Virginia’s Amtrak service ridership hit 105,689 in September, up from the pre-pandemic 76,793 riders in September 2019, for 37.6 percent growth. That’s also an improvement from September 2021 ridership at 50,776.
In a Thursday press release, the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority said “the numbers show the strong rebound in post-pandemic travel with every route seeing an increase.”
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The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) released a new video supporting its legal efforts to fight new admissions policies at Thomas Jefferson (TJ) High School for Science and Technology; the video argues that efforts to change the policy amount to a racist effort to reduce the number of Asian students at the school.
School officials instituted a merit lottery in 2020 to expand the student base to under-represented groups. In response, the Coalition protested the decision, and the PLF began representing the coalition in a drawn-out legal battle aimed at blocking the new policy. A district court agreed with the PLF and said the process was discriminatory, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stayed the lower court’s order, allowing the school to use its new admissions policy for the 2022-2023 school year.
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Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Friday brushed off former President Trump’s criticism of him – which followed his lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, saying Trump should remove himself from GOP electoral politics.
“Listen, you all know me,” Youngkin told reporters. “I do not call people names. I really work hard to bring people together … . That’s not the way I roll and not the way I behave.”
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In early October, my alma mater made headlines after it decided to fire chemistry professor Dr. Maitland Jones Jr. after 82 of his students signed a petition noting that his organic chemistry class was “too hard.” The students accused Jones of purposely making the class difficult, citing that their low scores negatively impacted their “well-being,” and their chances of getting into medical school. Instead of evaluating the rigor and substance of Jones’ curriculum, NYU justified its hasty action by noting the class’s unfavorable student reviews. This type of judgment would never pass in the fields of architecture, aerial engineering, or even the food service industry; why is it permissible here?
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While high rates of inflation have hit the entire nation hard, some regions have experienced it more intensely.
WalletHub reported Thursday that the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI, metropolitan statistical area has experienced the 16th highest rise in inflation, based on two Consumer Price Index metrics: latest month versus two months prior and latest month versus one year ago. The metrics received equal weight in the report.
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With states like Arizona, Nevada and Alaska taking days to determine midterm election results, influential pollster Scott Rasmussen says there is overwhelming support for America to mandate ballots be in and counted by Election Day.
“One of the 80% issues, and there aren’t a whole lot of 80% issues in America-one of them is that all ballots should be in by Election Day,” Scott Rasmussen said Wednesday night on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “We should know the results on Election Day.”
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Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Friday urged Republicans to postpone next week’s Senate leadership elections to give the party time to regroup after its disappointing midterm performance.
According to reports, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) had been considering a long-shot bid to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), but he changed his mind on Wednesday when it became clear that there would be no “red wave” and that Republicans may not even take control of the chamber.
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Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas instructed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Chris Magnus to resign or face firing directly from President Joe Biden, Magnus told the Los Angeles Times.
Magnus has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who demanded his resignation in November following complaints from colleagues about his job performance, including that he fell asleep during meetings, as previously reported by Politico. He said Friday he’s refusing to back down from his post, according to the LA Times.
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President Biden will meet Monday with China President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, the White House announced Thursday.
The meeting will be what is referred to as “on the sidelines” of the event, which mean it will not be part of the official public agenda.
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A growing number of Republican Party officials are frustrated with GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel following Tuesday’s midterm elections and want her to resign, according to Republican sources familiar with the situation.
“People are upset and want to replace Ronna,” said one veteran Republican National Committee official. “They’re calling for her resignation but not publicly. [RNC] members are calling for accountability as they should.”
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If there’s one thing our corporate media loves as much as hyping an upcoming election, it is conducting a days-long postmortem on that election: identifying the winners and losers, who dropped the ball and who is “The Next Big Thing.” Yet, beneath the surface of personality-driven analysis, one can find data that reveals much about what Americans see as the nation’s biggest problems.
An NBC News exit poll found that the biggest issues to voters, in order of importance, were: inflation, abortion, crime, gun policy, and immigration. After the last two years of Biden-fueled destruction of our border, the idea that immigration barely registers as the fifth-most important issue to voters should be disturbing.
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