured to Hopewell by the promise of a good paycheck. But in 1975, they sat before a hearing of Congress. Gilbert’s hands shook as he said he never knew that Kepone, a neurotoxin, could be harmful. Not even the bosses took precautions.


6

Schapiro: So many veto opportunities, so little time

By JEFF E. SCHAPIRO, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

With the legislature gone — but not forgotten — Gov. Glenn Youngkin again has to himself the stage that is the state Capitol. Practicing his hallmark performative politics, the Republican pushed onto X, formerly Twitter, a video in which he huffily declares — before bounding up the stairs toward his office on the third floor of the Jefferson-designed statehouse — that he’s got to act on more than 1,000 bills sent him by the Democrat-controlled General Assembly.


7

King George, Amazon remain at impasse over data centers

By CATHY DYSON, Free Lance-Star (Metered Paywall - 10 articles a month)

When Gov. Glenn Youngkin gathered with local officials last week to celebrate data center development in the Fredericksburg region, one locality was missing from the party. King George County was the first in the immediate Fredericksburg area to approve the rezonings needed for Amazon Web Services to set up shop. However, no one from King George stood with Board of Supervisors’ members from Caroline, Louisa, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties at the governor’s gathering at Germanna Community College to tout all the jobs and tax dollars the data centers would bring to local coffers. That’s because a change in membership on the King George Board of Supervisors, as a result of November elections, brought a different majority and mindset to the board.


8

Working-class people rarely have a seat ‘at the legislative table’ in state capitols, including in Virginia

By ROBBIE SEQUEIRA, Stateline

In her first few months as a Minnesota state legislator in 2021, state Rep. Kaela Berg often wondered: “What the hell am I doing here?” A single mother and flight attendant without a college degree or prior political experience, Berg now had a seat at the legislative table, shaping policy decisions in her home state. As she ran against a former two-term Republican representative — a commercial real estate agent — she also was struggling for housing and living in a friend’s basement. … While it was gratifying to receive support from working families in her district, her transition to state policymaker felt overwhelming.


9

Mainstream G.O.P. Group to Target Bob Good as It Shifts Mission and Members

By ANNIE KARNI, New York Times (Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)

The Republican Main Street Partnership, a group that supports center-leaning House Republicans, plans to direct half a million dollars into a bid to defeat Representative Bob Good, a hard-right lawmaker from Virginia, making an unusual push to oust a sitting Republican member of Congress. The move is notable not just because the group, through its campaign giving arm, is inserting itself into the kind of intramural fight against an incumbent that it typically avoids. It is also striking because the candidate it is backing — John J. McGuire, a former member of the Navy SEALs and an election denier who has pledged fealty to former President Donald J. Trump and promised to bring a “biblical worldview” to Congress — bears so little resemblance to the kind of moderate Republican the Main Street Partnership was founded to support.


10

Youngkin administration considers bill to expand local authority to lower speed limits

By NATHANIEL CLINE, Virginia Mercury

The Virginia General Assembly passed a measure three years ago allowing local governments to decrease roadway speed limits in their localities to as low as 15 mph. But recently, lawmakers found that the Virginia Department of Transportation denied seven of eight speed limit decrease requests, because, by state law, only the Commissioner of Highways can authorize changes on state-maintained roads. Earlier this month, legislation advanced that would expand a locality’s speed-reducing authority to roadways within a business or residence district, including state-owned highways.