The Compton-Bateman House in Better Days

Preservation Virginia’s 2013 list of endangered places ranges from 12 acres of old growth hardwoods to century-old schools built for Africa American students. The sites on the list are threatened by development, neglect and a lack of funding. Tim Thornton reports.

Scientists don’t often get involved in political campaigns, but in Virginia one of the nation’s leading men of science has stepped up to endorse a candidate for attorney general.  Sandy Hausman tells why.

Virginia lawmakers say they’re united in their attempts to combat sexual harassment in the military. But Matt Laslo found that lawmakers haven’t found a legislative fix yet.

The race to stay ahead of drug resistant ‘super bugs’ threatens to be a losing battle.  But a Blacksburg company is working on an innovative solution to the problem.  Robbie Harris has more.

Next month, the federal government is expected to announce whether it will allow fracking – an intensive form of drilling for natural gas – in the George Washington National Forest, a popular area for hiking, hunting and fishing.  Sandy Hausman paid a visit to the forest and filed this report.

Regardless of the legal outcome, the issues surrounding a former chef from the governor’s mansion and gifts from the CEO of a company called Star Scientific may take a political toll on the state’s top Republicans.  Sandy Hausman has that story.

Virginia Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte could play an outsized role in this year’s immigration debate. But Matt Laslo reports that some Democrats accuse him and other Republicans of trying to kill the effort.

Doctors have long advised people with high blood pressure to cut back on salt consumption, but a new study from the University of Virginia says that may not be necessary.  Sandy Hausman tells why.

Photo Courtesy of U.Va.’s Curry School of Education

If you’re a parent or grandparent with young children, you’ve probably heard about red-shirting – a term borrowed from the world of college sports.  It refers to keeping a child back in school, so he or she will be a little older than classmates and have some academic and social advantages.  Sandy Hausman reports a new study takes a close look at that practice, which concerns some educators.

A hearing in Richmond Circuit Court Thursday could mean more trouble for Virginia’s Governor, whose relationship with a Richmond-area businessman is the subject of an FBI investigation.  It could also have implications for his fellow Republican,  attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who will ask to be excused from the case.  Sandy Hausman reports on the case of a former chef at the governor’s mansion, and why it’s a problem for the state’s top Republicans.

Lawmakers in the region are divided over a measure to give more flexibility to the FAA while leaving strict spending requirements in place for other parts of the government.  Matt Laslo reports from the Capitol.

Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to exempt members of Congress and their staffs from participating in new health insurance exchanges. Matt Laslo reports that while critics say the idea is hypocritical … at least one lawmaker in the region says it’s a valid option.

Federal and state wildlife agencies are searching for those responsible for poisoning six bald eagles last month on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Pamela D’Angelo reports.

Photo: August Rode/Flickr via Chesapeake Bay Program

Virginia and other Chesapeake Bay States are under orders from the EPA to reduce the amount of phosphorous and nitrogen going into our rivers and streams, but a new report adds urgency to the cause.  Sandy Hausman has that story.

A massive community search is over, after police found the body of a second Virginia State University student in the Appomattox River. The two victims – both 19-year-old freshmen – apparently drowned during what police are calling a hazing ritual.  Sandy Hausman has more on that story.

A progress update of the first- ever phased separation of conjoined twins sharing vital organs indicates both girls are doing just fine. The six-month-olds, A’zhari and A’zhiah Jones, spent their first full day completely separated at Virginia Commonwealth University after doctors performed a complex procedure that now allows them to live apart on the same liver. Tommie McNeil report.

Five years after the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery was declared a federal disaster an annual scientific survey shows the population is far below the previous year, but scientist’s are not too worried. Pamela D’Angelo reports.

Virginia’s senators say they aren’t giving up on efforts to pass stricter federal gun laws even as they were dealt a major setback last week. Matt Laslo has the details from Washington.

Governor Bob McDonnell issued a letter earlier this month urging college presidents and boards to hold the line on in-state tuition – a plea repeated Thursday by the University of Virginia’s Rector Helen Dragas, but the board of visitors voted 14 to 2 to increase tuition and fees by 3.8%  or about $450 for in-staters and 4.8% — just over $1,800 for students from other states.  The board approved even bigger tuition and fee hikes for students in the law, business, engineering and medical schools.  The meeting was disrupted twice by students demanding a living wage for housekeepers, cooks, maintenance workers and other staff, as Sandy Hausman reports.

Many Virginians are heaving a sigh of relief after getting tax returns done and in the mail, but for some the challenge of paying taxes as just begun.  They’re the ones who get notices from the IRS.  At the very least, that’s an annoyance, and for some it’s a nightmare, but free help could be a phone call away as Sandy Hausman reports.

Virginia’s rural Eastern Shore community is getting back to normal after Charles Smith confessed to a majority of the 77 arsons set there since November. The area has an abundance of renovated manors and crumbling structures, some more than 200 years old. At first residents were glad when arsonists targeted derelict houses. But as the crimes went on, they began to wear on the tiny community. Pamela D’Angelo reports.

It has been six years since the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech, when the words, “We are all Hokies” echoed around the world. Recent events suggest these horrific acts show no sign of abating.  But the Director of the Center for Applied Behavior Systems at Virginia Tech believes there may be a solution to this trend of tragedy, which seems to have society in its grip.  Robbie Harris prepared this report.

President Obama’s  new budget has of course sparked a battle on Capitol Hill. Matt Laslo reports on how Virginia lawmakers are reacting to the president’s blueprint for the nation.

It’s that time of year again, when The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Charlottesville issues its annual Muzzle Awards – also known as the Muzzies.  As always – there are some incredible accounts of free speech repressed, as Sandy Hausman reports.

April may be known for more than showers this year.  As Beverly Amsler reports, some insects will make a return this spring after nearly two decades underground.

This Friday, Virginia’s Board of Health meets again to vote on controversial new rules that would force women’s health clinics that provide abortions to meet standards written for hospitals – or to close.  Now, a candidate for lieutenant governor says guidelines issued by the governor himself dictate another course of action for the so-called Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers – or TRAP.  Sandy Hausman has that story.

National Republican leaders are doing some soul searching after suffering losses in November. But Matt Laslo reports that some Virginia Republicans are wary of a new re-branding effort being conducted by the national party.

The skills that veterans acquire in the military could be aligned with formal credentials for civilian jobs under the first bill that Senator Tim Kaine has introduced in the U.S. Senate.

Kaine unveiled his legislation at the American Legion Headquarters in Richmond yesterday.  He said that as of February this year, the unemployment rate among “Gulf War 2” veterans was 9.5%—up from 7.6 % since early last year.

Under the “Troop Talent Act,” service members would be given information throughout their military careers about earning civilian certifications that match their military occupational training. The Department of Defense would also provide more information to organizations that award credentials and licenses so that they can match the skill sets.  The bill would also seek to prevent fraud by establishing strict standards for courses or programs that guarantee a credential after successful completion.  Additionally, it would add Information Technology to a DOD pilot program that aims to increase access to high-demand career fields.

With the arrival of spring, flu season comes to an end.  Officials say 2013 was an especially bad year, with much of the country reporting high rates of disease.  The Centers for Disease Control recommended anyone over the age of six months be vaccinated, but many took a pass.  A new report from Virginia Tech sheds some light on why parents might choose to ignore medical advice when it comes to vaccines.  Sandy Hausman reports.

Opposition has continued to legislation that requires a new statewide school division to take over under-performing schools until they turnaround—even after Governor McDonnell proposed amendments last week.

The bill would establish a new Opportunity Educational Institution Board to assume management of schools that have been denied accreditation, but the Virginia Education Association, organizations representing school boards and superintendents, and the PTA are among the groups calling on lawmakers to reject them.

As Virginia Public Radio’s Anne Marie Morgan reports, they didn’t like the bill before—and say they like it even less with the amendments.

The public comment period is now underway on the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ proposed new regulations for Fox Hound training preserves.  Robbie Harris has more on the story.

State lawmakers are again taking sides in the battle over abortion.  Governor McDonnell is now asking legislators to impose a limit on insurance policies to be sold here through a federal exchange – a place where Virginians who don’t have coverage through work or school can buy it.  Sandy Hausman has more on that story.

The U.S. attorney’s office is investigating a Richmond area company that makes face cream and nutritional supplements.  It’s called Star Scientific, and a complaint was filed in federal district court alleging the firm made false and misleading statements and failed to disclose potentially illegal transactions.  The company says it has done nothing wrong.  Meanwhile, reporters are finding links between Star Scientific and two of Virginia’s top political leaders – Governor Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  Sandy Hausman has details.

A day after presumptive Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe made a statement about his desire to implement Medicaid expansion, Governor McDonnell and McAuliffe’s GOP opponent have responded.  McDonnell says he’s not caving in to the pressure to implement the expansion without reforms… and has submitted budget amendments to require those changes.  As Virginia Public Radio’s Tommie McNeil reports, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says the Governor is doing the right thing.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government has pledged to pay the full cost for additional Medicaid recipients and will scale back to paying no less than 90% after that.

There are still eight long months before Virginians head to the polls to choose a new governor, but Quinnipiac University’s Peter Brown expects the race to about as tight then as it is now. And as Virginia Public Radio’s  Tommie McNeil reports, that may have a lot to do with candidate identity—or the lack thereof—when it comes to Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

If you’ve been saving photos, notes and videos to your favorite social media sites and are counting on them to be there indefinitely, think again.  As Sondra Woodward explains, the Web may not the best place for storing the record of your life.

In the rural beach community of Accomack County on the Eastern Shore, state and federal investigators are searching for clues in the ashes of what is now the 73rd arson since last November.

Many of the old farmhouses being targeted are used only during the summer by visitors or migrant workers who harvest and pack produce.

State Police spokeswoman Sgt. Michelle Anaya said the arsons happen at night and neighbors live a mile or more away from each other making it difficult to see anyone suspicious.

Much of the evidence is either burned or washed away by fire hoses. But investigators do have the beginnings of a profile.
Sgt. Anaya says this person or persons are very familiar with the territory; they are very familiar with the abandoned buildings.

The youngest and the oldest people in our communities sometimes find themselves marginalized.  Often they are seen in terms of what they take from society, because of what they cannot yet do, or what they can no longer do.  Robbie Harris has this report on what these book end generations are doing together.

Safaris in Africa remain a popular choice for travelers in search of adventure, but they’re expensive and often require vaccinations and medications to guard against life-threatening disease.  Now, a British company is offering something it believes will sell just as well – setting up headquarters in Virginia and selling trans-Atlantic travelers on an American Safari.  Sandy Hausman has more.

Several northern Virginia communities are the healthiest in the state.

The annual County Health Rankings & Roadmaps lists Fairfax County as number 1, followed by Loudoun, Arlington, Albemarle, and York Counties.  Meanwhile, Henry, Dickenson, Buchanan, and Tazewell Counties were at the bottom followed by the city of Petersburg, which had the least healthy residents.

All 133 Virginia localities listed in the report were measured on the length and quality of life as well as health factors.  Bob Hicks from the Virginia Department of Health, says the rankings haven’t changed much over the four years the study has been conducted.

“Between the social and economic factors and the access, I think we keep seeing the same sort of problems in Southwest and Southside Virginia that we need to get more facilities out there that people have access to.”

But money for more clinics can be a challenge, no matter where in the Commonwealth they would be located.

“Some of our poor areas want to attract more economic development.  And they find the corporations, the companies that want to come to these areas are looking for a healthy workforce.  So there’s a willingness to maybe sometimes invest in some of these changes that can be made to try to change and improve the health of the workforce.”

Hicks says the report is a tool to spur dialog in the communities and to create or continue programs for promoting good health.

–Beverly Amsler

Producing a book in the 21st century is no easy job, unless you decide to publish yourself, but a Waynesboro woman has found her niche and is now writing the fourth of seven books commissioned by a prominent publishing house.   What’s more, she’s up for a national award as Sandy Hausman reports.audio https://virginiapublicradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/prerollaggie.mp3%5D

You can hear more from Molly Bryan during the Virginia Festival of the Book.  She’s on panels meeting this week  in Charlottesville.

Stock Photo

Virginia’s Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is investigating the mysterious deaths of four bald eagles found on the Eastern Shore.

Like a detective eliminating suspects Dr. Megan Kirchgessner, the vet investigating the deaths said one autopsy shows no smoking gun, literally.

“The one eagle that I necropsied I did not see any evidence of gunshot or trauma. I sent two intact eagles to one laboratory and we still have a fourth one in the freezer in case we need any extra samples,” she said.

A fifth immature eagle was recovered alive. The Wildlife Center of Virginia found the bird had ingested metal fragments and treated it for lead poisoning.

“He’s doing quite well. He arrived at the Wildlife Center a little bit depressed, dehydrated a little bit thin. But eating really well, and has been moved to an outside cage,” said Kirchgessner.

Kirchgessner said the bird offers no clues as to what happened. But the answer may be in lab results.

–Pamela D’Angelo

A Virginia Republican is getting some heat for supporting a bipartisan bill to stop gun trafficking.

Scott Rigell was one of the first Republican lawmakers to sign onto gun control legislation. The bill he supports increases penalties on people caught trafficking guns. That did not sit well with the National Association for Gun Rights which put up ads in Rigell’s district saying the Republican wants to “pass Obama’s gun control.” Rigell says that’s an utter distortion.

“There’s no infringement whatsoever. The bill is very narrow in scope. It’s good legislation, so I’m glad I sponsored it.”

But the attack ads show how much pressure is on Republicans, and even Democrats, to keep the nation’s gun laws unchanged. But Rigell says he has no regrets.

“Well I certainly knew that there was some risk in standing next to my Democratic colleagues as a Republican on this issue, but there’s risk in doing what one thinks is right.”

Rigell also notes that he opposes universal background checks and banning assault weapons.

-by Matt Laslo

The Virginia Festival of the Book gets underway Wednesday, and this year the program features a remarkable writer who, with the help of his Virginia lawyers, saved a mountain.

Jay Leutze got his law degree from the University of North Carolina, but he decided not to practice.  Instead, he moved to his family’s cabin on Yellow Mountain in the Roan Highlands – an area famous in geological circles for its grassy balds.

“They’re open pastures.  We believe that they were kept open by wooly mammoths, then bison and elk, and then when European settlers came in, they were kept open by grazing cattle.”

He planned to hike, fish and write novels, but a real life story caught his ear when crews began cutting down trees across the valley to make way for  a massive surface gravel mine – a facility that would blast and crush stone 24 hours a day.  A permit had been issued without a single public hearing, but Leutze wasn’t sure anything could be done, until he got a call from a neighbor.

“She informed me that she had evidence that the mine owner was violating the Mining Act of 1971, and  she asked me to meet her the next day, and that’s when I learned that she was a 14-year-old child.  She was being raised by her Aunt Ollie and her Uncle Curly, and her Uncle Curley had given her a dial-up Internet connection for her birthday, and what she uncovered led to one of the great cases in regulatory history.”

Leutze also got help from Southern Environmental Law Center, based in Charlottesville, and because the mine could be seen and heard from the Appalachian Trail, its superintendant stepped in.

“When the Department of the Interior sent Pam Underhill into Avery County at one of these public meetings, it’s like time stood still in our little county.  That the federal government was in the house to urge the state of North Carolina to revoke the permit — it was incredibly powerful!”

Opponents of the mine also used the Internet to reach hikers around the world.

“The most public comments that had ever been received in writing by this department on a mining permit was twelve.  We submitted 3,650 public comments, and we basically shut down the state of North Carolina division for about three months.”

During a four-year battle to save their mountain, Leutze got to know and respect his neighbors – in particular Ashley’s aunt.  He was so taken with her intelligence and humor, that he began his book with a description of Ollie Cox.

“The story of the Southern Mountains is told in her face.  The crepe soft skin is laid over stone hard bone.  She is as white as February snow, but her  blue eyes smoulder.

I ask her, ‘Where did they come from-your father’s people?” I want to hear about her ancestors – the Cherokee side and the Scotch-Irish kin, the old timers who came here to hide or scratch dirt or seek a wage felling timber.  I want to hear about her wire thin Appalachian grandmothers who walked these steep ridges, these wildflower slopes, but she can’t call it up.  Either she can’t remember or she won’t.”

“She only shakes her head softly.  ‘Son, you ain’t mountain.  I’m mountain.  That’s all the hell I am, and you wouldn’t never understand.’  She is right, but I will try.”

He succeeded so well that a publishers’ bidding war broke out over his book – Stand Up That Mountain, a memoir that ends with a victory in court.  In 2004, the Putnam mine was closed, and when its owners asked to mine gravel at a site six miles away – beside the Blue Ridge Parkway – the state told them to take a hike.  

About 1.7 million Virginians rely on wells, springs and cisterns for their drinking water.  While municipal water supplies are tested daily under the Safe Drinking Water Act, people who rely on wells and springs are completely responsible for the care and maintenance of their water supplies.

The Montgomery County Water Clinic is Tuesday March 19)  at the Blacksburg Recreation center.

Here is a list of the counties where water clinics are happening over the next 6 months: New Kent, Pittsylvania, Goochland, Hanover, Floyd, Montgomery, Shenandoah, Halifax, Mecklenburg, Roanoke, Pulaski, Powhatan, Albemarle, Charlotte, Frederick, Lunenburg, Nottoway, Warren, Charles City, Franklin, Rappahannock, Botetourt, and Clarke.

A new report from the University of Virginia shows some dramatic changes in the way Americans live, with nearly half of first births occurring out of wedlock and a tendency by couples to marry in their late rather than early 20’s.  Sandy Hausman has details.

Conservatives from across the U-S are at the convention center at National Harbor for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Matt Laslo is there and reports that Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli kicked off the event.

Virginia is in the process of closing its state centers for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In 2012, the commonwealth reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice on the Americans with Disabilities act.  It helped spur a movement that began decades ago to people out of institutions and into private homes, where they could receive the most compassionate, least restrictive care.  Robbie Harris has more on the story.

A female bald eagle has been released in the Northern Neck of Virginia after recovering from injuries. Onlookers came for a variety of reasons, some quite personal. Pamela D’Angelo reports.

You can watch the progress of other animals and follow the bald eagle NX at wildlifecenter.org.

The heavy snow continues to fall in parts of Virginia, downing power lines and cutting off service to thousands of Virginians.  Beverly Amsler has the latest on the winter storm.