A group of 27 inmates and the Virginia Department of Corrections agreed to settle a lawsuit accusing the state of cruel and unusual punishment for keeping medically vulnerable inmates in crowded facilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Announced Tuesday, the agreement falls far short of the lawsuit’s initial demands, which called...
The Virginia Department of Corrections has cleared 230 inmates for early release in the two weeks since the General Assembly approved an emergency proposal by Gov. Ralph Northam aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19 in state prisons.Of those, 130 have been released from custody as of Thursday, according...
WASHINGTON — Hospitalization for a gallbladder condition didn’t stop U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from assailing Trump administration’s birth control rules on Wednesday.Ginsburg, 87, was hospitalized at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Tuesday night, but was animated as she participated in an oral argument via teleconference surrounding a...
Attorneys for a Gold’s Gym franchisee in Virginia argued that COVID-19 hasn’t been that bad as they tried to convince a judge on Thursday to overturn an executive order closing fitness centers and other businesses.“Hospital bed availability is not an issue, we’re not suffering the kinds of calamities that...
Most jails in Virginia remain overcrowded despite efforts to reduce the number of people held in local lockups as COVID-19 spreads, according to state records.And while Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration has touted a 17 percent drop in the jail population since March 1 — a significant decrease in a...
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday avoided issuing a landmark Second Amendment ruling in a closely watched gun rights case, but set the stage for future legal battles.A divided court ruled that a challenge to New York City gun restrictions was moot because the city had later changed its regulations.The...
As COVID-19 began to spread in Virginia, the state Department of Corrections said it was “doing everything it can” to keep the virus out of state prisons.“As a large public safety agency, the VADOC is accustomed to managing communicable diseases,” the department said in a March 16 news release.Over...
By Lori Haas
“Hi Mommy, I’ve been shot.”
Those were the words I heard 13 years ago today when I picked up the phone. I was speechless. My daughter was supposed to be safe in her French class at Virginia Tech. She was supposed to be learning. Instead, she’d been shot...
By Jonathan Yglesias and Justin LingenfelterLast week, Gov. Ralph Northam took historic action to sign several gun safety bills into law.This came in the wake of a tragic mass shooting in Virginia Beach, followed by a special session on firearms that concluded within three hours with no action taken...
By Drs. Scott Heysell and Rebecca DillinghamIn February, the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined in the port of Yokahama, Japan, harbored the largest cluster of people with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus (SARS-COV-2), outside of mainland China.As the global pandemic has spread, COVID-19 outbreaks have...
