Rep. Good Calls For Cameras In Classrooms; More Va., Headlines

Staff Report, Virginia Mercury

August 1, 2022

• “Facing tough political head winds and inflation,” Democrats in Virginia are “advocating for abortion rights, and for others, same-sex marriage and contraception, as a key message in a midterm election cycle expected to favor Republicans.”—Washington Post

• “Thirty Virginia legislators called on the Biden administration Saturday to take action on behalf of Asim Ghafoor, a friend and former lawyer of slain dissident Jamal Khashoggi who’s been imprisoned by the United Arab Emirates.”—Associated Press

• A letter written to a judge by a former Rocky Mount police officer convicted of six crimes for his participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol offers the most detailed public accounting of his actions to date.—Roanoke Times

• Undocumented students can now receive in-state financial aid at certain colleges in Virginia after passage of a 2021 law.—VPM

• Local governments are struggling to recruit and retain workers in a job market transformed by COVID-19.—Richmond Times-Dispatch

• Virginia congressman Bob Good is calling for cameras to be placed in classrooms. “We want to make sure that we don’t have indoctrination going on in our schools.”—WVTF

• Virginia’s housing market is slowing down. The median home price remains roughly 7% higher than it was a year ago.—Virginia Business

• The Rappahannock Area Health District failed to pay “hundreds of thousands of dollars of invoices” last year and is being forced to end dozens of contracts.—Free Lance-Star

• Nearly 85,000 residents and businesses in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Portsmouth will gain access to high-speed internet after a Waynesboro-based company lays more than 760 miles of fiber-optic cable in the region.—Virginian-Pilot

• The CEO of the contracting company that took down Richmond’s Robert E. Lee monument and nearly two dozen other Confederate statues in Virginia is planning to raise money for charity by selling digital artwork inspired by their removal in the cryptocurrency market.—Richmond Times-Dispatch

• Montgomery County and Blacksburg are forming a land trust in an effort to create permanent affordable housing stock in one of Southwest Virginia’s more expensive real estate pockets.—Roanoke Times

• Richmond’s top prosecutor said she won’t pursue criminal charges against police officers who used tear gas on a crowd of protesters on Monument Avenue ahead of a city-imposed curfew in the summer of 2020. Police recently said the use of the chemicals wasn’t warranted.—Richmond Times-Dispatch

• A lonely wild horse named Alma who wandered for weeks on the Outer Banks has finally found her harem.—Virginian-Pilot

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