While the House continued its quick, procedural sessions, the Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee continued to advance bills centered around criminal justice reform and policing.
Before the Senate convened in-person in its new home for the 2020 special session at the Science Museum of Virginia, the Judiciary Committee held a meeting where it reported and referred more bills.
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There was a time when a kind of nobility still existed among our leaders. In Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1865, while the nation was still riven by a bloody Civil War, he envisioned a future of national healing. In words now carved in the marble of the Lincoln Memorial, he pledged, “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,” to go on “to bind up the nation’s wounds,” and to “do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves . . .”
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The state of Michigan has agreed to pay $600 million to Flint, Michigan residents in a settlement stemming from the 2014 water crisis.
The settlement established a court-monitored compensation fund, which will send payments Flint residents, CNN reported Thursday. The majority of the money, about 80%, will be paid to residents who were younger than 18 at the time of the crisis.
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Facebook’s effort to build a landing site in a village on the Oregon coast for a fiber optic cable linking Asia and North America has run into serious trouble.
First, a drill pipe snapped under the seabed. Workers left 1,100 feet of pipe, 6,500 gallons of drilling fluid, a drill tip and other materials under the seabed as they closed down the site, aiming to try again next year.
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The Democratic National Convention on Tuesday featured a panelist who identifies as a “nonbinary/gender transcendent mermaid Queen-King” and who called for the abolition of the police, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and prisons.
According to the panelist’s Wake Forest University bio, J Mai is a “Black-Vietnamese, transgender nonbinary/gender transcendent mermaid Queen-King,” who recently became a “licensed minister in the Progressive National Baptist Church.”
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Facebook announced Wednesday that it will take further action against pages, groups, and Instagram accounts associated with anarchist groups and other groups “tied to violence.”
The social media website said it will expand their “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy” to censor groups who reportedly pose a “significant risk” to public safety, such as QAnon, the company said in a statement. Facebook is also taking action against “offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests,” the statement said.
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Fall hasn’t even arrived yet, but some US schools are already announcing closures during the sixth month of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Sunday, news broke that a Georgia school district announced it will close a third high school after 25 students tested positive for the coronavirus.
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Thursday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks was joined by Virginia House Delegate member Glenn Davis to speak about the Democrats move to Zoom meetings and keeping their per diem.
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Local Virginia Trump supporters have high hopes for the presidential election in November and believe that Trump will secure another four years in office.
At a gathering set up by the Trump Virginia campaign, people from various towns and counties surrounding Richmond came to show their support for the campaign and form a collective focus on the highly important last stretch before the election.
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Some scholars argue more parental choice could provide the best value for students as public schools across Virginia offer virtual learning or a combination of in-person and virtual schooling to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam will allow schools to reopen with a phased-in approach, which can lead to in-person schooling, but only if schools can maintain social distancing. Because of limited space, many schools are unable to provide in-person schooling for every student five days a week.
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A northern Virginia congressman is pursuing legislation to remove Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s name from the official designation at the historic mansion where he lived before the Civil War.
The home, overlooking the nation’s capital and surrounded by Arlington National Cemetery, is a National Park Service site officially known as “Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial.”
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Wednesday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks talked to Richmond mayoral candidate Kim Gray about Mayor Levar Stoney’s recent $1.8 million bid to remove statutes and how that money could have been better allocated to students in need.
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Thursday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks welcomed Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax to discuss special session reform priorities.
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The Richmond City Council chose to delay a vote on an amendment to its firearms ordinance. The council heard over an hour of public comments and discussion in the virtual meeting on Thursday afternoon. Eventually, the council members concluded they needed more time to clarify questions about vague wording in the amendment.
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