Monthly co-pays for insulin will be capped at $50 on January 1 in Virginia, thanks to HB 66, which the General Assembly passed in Spring of 2020. Politicians from both parties have called for strategies to make insulin more affordable. Delegate Lee Carter (D-Manassas) introduced the bill, initially calling for an even lower co-pay cap of $30 that was later amended to $50.
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It was hard to help but notice – and be somewhat sad about – all those happy faces Thursday afternoon when President Trump announced that Morocco had become the fourth Arab country, after Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates to formally recognize Israel.
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Just days before the statewide U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia, confusion over obtaining absentee ballots remains.
“Georgians who are over the age of 65, members of the military or are physically disabled have the option of receiving absentee ballots for an entire election cycle by submitting a single application,” Atlanta radio station WABE reported in November.
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The application window for citizens to apply for the Virginia Redistricting Commission closed on Monday and a final tally from the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) showed that 1,238 Virginians are interested in serving on the extremely important and influential panel.
Just two weeks ago, however, only 88 citizens had applied for the commission since November 30 and Virginia Division of Legislative Services (DLS) Director Amigo Wade said they received 600-650 applications during the final days before the deadline.
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The list narrows — The Virginia Star has selected its top five finalists for Person of the Year. This list is focused on people who influenced the discourse and politics of across Virginia in 2020, and these people had an ongoing impact on Virginia’s headlines. Please keep sending in picks and nominations, and we will announce our finalist later this week.
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Community activist and mental health advocate Princess Blanding, whose brother was fatally shot by Richmond Police in 2018, announced her entrance into the 2021 Virginia governor’s race on Tuesday as a third-party candidate, joining a group of hopefuls featuring former and current state politicians.
Blanding, 38, will be running as an independent candidate under the Liberation Party, whose mission to advance equity by uplifting traditionally underserved and oppressed communities, according to a press release.
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When the Virginia Senate convenes next month in Richmond for its 2021 regular session, Senator Mark Obenshain (R-Rockingham) will continue to push legislation that brings greater transparency and accountability to the state parole board.
With 14 days left until the session starts on January 13, Obenshain has already pre-filed two bills this month relating to the parole board.
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With the release of the Request for Qualifications/Proposals (RFQ/P) document, Richmond can now begin accepting submissions from established operators to build a resort casino in Virginia’s capital city.
Monday’s release of the RFQ/P marks the official start of the months-long competitive process to potentially bring a resort casino to Richmond in the coming years. The document outlines what the city expects from a proposal.
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Stafford County is sending some extra cash to its 3,900 Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients in the form of $150 worth of restaurant vouchers to one of 100 local restaurants. County Board of Supervisors Chair Meg Bohmke said the nearly $800,000 program is the first part of the Stafford Cares initiative, a series of programs aimed at helping the county recover physically, mentally, and financially from COVID-19.
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Three of Virginia’s Republican congressmen voted against the Caring for Americans with Supplemental Health (CASH) Act on Monday night, noting that while the bill would increase a taxpayer stimulus from $600 to $2,000, it failed to include the necessary budget cuts. Despite that, the bill did pass the House, 275 to 134.
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White’s Ferry has been carrying goods and passengers across the Potomac River for over 200 years, but on Monday the operators announced that they have stopped their operations after the Loudoun County Circuit Court ruled that the ferry business does not have right to use the river landing on the Virginia side of the river.
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The debate over whether or not businesses should be required to provide eligible employees with paid sick leave will again be taken up by the Virginia General Assembly when it convenes for its regular session on January 13th.
After multiple bills calling for paid sick leave were killed by a Senate committee during this past summer’s special session, those same lawmakers are once again intending to offer legislation on the issue.
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Roughly 41,709 Virginians have received first doses of the COVID-19 vaccines so far, according to the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), as the state continues its efforts to reach herd immunity and put an end to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week, the VDH launched the COVID-19 vaccine data dashboard, which will be updated daily to keep the public informed about the number of vaccines distributed and administered as well as the demographics of recipients.
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Virginia State Delegate Mark Levine (D-Arlington) announced last Monday that he was officially running for lieutenant governor and joining the crowded contest.
Levine, 54, is the 12th contender to enter into the race so far and, if elected, he would become Virginia’s first openly gay statewide elected official.
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Attorney General Mark Herring has joined 19 other attorneys general asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to force regulation of so-called “ghost guns” – partially assembled firearms kits that can be completed by consumers without the serial numbers law enforcement uses to track the weapons. Herring and the other attorneys general signed an amicus brief as third parties to Syracuse v. ATF, a lawsuit that says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) was too lenient in its 2015 interpretation of the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968.
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Virginia business advocates praised the COVID-19 stimulus package passed by Congress but said additional state action is necessary for businesses to receive the full benefits of the legislation.
The $900 billion COVID-19 stimulus provides about $325 billion in aid to small businesses nationally, including $284 billion for forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, $20 billion for Economic Injury Disaster Loan grants, $15 billion for live venues, independent movie theaters and cultural institutions and another $12 billion for businesses in low-income and minority communities.
Congress’ bill also addressed a couple of concerns businesses raised regarding the first wave of PPP loans. The bill simplifies the forgiveness applications and makes the loans tax deductible at the federal level. The deductibility applies to loans that already have been received and any loans received in the second wave, which would prevent a hidden tax increase on businesses.
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Even though Christmas has already gone by and the familiar, cozy feeling of the holiday season is slowly fading away as the new year approaches, it’s never too late to sit down and watch Christmas movies.
From timeless classics to contemporary hits to holiday horror flicks, there is a wide array of Christmas movies for all types of people to enjoy. But, even with the many staples of Christmas films, everybody has their own personal favorites.
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When her mom began working full-time, Chesterfield homeschool student Nasiyah Isra-ul started developing personalized home school plans for her younger brother, while she was still 15. Her plans took off — she began developing plans for other families in their homeschool group. Now, three years later and a college sophomore, she’s launching Canary Academy to bring her programs to families across the U.S., thanks to a $10,000 grant
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Virginia Delegate Hala Ayala (D-Prince William) wants to be a bridge between lawmakers and Virginians throughout the Commonwealth and offer a new perspective in state politics if her bid to become the next lieutenant governor is successful.
Ayala, 47, entered Virginia’s 2021 lieutenant gubernatorial election on July 14th, and was one of the first candidates to enter into the race that now features a dozen Democratic and Republican hopefuls.
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If you thought Christmas was cancelled – think again!
Here are just some ideas waiting for you and the family to enjoy.
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Virginia was not in the first slate of states to join the Transportation and Climate Initiative, which proponents argue will help fight climate change and opponents assert will increase costs for households.
Under the multistate agreement, a state would agree to establish a cap on diesel and gasoline sales and require wholesales to purchase carbon allowances to go over that limit, which effectively creates a carbon tax. The initiative has received support from many Democrats and opposition from Republicans.
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What’s the most popular Christmas cookie? The Virginia Star combed through several lists of cookies to get an idea of which were listed the most often. Many of the most popular cookies allow a lot of variation — bakers like to put their own creative spin on their cookies. Here’s our list:
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Christmas Day has finally arrived and although many people’s plans may look quite different this year, there is one thing about the holiday season that can never be changed: catchy, calming and irresistible Christmas songs.
Whether a person listens to Christmas music all 365 days of the year or only starts once winter has set in, almost everybody has a favorite jingle that inevitably gets played more often around the holidays.
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The Appomattox County Board of Supervisors declined to vote on a First Amendment Sanctuary resolution at a Monday night meeting. Multiple members of the board said that they share concerns over Governor Ralph Northam’s executive orders, but they said the board does not have the authority to enforce the resolution or to protect Appomattox County citizens from state-level enforcement of the executive orders. With no one willing to second Supervisor John Hinkle’s motion to vote on the resolution, the motion died.
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Gun rallies, a general election, COVID-19, and social unrest – it’s been a busy year for Virginians. The Virginia Star is compiling a list of Virginia’s top newsmakers; the staff has picked twelve people, and we’re also looking for reader suggestions: who should come in first and why? Who else should be on the list?
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The Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) postponed its decision Tuesday on whether to cancel the divisions’ high school winter sports season this year because of current COVID-19 data of the area.
Last week, Virginia Beach Superintendent Aaron Spence wrote in a letter to families that if either the percent positivity or the 7-day daily average of cases – two indicators used in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s K-12 School Metrics – does not improve to the “yellow range” by Tuesday, the winter sports season would be cancelled.
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If you’re anything like us, there’s somebody on your Christmas list who you still need to buy a gift for. The Virginia Star spoke with local businesses across the state to see what their most popular gifts were. Here’s what they told us…
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Roughly 140,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in Virginia on Wednesday after the state had initially placed an order with the company last week, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) said in a news release.
Shipments of Moderna’s vaccine, approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, as well as Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine are being delivered to healthcare facilities and health departments across the Commonwealth this week. The two vaccines are going to 96 “geographically diverse locations” in the state, according to the release.
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A group of Georgia voters filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court earlier this week against the individual members of the Fulton County Board of Elections and individually against Richard Barron, Fulton County Elections Director. The lawsuit focused on the security footage presented by Trump’s legal team during the Georgia Senate hearing, popularized as the “suitcase ballots” video.
The plaintiffs alleged that the group of workers seen on video illegally scanned thousands of mail-in ballots hidden underneath skirted tables. They also claimed that those ballots may be fraudulent. Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VOTERGA), a nonpartisan and non-profit election integrity coalition, organized the aggrieved voters into a group of plaintiffs.
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Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano (D) announced Monday that he would not be seeking cash bail for non-violent offenders, formalizing a policy he and his prosecutors have been practicing since Descano took office in January 2020. “I’ve long said that the laws on the books should match the values…
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The Virginia General Assembly 2021 regular session is right around the corner on January 13 and the Democrats will again be calling all the shots for the legislature thanks to their majority in both the Senate and the House of Delegates.
This means that the agendas and priorities of Democrats in the Senate – as well as their counterparts in the House – have quite a good chance of passing through each chamber if broadly supported. Yet, what exactly are Senate Democrats focusing on?
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Virginia is again ramping up its Checkpoint Strikeforce campaign, a program aimed at reducing drunk driving through increased police activity and sobriety checkpoints. Through December 8, 2020, there were 253 alcohol-related traffic fatalities in Virginia, up from 249 in the same period in 2019, according to a press release from Governor Ralph Northam’s office.
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Secondary students attending Arlington Public Schools (APS) are earning more failing grades during the coronavirus pandemic than in previous years, new data shows, further highlighting the negative impact virtual learning can have on certain students.
The data was presented in an internal report released online on Thursday that compared APS middle school and high school student’s quarter one grades from 2020-21 to quarter one grades from 2018-19 and 2019-20.
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The U.S. House of Representatives leadership gave legislators just hours to consider a 5,593-page omnibus spending bill incorporating over $900 billion of coronavirus relief and $1.4 in government funding for fiscal year 2021. The bill was made available on Monday afternoon, with voting beginning on Monday evening, where it passed just after nine p.m.
“After several delays and last-minute haggling, we finally began receiving text of the COVID relief bill at 11:30 am this morning. This bill is likely to be thousands of pages, so I’m canceling my afternoon appointments & digging into the bill. As Reagan said, “Trust, but verify,” Congressman Ben Cline (R-VA06) tweeted.
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Virginia’s statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee was removed from its place in the National Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol by a crew of workers overnight.
Every state is allowed to have two statues on display in the hall and Lee has stood along with President George Washington as representatives of the Commonwealth since 1909.
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The Bedford County Board of Supervisors (BOS) unanimously passed a resolution repudiating efforts to repeal qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that provides extra protection to law enforcement officers from personal liability while on-duty unless they commit willful misconduct. An effort to repeal qualified immunity was defeated in the Virginia Senate during the recent special session.
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Forty churches, schools, and businesses have signed a letter to Governor Ralph Northam, asking him not to enforce the Virginia Values Act (VVA), which was passed by the General Assembly and signed by Northam last April. In Northam’s press release, proponents of the bill said it would protect LGBTQ Virginians from workplace discrimination, but religious leaders warn that the bill threatens a $100,000 fine if religious organizations refuse to hire someone who doesn’t agree with their beliefs on marriage or sexuality.
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A student at Mercer University in Macon has been ordered to spend four months in jail in Cayman Islands for breaking the British territory’s COVID-19 lockdown rules, according to several reports.
“Skylar Mack and her boyfriend, Cayman Islands-based competitive Jet Skier Vanjae Ramgeet were jailed immediately after their sentences were handed down on Tuesday,” Fox News said last week.
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The Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections struck down a challenge to remove nearly 8,000 voters from the the county’s rolls before Georgia’s January 5 U.S. Senate runoff election.
“For the reasons I will discuss, I don’t believe there is probable cause to challenge these voters,” Athens-Clarke County Attorney Judd Drake said to open deliberations.
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CVS announced Monday that it has formally launched its program to administer COVID-19 vaccines to residents and staff of long-term care facilities and will begin its efforts in Virginia on December 28th, according to a press release.
The company said that its teams will start administering doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this week across 12 states – including Ohio, Connecticut, Florida and Oregon, among others – and expects to vaccinate a total of four million residents and staff at over 40,000 long-term care facilities through the program.
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As the 2021 elections inch closer and begin to dominate almost all political talk in the Commonwealth, Sen. Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta) is still exploring a potential run to become the 74th governor of Virginia.
Hanger, 72, recently discussed the gubernatorial election and the difficulty of securing the GOP nomination in an interview with The Virginia Star.
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Richmond Public Schools (RPS) has tightened content filtering restrictions on school computers after Janet Kelly discovered she could access explicit YouTube content on her elementary-aged son’s computer. Kelly is pleased that the school responded to her concerns, but she’s worried about long-term harms linked to having children in front of computers constantly for virtual learning.
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Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D) formally launched his re-election bid for a third term as the Commonwealth’s top lawyer last week.
Herring, 59, officially announced his campaign for the 2021 race through a video on Twitter where he described himself as “the people’s lawyer” and highlighted several legal wins while in office.
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Trump team lawyer Lin Wood on Friday filed suit against the state of Georgia, arguing that the state is violating the U.S. Constitution and Georgia law in several ways with respect to its handling of next month’s runoff elections.
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A Prince William County sensitivity presentation to the school board and Board of Supervisors (BOS) members exploded into a shouting match earlier this month, leading to three Republican Supervisors leaving the meeting. The “Raising Awareness of Unconscious Bias to Foster Inclusivity and Equity” presentation was part of a joint work session between the two boards.
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It’s not quite a nonpartisan issue, but Virginia legislators expect an effort to legalize marijuana will receive enough bipartisan support to pass in the 2021 regular session. The biggest hurdle to the plan is the massive legislative changes that are required. Legislators have to choose how the cannabis business will interact with many sectors of business and government including banking, law enforcement, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Taxation, and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority.
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NASHVILLE, Tennesse- I am often sent songs to review to see if I want to feature the song(s) and/or artist in my column. When I heard Lilly Winwood’s song “Few More Records” I knew this singer/songwriter was talented. But surely this Nashville girl wasn’t related to the Brit rocker, Steve Winwood.
It turns out, surely, she is. Lilly Winwood is the 25-year-old daughter of famed rock and roller, Steve Winwood.
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At 9:00 am on Monday, February 6, 2019, Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax’s meteoric political ascendency could not have been any higher or brighter. Indeed, Fairfax was on the verge of being elevated to the highest office in the Commonwealth – Governor – due to the political blackface scandal that engulfed Governor Ralph Northam. Indeed, if Governor Northam were to resigned – which many in the State Democratic Party where calling for – Justin Fairfax would automatically become the 74th Governor of Virginia.
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Virginia Governor Ralph Northam unveiled his recommendations for the biennial budget on Wednesday with big spending toward the state’s continued response to the COVID-19 pandemic, public education and other items.
The governor presented his budget proposals to lawmakers during a joint virtual meeting of the House of Delegates and Senate appropriation committees.
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After two years in Congress, Representative Jennifer Wexton (D-VA-10) has been nominated to the powerful House Appropriations Committee for the 117th session which starts in January. The current session is the first in over a century where Virginia had no representatives on the committee, according to a Wexton press release. She will be able to advocate funding for Virginia priorities like infrastructure and national defense.
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