Contemporary cideries are key to keeping heirloom apple varieties alive
Appalachia is home to more apple varieties than the rest of the country combined, legacy of a bygone era when mountain settlers experimented with fruit trees in relative isolation. According to Gary Nabhan, an Arizona-based conservation biologist, sustainable agriculture activist, and “scholar in residence” during Virginia’s first annual Cider Week, the American apple is inextricably [...]
Charlottesville pitches in, donates to Sandy relief
For locals with ties to New York and New Jersey, the last two weeks in the wake of Hurricane Sandy have been hard. Seeing destruction and suffering in a place you’ve called home—a place where you still have loved ones and cherished memories—is a difficult thing, and the Web has made it easy for us [...]
PAC founded by young local Democrats helped tip scales in swing states
On Election Day in a spare, bright room in Charlottesville’s Glass Building, dozens of young Democrats worked phones in a last-minute push to coax voters to the polls. But the young volunteers and staffers of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a PAC founded by two UVA alums, weren’t calling Charlottesville residents. Their calls were going [...]
Help for veterans: A C-VILLE reader speaks up
Last week, ahead of Veterans Day, we ran a story about local vets and their struggles—and successes—coming home to the civilian workforce. It was a profile-oriented piece, but one reader, an Iraq veteran from Earlysville, pointed out that there weren’t a lot of specifics in the article about the resources out there for returning military. [...]
For veterans, the job hunt comes with extra challenges
Kerry Rock had been in Charlottesville a week when the then-22-year-old Iraq War veteran found himself in the grocery store, a packet of chicken in one hand and his phone in the other. “I’d done Chinese food and pizza,” he said. “I finally realized I needed to learn how to cook. So I called my mom from [...]
Passive Passion: Local builder screens documentary on low energy building design
A Charlottesville builder is working to drum up interest in ultra-low energy housing, and is inviting locals to learn more at a documentary screening on the topic tonight in a Ridge Street neighborhood home that is a poster child for the movement known as “passive house.” Bill Jobes of Jobes Builders is showing Passive Passion, [...]
Uranium mining debate heats up as political season winds down
In the runup to Election Day, the debate over whether to lift a 30-year-old ban on uranium mining and milling in Virginia became more politically charged than ever, with both candidates in the 5th District Congressional race accusing each other of misleading voters about their ties to the industry. But Hurt’s reelection won’t mark the [...]
Human rights commissions in Virginia: Northern Virginia as a model for Charlottesville?
Charlottesville’s Human Rights Task Force is staring down a deadline. Two public meetings remain—one on November 14, another on December 5—before its members are to issue a recommendation on whether the city should establish a Human Rights Commission, and what that agency should look like. The local Chamber of Commerce has raised concerns about the [...]
Aftermath: Catching up with pols and parties following Election Day
Over the next couple of days, we’ll be checking in with candidates and campaign workers from both parties for a look back at the election. Check back with us as we file updates. Another term for Hurt Well before local residents knew Tuesday night that they would have another four years of Barack Obama as [...]
To the polls! Virginians to decide on candidates, ballot questions
Voters in Virginia and across the nation head to the polls Tuesday to put an end to what has to be the longest campaign season in human history. Here in Virginia’s 5th, voters are making their selections for U.S. Congressman (a choice between Republican incumbent Robert Hurt and Democratic challenger General John Douglass), U.S. Senator [...]
“The crime was worse”: Woodward and Bernstein on Watergate and a changed world
The most striking thing about seeing Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein sit side by side and talk about the Watergate scandal and their Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting that brought it to light is that even after 40 years of talking about it, they still get excited. Or if they don’t, they do a good job of [...]
CFA Institute announces fall 2013 move-in to old Martha Jeff site
The redevelopment of the former Martha Jefferson Hospital in North Downtown may be running behind schedule, but the anchor tenant is eager to show work is underway. The CFA Institute, currently headquartered just outside the city limits, held a “wall-breaking” ceremony yesterday with city officials and neighborhood association reps to mark the start of major [...]
Local biotech firm’s technology can prevent drug contamination, tragedies like meningitis outbreak
Months after thousands of people in the eastern U.S. were given back injections tainted with black mold, more than 300 have contracted fungal meningitis and 28 have died, including two in Virginia. As doctors scramble to treat those affected, regulators are trying to unravel what happened at the Massachusetts pharmacy that produced the drug. Whatever [...]
Tracking Sandy: On armchair reporting in a disaster
Fourteen months ago this week, I spent a long night hunkered down with my laptop in a middle school gym on the Jersey Shore as Hurricane Irene, roaring like a freight train overhead, made landfall a few miles to the south. At the time, I was the editor of a local news website covering a [...]
UVA study testing ultrasound surgery treatment on Parkinson’s patients
Researchers at UVA have embarked on a new study to determine whether an advanced, noninvasive surgical procedure could help alleviate some of the debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Dr. W. Jeffrey Elias, a UVA neurosurgeon, is overseeing the placebo-controlled, FDA-approved study, which is treating patients with focused ultrasound waves. Treatments involve pinpointing a trouble spot in [...]
From sign theft to voter fraud, silly season takes a turn for the crazy
Allegations of voter fraud, intimidation, sign theft, and other reprehensible electoral doings are about as common at this time of year as Halloween decorations. As Election Day approaches in Virginia, the flapping and hollering has started to get pretty intense—and the misbehavior pretty serious. Last week, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office arrested a young man [...]
Virgil Goode to debate Tuesday with other third-party candidates
Virginia’s own Virgil Goode is taking the stage for a debate tonight with three other third-party presidential candidates in a token nod to—I mean, late-in-the-game look at America’s alternative options in the race for the White House. Goode, the former Republican (and before that, Democratic) 5th District representative who narrowly lost to Tom Perriello in [...]
In a time of wobbly endowment returns, UVA bucks the trend
America’s universities sit on an ocean of assets, holding on to hundreds of billions in long-term investments. With an endowment worth more than $5.4 billion, UVA is one of the world’s richest institutions, and it’s seeing success where other higher ed investment funds have stumbled. “Over the last one year, three years, five years, we’re [...]
Fighting for the 5th: Can Democrats retake Virginia’s largest district?
Hear audio of our discussion of this story on Soundboard, our weekly radio show on WTJU 91.1, here. Analysts say the contest for Virginia’s 5th District will probably go to Republican incumbent Robert Hurt, and with a number of factors working against the challenger, newcomer General John Douglass, it’s hard to believe any but the [...]
The Avett Brothers Interview: I and Love and Charlottesville
The Avett Brothers have enjoyed a trajectory of success since the indie-Americana crowd picked up on their album, Emotionalism in 2007. Known for energetic live shows and musical versatility, the brothers from North Carolina and their band of ace players can incite the audience into a frothing mosh in one song, and then break their [...]
The Meadow Creek valley as a pedestrian corridor
When Charlottesville Parks and Trails Planner Chris Gensic gave a presentation in September on the future of the Meadow Creek stream valley, he flipped through a series of aerial shots that showed almost a century of evolution in the northern spur of the city that surrounds the waterway. In all the photos—from the late 1930s, [...]
Perriello touts report on Romney’s budget math
Charlottesville and Albemarle residents may have spotted a familiar face talking politics at events and on the airwaves earlier this month when former 5th District Representative Tom Perriello swung through town. He’s stumping across the country—but not for any candidates. Perriello now works for the Center for American Progress, and is CEO of its Action [...]
West Main Street is starting to look very different, but can the growth keep up?
After years of sluggish growth, a string of new projects is poised to transform West Main Street from an underutilized row of dead buildings into a thriving retail corridor. A new annex to the bustling Main Street Market is now home to restaurants and shops, and there are plans for an eight-story hotel at the [...]
UVA researcher wins whistleblower case, could get $1.7 million
A jury in a whistleblower case in federal court in Charlottesville last week awarded a former UVA researcher $660,000, determining he was wrongfully fired after drawing attention to alleged misuse of grant funds from the National Institutes of Health—and the plaintiff’s attorney says his client could end up with a much bigger payout. As initially [...]
The Miller Center asks the question: Do debates matter?
Whether they watched them unfold or not, many Americans point to big moments in the history of presidential debates in this country: Nixon’s no-makeup mistake; Lloyd Bentsen’s “you’re no Jack Kennedy” quip. But do those moments—or even the debates as a whole—really matter? It’s a question reporters and pundits revisit every election cycle. Because despite [...]
Young architects take on income gap with Green Dot job hub project
An architect’s challenge usually hinges on the limits of space and scale, but a team of young Virginia professionals has spent the last nine months tackling a very different task: closing Charlottesville’s income gap. The Emerging Leaders in Architecture program, run by the Virginia chapter of the American Institute of Architects, gives young people in [...]
Former UVA researcher’s suit claims retaliation over fraud accusations
A researcher fired from UVA’s psychiatry department is suing for reinstatement under a whistleblower protection known as the False Claims Act, saying he was forced out after drawing attention to fraud related to misappropriation of federal grant funds. UVA has declined to comment on the suit, and an attorney for the plaintiff, Dr. Weihua Huang, has [...]