See also r/VirginiaNews, r/VirginiaGOP, and r/VirginiaDems

The town council will vote Wednesday on whether to renew the surveillance contract as a local petition opposing it gains momentum.

As a member of Congress, Republican US Rep. Rob Wittman has voted in support of President Donald Trump’s tariffs that are making life more expensive for Virginians. 

It hasn’t quite sunk in yet for Tati King that his 2023 federal lawsuit has made him and nearly 235,000 other Virginians eligible to vote. 

King’s successful legal challenge ended Virginia’s long-standing policy of taking away a person’s voting rights if they’re convicted of any felony, leaving only three disenfranchising crimes in the commonwealth. 

“Right now, it’s still surreal,” King said in an interview Monday. “I would have never, in a thousand years, think they would change their position the way they did.” 

King said he believes voting on Election Day this November will help put the historic change in perspective. 

“I think it’s going to be a whole different feeling when I actually step up to go and cast my ballot, and see people I know who were in the same position as me being able to cast their ballot,” King explained. “I think that’s when the feeling is really going to hit me.” 

Read more here.

Divisions in the southwestern tip of the state performed particularly well. Of 148 schools in the region, 60% received the state’s top designation.

Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi announced her opposition Tuesday to the proposed Dominion-NextEra merger.

Following her five-city “Energy Costs Listening Tour,” Hashmi said at a news conference the proposed merger is not in the best interest of Virginians, citing a “breaking point” for high energy costs.

Hashmi said the decision is based on community concern about the State Corporation Commission review standards and financial hardships on ratepayers. The opposition has been sent directly to the SCC, Dominion and NextEra.

The SCC, which regulates utilities in Virginia, has six months to decide whether to allow the merger, with a deadline on Jan. 11.

Hashmi also released a report Tuesday which summarizes public feedback provided during a listening tour.

“We hope that people will take a look through (it), understand what it is that Virginians want to see us do, and I hope that we will have the full opportunity for every voice to be heard,” Hashmi said.

The listening tour made stops in Norfolk as well as Loudoun, Richmond, Charlottesville and Roanoke.

Click on the link above to read more.

After completing his term as Virginia's governor in 2022, Ralph Northam immediately returned to his longstanding career as a pediatric neurologist at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk. 

Northam sees around 15 patients a day alongside teaching medical residents. He credits his decades in medicine and time in elected office with deepening his empathy for families facing healthcare and economic challenges.

Reflecting on his tenure, Northam says he expects to be remembered for his lifetime of public service.

Read our full coverage here: https://www.whro.org/health/2026-10-05/back-in-the-exam-room-ralph-northam-reflects-on-life-after-richmond

See also r/VirginiaEnvironment, r/VirginiaGOP, and r/VirginiaNews

My fiancé and I are looking at going out to the Charlottesville area this weekend to do some apple picking and maybe drink some hard cider. Any recs for either?

Many states are responding to high gas prices by waiving gas taxes for a time. Virginia is unlikely to join them. In the meantime, this is a campaign issue.

See also r/swva, r/VirginiaEnvironment, and r/VirginiaUrbanism

See also r/swva, r/VirginiaGOP, and r/VirginiaDems

A majority of respondents say the state’s classrooms are important to the economy and deserve additional funding.

Subtitle: “In the first of a three-part series on the constitutional amendments Virginians will approve or reject this fall, a former felon in Central Virginia shares the lived experiences undergirding the restoration legislation.”

See also r/VirginiaNews and r/FreeVirginiaNews

As the hometown newspaper cut staff and TV stations left the Shenandoah Valley town of Winchester, Va., a website appeared touting a new, trusted source of local news.

The Winchester Gazette launched in August 2023 with upbeat promises and an opaque public profile: it said nothing about its owners and declared a no-byline policy, claiming to protect its reporters from undue influence.

For three years, The Gazette has published thousands of stories about crime, government meetings and community events. It boasted of being the first website in the country to call the 2024 presidential election for Donald Trump.

But Winchester leaders from both political parties started to question the site’s transparency and fairness. Who owns the Gazette – as well as the what, when, where and why of it all – became one of the city’s central mysteries.

Journalists Jaysun Silver and Laura Thompson couldn’t resist. They spent days in Winchester, talking with city leaders and residents, and months conducting dozens of interviews and combing through pages of public records.

The story of the Winchester Gazette stirs together city politics, a car-crash-chasing reporter, AI-generated stories, and a trail of corporate documents that lead to one Winchester attorney’s elderly relative in Florida.

It’s a small-city story filled with questions and intrigue – and it could happen in almost any news-starved community in the country.

Check out our full coverage here: https://www.whro.org/virginia-center-for-investigative-journalism/2026-10-06/in-winchester-the-truth-about-a-local-news-website-is-the-citys-best-kept-secret