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Staff Report
Virginia Mercury staff report. For questions, comments or concerns, contact [email protected]
A 13-car crash on Interstate 95 and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 26, 2023
• The Newport News elementary school teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student sent someone a text message before the shooting indicating the boy had a gun and her superiors weren’t doing anything about it. A lawyer for the teacher said she intends to sue the school district.—NBC News • The Newport News School Board voted […]
Newport News to vote on superintendent firing and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 25, 2023
• The Newport News School Board has scheduled a vote tonight on the potential firing of Superintendent George Parker after his administration came under intense criticism over the shooting of a first-grade teacher by a 6-year-old student.—Daily Press • The Republican-led House of Delegates passed several key elements of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s latest round of proposed tax […]
First permanent casino opens and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 24, 2023
• Rivers Casino Portsmouth, the state’s first permanent casino, officially opened its doors to the public on Monday morning.—WAVY • A federal judge threw out a $10 million wrongful termination and discrimination lawsuit against the city of Charlottesville filed by the city’s former police chief.—Daily Progress • A state board that oversees jails is refusing to release records […]
Uneven higher ed funding and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 23, 2023
• Staffers at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News say administrators repeatedly ignored warnings about the behavior of the 6-year-old boy accused of shooting his teacher. According to other teachers at the school, the boy previously wrote a note threatening to light a teacher on fire.—Washington Post • Amazon’s cloud computing division is planning to invest up […]
Secret execution tapes and more Virginia headlines
By: Staff Report - January 20, 2023
• Disputing a Thursday story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Ford denied that it had chosen to build a new electric vehicle battery plant in Virginia before Gov. Glenn Youngkin took the state out of the running for the project. The Youngkin administration has said the state had not reached the stage of offering the company an […]
Year-round deer hunting bill fails and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 19, 2023
• At a packed public meeting in Newport News after a 6-year-old boy shot his teacher, staffers and parents blasted city school officials for allegedly prioritizing appearances over safety and discipline. “We have failed our students under the guise of grace,” said one teacher. “This grace has turned into enabling.”—Washington Post, Associated Press • A bill that would […]
Jury mostly sides with police in Windsor traffic stop case and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 18, 2023
• A jury awarded less than $4,000 in damages to Army Lt. Caron Nazario in his lawsuit over a controversial 2020 traffic stop he was subjected to in the town of Windsor. The amount is far less than what Nazario was seeking, and the jury seemed to mostly side with the police.—Associated Press • Democratic Dels. Lamont […]
Virginia suing Bristol over landfill odors and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 17, 2023
• A Virginia Senate committee blocked a bill backed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin that would have allowed felony homicide charges to be brought against drug dealers for overdose deaths. Critics said it could discourage drug users from seeking medical attention for people in crisis.—Richmond Times-Dispatch • Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, has filed a bill […]
An explosive public rift between Sen. Morrissey and his wife and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 16, 2023
• After a political comeback built partly on an image as a reformed family man, Sen. Joe Morrissey is now having an explosive public rift with his apparently estranged wife, Myrna. In a series of Instagram posts, she accused the senator of infidelity and giving her a sexually transmitted disease. Morrissey accused her of allowing their […]
A bill to count fetuses as passengers in HOV lanes and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 13, 2023
• Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, filed a bill allowing pregnant women to count their fetus as a passenger for the purpose of driving in HOV lanes. Reproductive rights groups say its a thinly veiled attempt to curtail abortion rights by inserting personhood laws into state code.—NBC 4 • Metal detectors are being installed in every school in […]
Republican proposal for minimum wage for children and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 12, 2023
• A Republican member of the House of Delegates has filed a bill to set a $9 state minimum wage for children.—WRIC • “Months after Gov. Glenn Youngkin tapped them to work on abortion legislation, Del. Kathy Byron, R-Bedford, and Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, filed bills to ban most of the procedures after 15 weeks of gestation.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch • The […]
Swastikas painted on Waynesboro mural and more Va. headlines
By: Staff Report - January 11, 2023
• In a jailhouse interview, one of the men Richmond police accused of plotting a Fourth of July mass shooting called the still-unproven claim a lie and said he’s “innocent of everything the police accuse me of.”—WTVR • A trial over the fate of Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue is moving forward, with attorneys assuring the court […]