Democratic primary day, Dublin Volvo plant workers go on strike, a Culpeper account of the Tulsa Race Massacre, and more headlines

By: Robert Zullo - June 8, 2021 8:08 am

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NEWS TO KNOW
Our daily roundup of headlines from Virginia and elsewhere.

• It’s primary day: Virginia voters will pick Democratic candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general as well as nominees in 17 contested Republican and Democratic House primaries.—Associated Press, NBC12, Washington Post, Richmond Times-Dispatch

• The United Auto Workers began a strike at Volvo’s truck plant in Dublin.—Roanoke Times

• Virginia Commonwealth University will join hundreds of other colleges in requiring COVID-19 vaccination for returning students.—Richmond Times-Dispatch

• A legislative audit commission is recommending changes to legislation legalizing marijuana in Virginia on July 1.—WVTF

• Singer Pharrell Williams plans to open several private schools for low-income students, including in Norfolk.—Virginian-Pilot

• There are so many cicadas in Northern Virginia, they’re being picked up by weather radar.—Insider

• Prosecutors in Louisiana are trying to jail a UVA law professor for sharing publicly available body cam footage of police strip searching a minor.—Reason

• Virginia needs many teachers and support staff, some experts say.—WVTF

• The Culpeper library has a copy of a letter written by a Virginia book publisher who witnessed the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 while in the city on business. “it was indeed the most heartless brutal piece of business I ever saw. We have nothing on Germany after this,” he wrote.—Culpeper Star-Exponent

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Robert Zullo

Robert spent 13 years as a reporter and editor at weekly and daily newspapers before becoming editor of the Virginia Mercury in 2018. He was a staff writer and managing editor at Worrall Community Newspapers in Union, N.J., before spending five years in south Louisiana covering hurricanes, oil spills and Good Friday crawfish boils as a reporter and city editor for the The Courier and the Daily Comet newspapers in Houma and Thibodaux. He covered Richmond city hall for the Richmond Times-Dispatch from 2012 to 2013 and worked as a general assignment and city hall reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 2013 to 2016. He returned to Richmond in 2016 to cover energy, environment and transportation for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He grew up in Miami, Fla., and central New Jersey. A former waiter, armored car guard and appliance deliveryman, he is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. Contact him at [email protected]