Richmond’s Columbus Statue Pulled Down, Covid-19 Outbreaks In Roanoke Valley, Concerns Over Danville Teacher Contract, And More Headlines

From the Virginia Mercury:

By Ned Oliver

NEWS TO KNOW
Our daily roundup of headlines from Virginia and elsewhere.

• Protesters in Richmond pulled a statue of Christopher Columbus off its pedestal and rolled it into a nearby lake. “People came to this country, they raped, murdered, took land that wasn’t theirs, and then the city is commemorating them for what reason?” said one participant.—VPM

• A Virginia state trooper resigned after claiming in a text message he coughed on a Mennonite man he was ticketing in hopes it “would spread Corona to the wedding they were going too. lol.”—Associated Press

• The Portsmouth Police Department said it took unspecified “corrective action” against two officers who “failed to meet the Department’s high expectations” when responding to a protest on Interstate 264 in Norfolk last week.—The Virginian-Pilot

• “Fairfax County moved Tuesday to speed the purchase of body cameras for its police force, a change years in the making that has gained renewed urgency after a county police officer used a stun gun on a black man without provocation Saturday.”—The Washington Post

• Franklin County school leaders voted to ban students from wearing clothing with the Confederate flag on it, a proposal they voted down less than six months ago.—The Roanoke Times

• Virginia Tech administrators say they will revisit discussions on whether to rename a dorm named for Claudius Lee, an 1896 alumni described in a school yearbook as a campus Ku Klux Klan leader. University officials had previously cited “historical evidence suggesting the KKK reference was likely more a 19th-century student prank than a reflection of an active campus group.”—The Roanoke Times

• In Hanover County, about 100 parents, students and teachers protested outside a School Board meeting demanding the district remove Confederate names from its schools, a change the county has resisted for years.—Richmond Times-Dispatch

• “Cases of COVID-19 are increasing at a faster pace in the Roanoke Valley since businesses began to reopen and have caused at least a dozen outbreaks in businesses, restaurants, long-term care, a day care and a church.”—The Roanoke Times

• Teachers in Danville are worried that a clause the local school district added to their new contract means they won’t get paid if another shutdown occurs.—The Danville Register & Bee

• Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, filed two lawsuits challenging Northam’s COVID-19 restrictions on behalf of clients with wedding event and restaurant businesses.—WTOP

• U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Westmoreland, is the first Republican member of the state’s congressional delegation to march in a Black Lives Matter protest.—WVTF

• Last week Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, warned her constituents on Facebook to arm themselves because violent leftists were coming to the county, suggesting she’d gotten the information from county police. PolitiFact Virginia says what actually happened is she got duped by hoax Facebook pages.—VPM

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