Last month, corporate radio giant Saga Communications petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to deny license renewal to five small, nonprofit Charlottesville stations. It’s a move one station owner calls “a blatant attempt at economic bullying through litigation” that if successful, would shut down the area’s only progressive talk radio and programming geared toward African American […]
Nearly two years after plowing his car into a group of counterprotesters at the Unite the Right rally—killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others—self-proclaimed neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. was convicted on 29 federal hate crime charges. Yet Heyer’s death was one of the thousands of hate crimes not included in official FBI hate crime […]
Barefoot is history The executive director of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society has resigned less than two years into his tenure. Coy Barefoot, a well-known local author and media personality, was hired in March 2018 after his predecessor Steven Meeks resigned amid questions of mismanagement. Barefoot told at least one person, who later described the […]
By Sydney Halleman Richie Edmond-Vargas sits on a shaded bench on the University of Virginia law school terrace. He’s digging into a vegetarian burrito bowl, enjoying a brief break from traveling. He pauses to point to some of the tattoos on his forearms—the Green Bay Packers logo, piano keys. “Eventually, I want to get bell […]
Two days before the October 11 closing of Toddsbury of Ivy, a beloved convenience store in the heart of the small western Albemarle community, its parking lot was paved. That’s something the store’s owner says he’s been asking the landlord to do for over a year, and maintenance was a factor in Bruce Kirtley’s decision […]
The developers of Six Hundred West Main, a luxury apartment building that opened in September, promised the city a “gift” in the form of a public mural from internationally acclaimed artist Faith XLVII. But some residents may want to give it back. The mural, which was unveiled during the week of September 23, features a […]
By Sydney Halleman It’s 10am on the Downtown Mall, and already the sounds of demolition flood the area. Pedestrians stream past Mudhouse Coffee and The Whiskey Jar, and a few glance at the tall fence erected recently across the walkway, and the signs that read, “Do not trespass. Construction site.” Machinery looms over the area […]
By Spencer Philps Four news organizations, including BH Media Group, which publishes The Daily Progress, are suing the Virginia Department of Corrections over procedures they believe violate the public’s First Amendment right to witness state executions in their entirety. Members of the public, including the press, are allowed to witness executions. But the plaintiffs argue […]
The bombshell dropped on July 16. A report in The Washington Post, based on newly available data from the Drug Enforcement Agency, revealed every manufacturer, distributor, and pharmacy involved in the opioid crisis, and tracked the role each one played in the process that placed highly addictive prescription painkillers in the hands of patients. In […]
Prospective renters using Craigslist to find temporary housing in Charlottesville have recently been the victims of scammers, paying thousands of dollars in rent up front before showing up on the doorstep of bewildered homeowners who already rented out their space. Janice Kavanagh is a Charlottesville real estate agent who rents out the front half of […]
A new take on an old design The Confederate generals who populate downtown Richmond will soon have a new neighbor. “Rumors of War,” a bronze statue from artist Kehinde Wiley, is modeled after that city’s J.E.B. Stuart monument, but features an African American man with dreadlocks, a hoodie, and ripped jeans sitting atop a rearing […]
Shana Bullard felt terrified. She was about to meet Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni, for a roundtable discussion on mental wellness initiatives at Charlottesville High School. “I was very intimidated,” says the CHS junior, who’s been active in several of the school’s mental wellness programs. But she found Qarni to be personable and down-to-earth. […]
Political races in Albemarle County are usually pretty staid compared to Charlottesville’s—except for the commonwealth’s attorney race. Prosecutors Jim Camblos (in 2007) and Denise Lunsford (in 2015) were both ousted after controversial, high-profile cases. And 2019 has promised to be another closely watched contest—even before incumbent Robert Tracci’s opponent received an unheard-of $50,000 donation. Republican […]
In 1989, Bill Chapman was a senior at Hampden-Sydney College and Hawes Spencer, a former student, was working in the communications office. Chapman had just completed a summer internship at Richmond’s Style Weekly, and “It seemed like Charlottesville needed a smarter, less reverent paper than The Daily Progress,” he says. The two founded C-VILLE […]
The work of antiracism is “fundamentally focused on looking in the mirror” with the goal of transforming society, scholar and National Book Award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi told a packed auditorium in Charlottesville on Tuesday night. And, he added: “Because we live in a racist society, it is extremely hard to be antiracist.” As Kendi’s […]
Hogwaller reset After City Council’s rejection of his zoning and permit requests earlier this year, Justin Shimp, developer of the embattled Hogwaller Farms project in Belmont, is back with fresh plans for a newly acquired parcel partially overlapping the site of his previous proposal. The name of the new project—Rootstock Farm Apartments—should be better received […]
Charlottesville’s C&O train station closed its doors in 1986, but that hasn’t kept the building and its adjacent coal tower out of headlines in the three decades since. The site of both a double homicide and an apparent suicide, the abandoned tower became a popular hangout spot for drug users and the homeless in the […]
Bathrooms. Locker rooms. Cars. Check any of these places on a typical school day, and you’re likely to find students taking part in the latest teen trend: vaping. “It’s pretty common around my crowd,” says one Charlottesville High School senior, who estimates about 25 percent of his classmates vape. “Kids will duck out of class […]
My name is Abebi. I am a 12-year-old girl and I live in Nigeria. One day while I was at school, a group of men with guns burst in and kidnapped my entire class. The men were from the jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram, which means “no Western education.” They want to establish Sharia, or […]
By Ali Sullivan The final meeting lasted just a few minutes. After months of investigation, an advisory committee determined that Paul H. Cale Elementary School—named after a former Albemarle County Public Schools superintendent—should change its name. The recommendation comes nearly four months after the Cale Advisory Committee’s first meeting and almost a year since Lorenzo […]
Kinder, gentler health care UVA Health System says it will revamp its financial aid guidelines and sue fewer patients after facing a massive backlash from a Washington Post story about the university’s proclivity to go after nonpaying patients. A Kaiser Health News report revealed that from 2013 to June 2018, the state-owned health system sued […]
Longtime Albemarle County Supervisor Ann Mallek hasn’t had a challenger to represent the White Hall District for the past two elections. That changed with Republican Steve Harvey, whose nickname is “Super Steve.” At a September 11 Senior Statesman forum, the former Army helicopter pilot drew some clear lines about his priorities. In his introduction, after […]
In the final day of the Monument Fund’s lawsuit against the city, Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore ruled that the plaintiffs won’t be awarded damages, but will receive a to-be-determined amount in attorneys’ fees that’ll be less than the original ask of over $604,000. Early in the three-day trial, the culmination of a case […]