Heading into the second year of his term, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin says he wants to “compete to win” with other states when it comes to attracting business and people to the Commonwealth.
That was the main takeaway from a speech given by the governor Thursday, when he touted proposed budget amendments to cut $1 billion in taxes and outlined his strategy to “win” in the Commonwealth.
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Virginia will reduce its grocery sales tax rate starting Jan. 1, resulting in a 1% tax on groceries and certain essential personal hygiene products.
Virginia will eliminate the 1.5% state retail sales and use tax on food and certain hygiene products, leaving a 1% local option sales tax.
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Virginia received about $67.5 million in public health infrastructure funding through a federal grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced.
The grant funding, which is part of the American Rescue Plan Act, will span over five years to bolster the public health workforce, modernize data infrastructure and improve organizational systems, according to the governor’s office. The Virginia Department of Health will coordinate the grant to determine where the money goes.
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Media outlets, intellectuals, and even academics talk about the Jones Act as an antiquated piece of legislation that prevents the U.S. from mysteriously entering an economic golden age. Yes, it’s a hundred years old, but don’t let its age mislead you. Today, it is much more important to America and Virginia than its critics admit.
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A rambling note left by the Chesapeake, Va., Walmart killer claims that he suffered from harassment and “betrayal” prior to his rampage and that he carried out the killing as if he was “led by Satan.”
The note, released by Chesapeake police this week was discovered on Andre Bing’s phone after the Tuesday killing, where he shot and killed at least six people before turning the gun on himself.
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The number of job openings in Virginia increased by 40,000 in September, according to the recently released Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Job openings increased from 317,000 in August to 357,000 in September. In addition to job openings, the number of hires also went up. According to the Virginia Employment Commission, there was one unemployed person for every three job openings in the commonwealth.
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Google agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states after an investigation found that the tech giant participated in questionable location-tracking practices, state attorneys general announced Monday.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong called it a “historic win for consumers.”
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More than a quarter of a million people in Virginia immigrated to the country illegally, according to estimates, and five localities do not fully work with federal law enforcement regarding deportations.
Although the government does not have data on the exact number of immigrants who came to the country illegally, estimates for the Virginia population are usually somewhere between 250,000 and 275,000. Some proponents of stricter immigration control have warned the failure to enforce immigration laws has become a burden on local economies and has made communities less safe.
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A pro-trans group in Virginia with ties to the Democrat party says it will help gender-confused students run away from home and will place them with “supportive, queer friendly” adults, according to internal materials obtained by The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak.
The Pride Liberation Project is a pro-LGBT student organization that raises money using the Democrat platform ActBlue to help minors leave their families.
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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants the Washington Commanders to relocate to Virginia, but after funding plans fell apart during the last legislative session, the path forward is not yet clear.
“If the Commanders are going to relocate they should relocate to Virginia,” Youngkin recently said while visiting Annandale for a rally geared toward parents, according to ABC 7.
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About 3.2 million Virginia tax filers will receive one-time rebates from the state’s Department of Taxation beginning at the end of the week, Tax Commissioner Craig Burns announced.
The department plans to do a soft launch Friday and Saturday, but will ramp up its production Monday.
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The Virginia attorney general’s office is investigating 2020 election irregularities nearly two years later as the 22-month waiting period required under federal law to preserve election records ends Saturday and state law requires the records to be destroyed after Labor Day.
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Higher education institutions from across Virginia have begun the initial planning stages to establish K-12 lab schools as they await guidance from the Virginia Department of Education.
More than 30 schools have expressed interest in creating lab schools, which would be public schools run by colleges, universities or other higher education institutions. One of the goals of the program, which was approved by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin earlier this year, is to connect students with university resources they would not otherwise have access.
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As global and national gasoline prices continue to trend downward, the average cost for a gallon of gas in Virginia has fallen below $4.
As of Aug. 2, the average gallon of gas costs about $3.97, according to numbers provided by AAA. For a gallon of diesel, the average cost is dipping closer to $5 per gallon, but still sits at about $5.16. This is much lower than gas prices one month ago, which were about $4.63 for a gallon of regular gas and more than $5.70 for diesel.
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Virginia localities have begun receiving payments from an opioid-related settlement with three distributors, which are separate from the state funding and total more than $4 million in the first installment.
McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health agreed to pay the commonwealth and its localities about $530 million for allegedly being involved in higher overdose rates. Virginia will receive about $15 million and the Opioid Abatement Authority will receive more than $9.9 million in the first installment, in addition to the $4 million heading to localities.
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The Virginia budget deal, which passed both chambers of the General Assembly, would cut funding for a school choice tax credit program by more than half of its current funding.
The Education Improvement Scholarships Tax Credits Program provides a 65% tax credit for individuals or businesses who make donations for scholarships to students so they can attend certain private schools and nonpublic preschool programs. Current law caps the state funding for the program at $25 million per year, but a provision in the budget proposal would reduce that cap to only $12 million per year.
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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfe and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin are moving their states in opposite directions.
Gov. Youngkin is focused on lowering the cost of living and improving Virginia’s appeal as a place to do business. Boeing’s recent announcement that it is moving from Illinois to Virginia is an example of his efforts. Youngkin’s aggressive pro-jobs push led CNBC to call Virginia the No. 1 state in the country for business.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Katie Everett, Press Secretary for Concerned Women for America to the newsmaker line to talk about the recent vandalism at their Alexandria, Virginia offices and their continued mission to fight for the unborn and women.
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Twenty-one states have filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s continued mask mandate on public transportation, including on airplanes.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody are leading the effort. Moody filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida along with 20 other attorneys general. DeSantis said the mask mandate was misguided and heavy-handed.
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Thanks to a rare bipartisan effort in Richmond, patients in Virginia will soon have fewer costly surprises on their hospital bills.
After passing unanimously through the Senate and House of Delegates last week, HB 481, which requires Virginia hospitals to make public a list of standard charges for all items and services provided, now heads to Gov. Youngkin’s desk for his signature.
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Sixteen states again are challenging a federal COVID-19 vaccination mandate for health care workers who work at facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.
Friday’s filing in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana comes after the issuance of final guidance on the mandate from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), arguing the guidance is an action that is reviewable.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled by 5-4 vote Jan. 13 against the original Louisiana challenge to the mandate and a similar Missouri filing.
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On Friday, one day prior to being sworn in as Virginia’s new Attorney General, Jason Miyares (R-Va.) fired 30 employees in the Virginia Attorney General’s office, including the entirety of the Civil Rights Division.
As reported by the Daily Caller, 17 of the 30 employees who were fired were attorneys. Following the mass firing, Miyares spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita said that the new Attorney General was “restructuring the office, as every incoming AG has done in the past.” She noted that Miyares and former Attorney General Mark Herring (D-Va.), whom Miyares narrowly defeated in November, “have very different visions for the office.”
In response, Herring’s former spokeswoman Charlotte Gomer criticized the move, claiming that the fired employees were “dedicated and professional public servants who do important work, like investigate wrongful convictions, protect Virginians’ civil rights, help to ensure free and fair elections, and prevent human trafficking and opioid abuse.”
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There has been a great deal of discussion of the widespread Republican victories last week, many of them belaboring the obvious. Fundamentally, the United States is a political society based on personal freedom, a free market, and on democratically legislated and responsibly enforced laws. The current administration’s belief in virtually unrestricted immigration, higher taxes, authoritarian regulation—including COVID vaccine mandates, and a heavy redistribution of wealth from those who have earned it to those who have not—are all antagonistic to the ethos that the United States has had for all of its history. In the circumstances, some sort of reversal was almost inevitable and is the off-year American electoral custom.
Those who were surprised by the Republican victory in Virginia and the near-dead heat in New Jersey had not recognized the extent of the affront to traditional democratic voters of the Sanders-woke-leftward lurch.
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The 2021 elections are filled with key lessons for Republicans.
Vice President Kamala Harris had already warned in a Virginia visit late in the campaign that “what happens in Virginia will in large part determine what happens in 2022, 2024 and on.”
If Republicans learn the lessons of 2021 – and apply them to 2022 and 2024 – they can prove Harris was truly prophetic.
It is already clear that the Democrats’ power structure in Washington has learned nothing. In 2009, after losing Virginia and New Jersey, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through Obamacare four days later. Remember, she said cheerfully “Congress [has] to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”
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As U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland sat down for his first hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, denying a conflict of interest in his decision to investigate parents for “domestic terrorism,” there is a mother in the quiet suburb of Annandale, N.J., who found his answers lacking. And she has questions she wants asked at Garland’s hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee this Wednesday.
On a recent Saturday night, Caroline Licwinko, a mother of three, a law school student and the coach to her daughter’s cheerleading squad, sat in front of her laptop and tapped three words into an internet search engine: “Panorama. Survey. Results.”
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Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday faced a litany of hard-edged Senate questions about agreeing to allow federal law enforcement to investigate alleged incidents of outspoken parents at school board meetings.
Garland, in a memo, agreed to responded to a Sept. 29 letter from the National School Board Association to President Biden asking that the FBI, Justice Department and other federal agencies to investigate potential acts of domestic terrorism at the meetings. Parents across the nation have been voicing their concerns about the curricula being taught to their children, in addition to instances like the one currently playing out in northern Virginia, in which there was an apparent coverup of the sexual assault of a female student in a bathroom.
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Two weeks before Virginia’s bellwether election, Republican Glenn A. Youngkin‘s campaign is banging the pots and pans to draw attention to Democrat Terence R. “Terry” McAuliffe’s sudden end to his interview with WJLA-TV’s Nick Minock. Three times, a McAuliffe staffer interrupted the interview, which ended with this exchange: McAuliffe…
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Some more thoughts on the FOX News poll showing former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe up by 5 points over Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin just three (and now two) weeks out from the November 2nd election.
One of the numbers in the poll? McAuliffe’s support among black voters at +63. Which is shorthand for a 79/16 gap — which sounds atrocious (and quite frankly, is atrocious for a party built on the premise that all men should be free).
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Thomas Caldwell’s wife awakened him in a panic at 5:30 a.m. on January 19.
“The FBI is at the door and I’m not kidding,” Sharon Caldwell told her husband.
Caldwell, 66, clad only in his underwear, went to see what was happening outside his Virginia farm. “There was a full SWAT team, armored vehicles with a battering ram, and people screaming at me,” Caldwell told me during a lengthy phone interview on September 21. “People who looked like stormtroopers were pointing M4 weapons at me, covering me with red [laser] dots.”
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Six Afghan refugees in Virginia and Wisconsin have tested positive for the measles, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
The cases were reported among Afghan refugees who were evacuated to the U.S. after the Taliban took over Kabul, according to the AP. The cases were reported four days after flights bringing Afghans to the U.S. were suspended because some of the refugees had measles, the AP reported.
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The Daily Caller News Foundation interviewed Iranian-Christian Dimis Christophy, a Loudoun County, Virginia parent who unleashed on his child’s woke public school board during a meeting on August 10th. TRANSCRIPT: Christophy: Just to clear up, I know, King and Queen are not pronouns. I get it. Okay. There’s a…
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Two new polls today in the Virginia gubernatorial race between Democratic former governor Terry McAuliffe (D) and Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin (R) both showing McAuliffe to have a significant lead over his rival.
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There are more questions than answers about the likely thousands of Afghans who are coming to Wisconsin.
The Pentagon on Tuesday said 22,000 Afghan refugees will be sent to military bases in Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The Wisconsin base is Fort McCoy.
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With the new school year less than a month away, politicians are not in agreement on whether Virginia state law requires school divisions to impose mask mandates for students, teachers and faculty.
Gov. Ralph Northam said current law requires school divisions to enforce universal mask requirements, but some Republican leaders have accused him of lying and falsely interpreting the law.
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Over 200 Afghan allies arrived at Fort Lee, in Virginia, on the first of many expected flights bringing thousands of people who assisted the U.S. military to America, Axios reported Friday.
President Joe Biden promised to help Afghan interpreters and other people who aided U.S. forces during the war, according to Axios. Over 700 people and their family members are expected to come to the U.S. on special immigrant visas as American forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
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More than 800 businesses and business associations are jointly urging the Virginia General Assembly to approve a budget item for $291 million in relief to the travel and hospitality industries, which was proposed by Gov. Ralph Northam.
Northam’s proposal would appropriate funds from the federally passed American Rescue Plan to help these industries bounce back from losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic restrictions. The General Assembly is scheduled to meet on Aug. 2 to consider the budget proposal.
The businesses and business associations signed a joint letter showing their support. It includes the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the Virginia Restaurant Lodging and Travel Association.
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In an effort to prevent a future tax hike on Virginia businesses, Gov. Ralph Northam proposed allocating $862 million in federal relief money to the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, but a small business association is warning it might not be enough.
The Unemployment Trust Fund, which provides unemployed Virginians with benefits, is funded primarily through payroll taxes from employers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Virginia’s fund dried up and the state was forced to borrow money from the federal government. Unless the losses can be fully offset, business taxes would automatically increase to maintain the fund because of the state’s funding formula.
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Virginia Supreme Court Justice William C. Mims, a Republican who earlier served as a state lawmaker and state attorney general, has announced his plans to retire from the court next spring.
Mims, who would have been eligible for reappointment in anticipation of his term ending March 31, wrote in a letter to Gov. Ralph Northam (D), House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Springfield) and Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw (D-Alexandria) that he wants to “discern other opportunities to serve” as he turns 65 next year.
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Toward the end of the month, a state-imposed mask mandate at Virginia schools will no longer be enforced, but the state’s Department of Health is encouraging school divisions to create mask policies.
On July 25, the public health order forcing schools to require face coverings will expire and will not be renewed. However, the VDH issued guidelines that strongly recommend school divisions impose mask mandates for students, staff and teachers.
“Virginia has followed the science throughout this pandemic, and that’s what we continue to do,” Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement. “This guidance takes into consideration recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics, and will provide necessary flexibility for school divisions while ensuring a safe, healthy, and world-class learning environment for Virginia’s students. Again, I strongly urge every eligible Virginian to get vaccinated. Getting your shot will protect you, your family, and your community—and it is the only way we can beat this pandemic once and for all.”
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A business that is expanding jobs in Henrico County and another business that is relocating to Pulaski County are eligible to receive state incentives, Gov. Ralph Northam’s office announced Thursday.
SimpliSafe, a self-installed home security system provider in Henrico, is adding a second operation, which will add 250 jobs.
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The United States federal government is coming to Virginians’ doorsteps to ask for their personal medical information and vaccination status. Vaccination efforts in the western Tidewater counties of Franklin, Suffolk, Isle of Wight County, and Southampton County are ramping up to include door-to-door operations.
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Virginia won first place in CNBC’s ranking of top states for business in 2021, a repeat performance from 2019, the last time the ranking was issued. On Tuesday, Governor Ralph Northam stopped in the Port of Virginia for a CNBC broadcast and a press conference.
“Virginia continues to be the best place to do business because of our world-class education institutions, talented workforce, and shared commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion,” Northam said in a press release.
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The Republican Party of Virginia is requesting the University of Virginia perform an ethics investigation into the university’s Center for Politics, alleging its director has shown strong partisanship toward Democrats in his taxpayer-funded role.
The Center for Politics was created by Dr. Larry Sabato, a political scientist and analyst, for the purpose of inspiring people to engage with politics and instill the values of freedom, justice, equality, civility and service, according to its website. Sabato is the current director of the center and labels it as nonpartisan.
Rich Anderson, the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia sent a letter to UVA President James Ryan requesting the university investigate statements by Sabato for potentially violating the university’s Code of Ethics. In the letter, Anderson said certain Tweets show “bitter partisanship,” which “a reasonable taxpaying citizen can readily conclude.”
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A Virginia board will meet Tuesday to consider changing or ending business regulations it introduced to curb the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic, some of which have been confusing business owners.
Earlier this year, the Department of Labor and Industry established permanent regulations on businesses, which could only end or be changed through another meeting by the department’s Safety Health Codes Board. When the board adopted the regulations, it also added a provision that required it to meet within two weeks after the state of emergency for COVID-19 ended. The last day of the emergency declaration was June 30.
The rules were initially in line with Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive orders, but after the governor rescinded some of the requirements, the two standards seemed to contradict on certain issues. The governor requires some employees to wear masks if they are not fully vaccinated. The DOLI regulations require those employees to wear masks and make no mention of vaccinations, but later guidance stated vaccinated individuals were not required to wear masks.
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A Virginia law that went into effect Thursday makes releasing balloons illegal.
Individuals who are 16 years old and older who release balloons in the state will now be fined $25, according to a summary of the law. In the case where someone below the age of 16 releases a balloon “at the instruction of an adult,” the adult will be fined.
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Some Virginia universities intend to prohibit marijuana on campus grounds after it becomes legal for recreational use for adults age 21 and older in the state.
Although the commonwealth will allow legal possession beginning in two weeks, the plant still is illegal at the federal level and a schedule I drug under the controlled substance act. If a university allows marijuana on campus, some universities worry it could threaten their federal funding.
A spokesperson from James Madison University told The Center Square the Office of Student Accountability and Restorative Practices will continue to address incidents of marijuana on campus because use and possession are illegal under federal law.
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Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam held a ceremonial bill signing on legislation that provides financial assistance for higher education to students who are in the country illegally.
House Bill 2123/Senate Bill 1387 will allow students who are in the state illegally to access education benefits equal to residents of the commonwealth, including in-state tuition and financial assistance programs the state provides for public and private colleges and universities.
“Until last year, undocumented students had to pay out-of-state tuition rates,” Northam said Monday during the ceremony at Marymount University. “We’re all proud to have changed that. Lowering the cost barriers for children who have grown up in our schools. And now it’s time to give those students the opportunity to get help in paying for their education.”
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Virginians who receive food stamps will continue to be eligible for higher pandemic-era benefits through June, the Virginia Department of Social Services announced.
Families receiving food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will see additional benefits automatically loaded onto their EBT cards. The funds will be added n June 16.
A household of one will be eligible for up to $234 monthly while the emergency funding continues. A family of two could receive up to $430, a family of three up to $616 and a family of four up to $782. The funding gradually increases for every additional member of a family.
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Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin is two points below former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe in a new WPA Intelligence poll. This, according to an article that The Republican Standard published Thursday. The poll said Youngkin had 46 percent while McAuliffe had 48 percent.
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The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles is gradually expanding its appointment opportunities this month and next month now that most of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have come to an end.
Starting June 1, the DMV opened 184,000 additional appointment opportunities and the department will open up more appointments June 15 and again in July. Residents can secure their slots for the June 15 appointment expansion at this time. The department is hiring and training new employees to keep up with the higher number of appointments.
“Virginians have told us they appreciate the convenience and high quality service the appointment system affords,” Commissioner Richard D. Holcomb said in a news release at the time of the announcement. “The Governor’s announcement … enables us to open more windows so customers can secure appointments sooner, but we are still taking great care to offer service that is safe for everyone.”
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