Covering the Chickahominy Pipeline Project
Other Stories at 8News
‘Who was manning the cameras?’: Virginia mother seeks answers after son’s death in solitaryWISE COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — The body of Anwar Phillips was discovered on Jan. 4, 2022, in his solitary cell at Virginia’s notorious Red Onion State Prison. Another prisoner has been charged in his death — but Phillips’ mother says she wants answers the Virginia Department of Corrections won’t give her.
“If you’re saying the gentleman across the hall in the opposite cell murdered my son, why was there no rope when they went and opened the door?” Vernetta Phillips asks. “Why were they calling it in as cardiac arrest when clearly there was supposed to be a rope with a ligature?” Read More |
Charlottesville jury awards over $24 million in damages in ‘Unite the Right’ trialCHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WRIC) — A jury found defendants in the federal lawsuit related to the Unite the Right rally in 2017 liable for four out of the six claims against them, but were unable to reach a verdict on the remaining two claims.
The jury found all two dozen defendants liable for civil conspiracy and racial, religious or ethnic harassment. They also found James Alex Fields, Jr., the perpetrator of a deadly car attack, liable for assault and battery and infliction of emotional harm against several of the defendants, claims for which they were cumulatively awarded $12 million in punitive damages. Read More |
Troubled veteran or public danger: Who was the owner of Henrico ‘fortified drug house’?
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HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — Michael Hardy, the owner of a home in Henrico’s West End described by police as a “fortified drug house,” was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Friday, with his defense painting a portrait of a struggling veteran and county prosecutors calling him a danger to the community.
Hardy, 53, was arrested in March 2022 after police searched his home on Durwood Crescent, finding drugs, firearms, improvised explosives and over 19,000 rounds of ammunition. Hardy pleaded guilty to the six charges against him in October, and during his sentencing hearing on Friday, Jan. 13, his defense argued that in light of his long service as a marine and national guard member, he should be granted leniency and sentenced to the mandatory minimum of five years. The prosecution, on the other hand, pointed to the severity of his crimes, including introducing young people to dangerous narcotics, as reason that a sentence of more than ten years should be imposed. Read More |
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Misleading, outdated data cited by both sides of Wythe debate |
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RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — On Tuesday, the Richmond school board and city council once again met to discuss the construction of the new George Wythe High School in Southside – and once again failed to hammer out an agreement to move forward.
Part of the problem is that both sides have repeatedly cited conflicting data on projected costs and the needs of the community – and often the data cited is faulty or outdated. Central to the debate is a report commissioned by the city in 2019, which projected around 1,000 new students would enter the entire school division by 2029 – meaning 70% of them would have to be zoned for George Wythe, just one of five high schools in the city, to justify the extra capacity. But that prediction was made three years ago – so how have the report’s findings held up? Read the Full Story Here Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to tell. Because of COVID-19, Richmond Schools went virtual in 2020-2021, contributing to a spike in enrollments. But the subsequent return to in-person learning this year sent fall enrollment levels crashing back down.
The administration expects those levels to recover over the course of this year, but it’s unclear how much. However, the firm also made another projection for the total population of Richmond. That data point was used in part to project enrollments, so cross-checking it will give some idea of the report’s overall accuracy. According to the report, Richmond should have reached a population of 214,270 by 2020, and additionally, they projected the city would reach a population of 220,770 by 2030. The U.S. Census Bureau found that in 2020 the population of Richmond was 226,610. That means the report significantly under-estimated Richmond’s population growth – and likely under-estimated student enrollment as well. |
The Wythe Can’t Wait Coalition, a community organization that has called for the school board to build a 2,000 seat school, issued a press release ahead of the meeting that cited a narrower statistic: 9th-grade enrollment. “9th grade enrollment at Wythe prior to the pandemic already well exceeded 400: 443 students in 2017-2018 and 450 students in 2019-2020,” the organization wrote. “Even without rezoning or other expected enrollment shifts associated with a new building, if Wythe simply continued to enroll and graduate classes of this size, demand would far exceed the 1,600 seats currently planned by the school board.” But those statistics don’t paint the whole picture. Enrollment trends at George Wythe (shown below) suggest that the group cherry-picked their data. While enrollment at George Wythe did rise rapidly in 2017-2018, enrollment leveled out in subsequent years – and more importantly, 9th-grade enrollment levels weren’t maintained through the other 3 grade levels. Read a full breakdown of the data on 8News |
Stories at the Virginia Dogwood
Taking a Stand: Virginia College Faculty Unionize Despite Restrictions
 On February 26, students and faculty gathered in front of the historic Wren building on the campus of the College of William and Mary (Photo: Jakob Cordes)
RICHMOND - Virginia remains one of the most hostile environments for workers in the United States. One of the biggest challenges to unionization on Virginia college campuses is a state law barring public employees, such as teachers and civil servants, from collective bargaining. That legislation is a part of Virginia’s broader “right to work” framework, which severely limits union activity statewide.
But that hasn’t stopped workers at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), William and Mary, and other universities across the Commonwealth from speaking out against inadequate pay, unstable contracts, and lax responses to the COVID-19 epidemic. William and Mary’s Worker’s Union The William and Mary Worker’s Union (WMWU) started when, in the Summer of 2019, the college delayed payment to graduate students in the anthropology department for over a month. The college later claimed this delay was due to a processing error. Initially, the graduate students, who teach classes, conduct research, and assist in academic administration, only wanted greater transparency and consistency in their compensation. But when the graduate students started organizing, they quickly noticed disparities with other college departments. For example, unlike many STEM programs, theirs didn’t provide health insurance and often paid much less for similar work. “We began organizing among grad students at the university,” said union president Jasper Conner, “And quickly realized we lacked power to influence the university if we focused only on our issues as graduate workers.” Read More |
Stories at VPM
VCU Summit Tackles Richmond's 'Food Deserts'On Friday, public policy researchers, government officials and local food bank leaders convened remotely to discuss ways to improve food access for Richmond citizens. The summit, hosted by VCU, offered recommendations for public policy, including developing mobile applications to connect farmers to buyers and partnering with nonprofits to improve the availability of fresh food. According to data collected by the USDA and the Reinvestment Fund, a neighborhood revitalization nonprofit, Richmond has several neighborhoods with limited access to groceries. Often, this is a result of inadequate public transportation and so-called ‘food deserts’ - areas with no grocery stores or other sources of fresh produce. This can be a major health issue, because people in these areas are forced to rely disproportionately on fast food and convenience stores. Read the Full Article |
Areas of Richmond with limited access to commercial groceries. (Source: www.policymap.com)
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General Registrar J. Kirk Showalter demonstrates a mail-in absentee ballot, one of several alternative methods of voting available this year. (Photo: Jakob Cordes/VPM)
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New Registrar's Office Inaccessible Without CarOn September 11, city officials and Mayor Levar Stoney inaugurated the new Registrar of Voters office in Northside. The old downtown office will remain open for the current election as a 'satellite' in-person voting site. Officials said the move to 2134 West Laburnum Avenue will let them serve more people at once with social distancing measures in place, but advocates say the location is inaccessible to the nearly 17% of Richmond households without cars. Read the Full Article |
Volunteers, New Ownership Breathe Life into Historic CemeteryWalking past a brush pile at Woodland Cemetery, Kathleen Harrel stops to point out a group of headstones, set back only a few feet from the road. “This is the section that we've been working on since last August. And if you can imagine, nothing but a wall of brush, like you couldn't see that large stone at all.”
Harrel, a teacher in Henrico County, has been volunteering at Woodland Cemetery for over a year, clearing brush and helping to identify gravestones, some of which are over a hundred years old. She says they’ve had to redo sections cleared last summer, which grew back when they stopped work due to the pandemic. “We cleared this back in August, and two weeks ago a lot of it was back up,” Harrel said. |
Marvin Harris became involved with the restoration of historic Black cemeteries in Richmond during a service project with former high school classmates. (Photo: Jakob Cordes/VPM)
Much of Woodland's 30 acres are hidden under thick overgrowth. (Photo: Jakob Cordes/VPM)
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Idle Hands Bread Company has been forced to drastically alter its operations since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. (Photo: Jakob Cordes/VPM)
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Organizers Say COVID-19 Demands Solidarity, Not CharityFood, clothing, medicine, and sanitary products are just some of the many items being distributed by RVA COVID-19 Mutual Aid and Community Care during the pandemic.
According to Ayanna Ogaldez, a founding member of the group, they originally formed two years ago to provide assistance to people without heat during a cold snap. “Folks that are left-leaning here in Richmond, anarchists and folks like that, got together because we realized that the city's response, specifically to houseless folks in Richmond, was not sufficient,” she said. |
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Explainers at the Diplomatic Courier
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Stories at the Diplomatic Courier
Bolivia’s Lithium Crisis
On November 10, 2019, former Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to resign the presidency at the request of military officials, and subsequently fled the country, eventually receiving political asylum in Mexico. The presidency is now held by Jeanine Áñez, a right-wing politician and member of the second-largest opposition party.
The current crisis has its roots in a 2017 decision by the Bolivian Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the country’s highest court, to allow Morales to run for a fourth term, voiding term limits laid out in the 2009 constitution. When the election was conducted in October 2019, initial vote counts seemed to indicate that Morales would win a plurality but would not receive the ten-point margin needed to win outright and prevent a runoff. However, the initial count was suspended, and the subsequent official count saw Morales narrowly win a ten-point lead.
The current crisis has its roots in a 2017 decision by the Bolivian Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the country’s highest court, to allow Morales to run for a fourth term, voiding term limits laid out in the 2009 constitution. When the election was conducted in October 2019, initial vote counts seemed to indicate that Morales would win a plurality but would not receive the ten-point margin needed to win outright and prevent a runoff. However, the initial count was suspended, and the subsequent official count saw Morales narrowly win a ten-point lead.
The New Environmentalists: Combatting Euroscepticism with Green Politics
The Manifesto of the European Green Party, an alliance representing national green parties in the European Parliament, begins “A vote for the Greens is a vote for change. It is a vote to not let go of Europe.” This message evidently resonated with voters in the most recent European election, which had the highest turnout since 1994, and saw significant gains not only for the Greens, but also for Renew Europe (a pro-European liberal-centrist party). As Euroscepticism gains traction on the right, the European Green Party is uniquely situated to offer a strong argument for a united Europe, if they can move beyond their image as a single-issue bloc.
The Green movement in Europe is in some ways inextricably linked with the institution of the European Union, with both the German Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and French Les Verts (The Greens) emerging in the eighties and nineties as the decline and fall of the Soviet Union increased hopes for European unity. Both parties positioned themselves as alternatives to the traditional left/right spectrum, organizing around specific issues like opposition to nuclear power, promotion of European integration, and, beginning in the nineties, combatting global warming.
The Green movement in Europe is in some ways inextricably linked with the institution of the European Union, with both the German Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and French Les Verts (The Greens) emerging in the eighties and nineties as the decline and fall of the Soviet Union increased hopes for European unity. Both parties positioned themselves as alternatives to the traditional left/right spectrum, organizing around specific issues like opposition to nuclear power, promotion of European integration, and, beginning in the nineties, combatting global warming.