Youngkin declines debate, again
Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate for Virginia governor, declined an invitation to debate Democrat opponent Terry McAuliffe this week. Youngkin and former governor McAuliffe were invited to square off in Hot Springs in an event organized by the AARP. McAuliffe has said he’s up for as many as five debates between the two.
It’s the second time Youngkin has left McAuliffe at the altar—er, debate podium—in recent weeks. Last month, the Republican announced he wouldn’t participate in the Virginia Bar Association’s debate, an event that every major-party candidate has participated in for the last 36 years. Youngkin’s reasoning? Proposed moderator Judy Woodruff once donated to the Clinton Foundation, where McAuliffe was a board member. That might sound reasonable, until you learn that the donation was a $250 contribution to the 2010 Haiti earthquake relief efforts.
McAuliffe and Youngkin will go head to head on the ballot in November.
Orange and blue medals
UVA students and alumni have pulled in five Olympic medals so far in this summer’s games. Four women’s swimmers have combined to capture three silvers and a bronze for the U.S. swim team, and former rower Hannah Osborne helped her New Zealand rowing team win a silver. There could be more to come: Former Cavs Becky Sauerbrunn and Emily Sonnett are on the women’s soccer team, which is vying for a bronze medal, and one-time UVA hooper Mike Tobey has been a key player in Slovenia’s run to the men’s basketball semifinals. Slovenia tips off against France on Thursday morning, a few hours after the soccer team takes on Australia.
We can provide students with the rich learning environment of in-person schooling while also promoting safety.”
City schools acting superintendent Jim Henderson, as the district announced that masks will be required for all staff and students this year.
In brief
Good goes anti-vax
Virginia 5th District Representative Bob Good, who called the pandemic “phony,” has co-sponsored a bill proposed by QAnon conspiracy theorist Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene that would ban schools that require COVID vaccines from receiving federal funding. The law would also allow people to file lawsuits against businesses with vaccine mandates, and prohibit airlines from requiring vaccines.
What’s that smell?
Planning take a plunge into the James this weekend? You might want to cancel that trip. A pipeline break caused 300,000 gallons of raw sewage to pour into Tuckahoe Creek, a James River tributary, last week. (That’s enough sewage to fill half an Olympic swimming pool.) The health department says it’s inadvisable to swim in the area just downstream of the leak. No shit!
Spotted fly spotted
See the bug above? Squash it, and fast. It’s a spotted lanternfly, which is bad news for local grapes, peaches, hops and other crops, according to the Virginia Cooperative Extension.
Times comes to town
National media has once again turned its eye to Charlottesville—last weekend, The New York Times ran a story about the city’s Comprehensive Plan update process, describing how the city’s long history of racist redlining has created an affordable housing shortage, and how proposals to increase density in historically exclusive residential neighborhoods have rubbed some homeowners the wrong way. But if you’ve been reading the local papers, you already knew that.
