Va. unemployment rate sees longest rise since ’08 crisis
Virginia's unemployment rate is on a steady five-month increase — the longest streak since the 2008 Great Recession. The Trump administration's federal job slashing and freezing of grants, contracts and medical research may be to blame. Virginia's unemployment rate climbed to 3.4% in May, per new U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. While still below the national average (4.2%), the uptick marks the state's highest unemployment level since August 2021. The state's total labor force decreased by more than 11,500 compared with last May, according to new Virginia Works household survey data.
Legislators call for revisiting Clean Economy Act as rural Virginia rejects large solar farms
Five years after the General Assembly enacted the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which mandates Dominion Energy transition to 100% carbon-free power sources by 2045, two Republican legislators who represent Isle of Wight and Surry counties say the goal is easier said than done. It’s a position two of the state’s top Democrats, who voted to enact the 2020 law when their party held both legislative chambers and the governor’s office, say they’ve come to share.
Candidates for Virginia governor respond to the words of an immigrant mother with U.S.-born children
President Donald Trump is removing people without legal status from the United States, and Virginia, at a breakneck pace. It’s brought federal agents into communities across the Commonwealth, including Chesterfield County where more than a dozen people have been removed in recent days. They’re targeting folks like the one mother of three U.S. born children who live outside of D.C. We’re only referring to her as “the mother” because she fears deportation. Her husband, and the father of two of her children, who we’re not naming for similar reasons, was deported in front of those kids last month.
Virginia hospitals bracing for Medicaid changes
A budget and tax bill moving through Congress could devastate rural hospitals across Southwest Virginia, potentially forcing closures, major job losses and cuts to essential services, health care leaders are warning. “The reconciliation bill currently before congress, as written, will lead to the closure of rural hospitals and will have a disproportionate impact on Red States. Not sure there is any other way to put it,” Alan Levine, CEO of Ballad Health, wrote on X on June 17. Ballad, the dominant health care provider in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee, serves some of the region’s most rural and medically underserved communities, where its hospitals are often the only source of inpatient care for miles.
Wet spring keeps Virginia crops growing despite early summer’s blazing heat
This week Virginia has set new heat records and come close to beating old ones for this time of year. The Richmond airport recorded a temperature of 99 degrees at the hottest part of the day on Tuesday, Roanoke reached 99, and Alexandria reached 98. Those high temperatures come at a crucial time for many crops growing across the commonwealth. “We are at a critical point for certain crops like corn that are either about to pollinate or our pollinating and so it will have an impact,” said Wilmer Stoneman, vice president of agriculture development and innovation for the Virginia Farm Bureau.
Charles City County defers data center decision amid public outcry
Charles City County has again deferred a decision on a planned 500-acre data center campus. The county Board of Supervisors unanimously decided Tuesday to delay voting on the proposed Roxbury Technology Park, after previously postponing the decision in May. Kansas-based Diode Ventures first submitted plans for the park last November and is seeking to rezone around 515 acres about 20 miles due east of Richmond to allow for the campus.
Yancey: Earle-Sears and Spanberger ditch a Virginia tradition. Will they even debate at all?
Virginia, like the seasons, once had four great political traditions. All now seem to be discarded, trampled over by changing times. The great springtime rite of passage once was the Shad Planking, a fish roast (shad cooked on wooden planks over an open fire) in Sussex County that was more remembered for the political speeches than the cuisine.
Wagner: Stop the PREVAIL Act from raising drug prices
Recently, the Virginia General Assembly took a big step in lowering prescription drug prices. A bipartisan bill passed both the House and the Senate that would create a board to oversee prescription drug prices, identify excessively priced medications, and recommend strategies to lower costs, including potential price caps. This bill represented a long-overdue recognition that the status quo is unsustainable and unfair to working families.
