News

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has just released its 25th annual Kids Count survey. And while Virginia has made progress in the areas of education and overall health, it still suggests that more children are living in impoverished homes and lack the community make-up or family foundation to help increase their likelihood of living successful lives. 

School summer reading lists are infamous.  Required books that you drag around all summer, taking notes and keeping journals.  Just in time for beach season, two Richmond writers are trying to give summer reading a better name. 

When writer Gigi Amateau was a child, one of her favorite stories was The Little Match Girl.

“I remember sitting in my Grammy’s lap and she would read The Little Match Girl to me and it would wreck me every time.  And I then I would ask her to read it again, like through my tears, read it again, you know.”

Governor McAuliffe has signed an executive order to increase the opportunities for small, women- and minority-owned companies to conduct business with the state. 

The goal is to promote equity—and maximize the participation of small businesses in work that’s obtained through procurement and state contracts.  He also set a high goal for the number of participants.

McAuliffe directed Secretary of Commerce and Trade Maurice Jones to raise the state share of spending that goes to small, women- and minority-owned businesses to 42%.

Fracking has produced a glut of oil and gas in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  Energy companies are desperate to get those products to market, and utilities are anxious to make the switch from coal to clean-burning gas. 

There is, however, something standing in the way – people who want nothing to do with pipelines in their communities.  In Nelson County, three groups have already formed to fight a pipeline that would also pass through Buckingham, Dinwiddie and Brunswick counties en route to North Carolina.

State money originally earmarked to renovate the state capitol in Richmond, may be used for funding of two new veteran care centers. 

Earlier this summer, Governor Terry McAuliffe cancelled a planned $300 million dollar Capitol complex renovation, citing more pressing needs in the state.

Now, Republicans in the house would like to use that money to fund the state’s share of two new veteran nursing homes, one in Hampton another in Northern Virginia.