The heavily watched June 13 primary in Virginia offered several surprises, most notably record-setting Democratic turnout and Corey Stewart’s near upset of Ed Gillespie in the GOP gubernatorial race. Conversely, hometown favorite Tom Perriello’s race against Ralph Northam for governor was expected to be much closer than Northam’s 12-point win. And in city Democratic primary […]
Threat assessment: UVA prof says schools are safe
There are an average of 32,000 firearm deaths in the country every year—and there have been 224 school shootings since 2013. “Schools are one of the safest places for kids to be,” says Dewey Cornell, a professor at UVA’s Curry School of Education and director of the university’s Virginia Youth Violence Project. At his June […]
Bailed out: Local jail isn’t a debtors’ prison
This past Mother’s Day, a new political organization found an unusual way of observing the holiday: By standing in front of the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail holding signs in support of certain classes of incarcerated women. The group, Southerners On New Ground, is a national group working to establish a local chapter. SONG wrote in a […]
ARTS Pick: Sheryl Crow
You already know that Sheryl Crow is the voice behind a long list of top-40 songs, from “Soak Up the Sun” to “Everyday is a Winding Road.” But did you know she is also an outspoken supporter of a number of charities, from the Children’s Defense Fund and AIDS research to the Special Olympics and […]
Grave concern: Local group preserves historic black cemetery
A single pink rose lays at a diagonal across the quartz headstone that has become two-toned with age in the last 125 years. The rose covers part of the inscription on Carrie Brown’s headstone, which is different than others from that time period. The Buckner family’s clustering of graves, which lies to the west of […]
Don’t eat the fish: Push to study toxins in local waters
Quillback carpsucker. Flathead catfish. Gizzard shad. American eel. Carp. If you catch one of these in the James River, you’re better off throwing it back in. Danny Hodge, a visiting fisherman recently stationed on the James, did just that when he says he reeled in a 20-pound catfish last month. “I wouldn’t eat none of […]
‘Housing2Home’ connects through the power of art
Sometimes art is so public—in galleries, in gardens, on exterior walls of buildings—that unless we purchase it ourselves, we forget that it may go on to live a private life inside a home, becoming part of the fabric of lived human experience. In the case of “Housing2Home,” this month’s exhibition at New City Arts Initiative’s […]
Haircut’s perspective strikes a hot chord
On a recent Friday night, a bunch of punk rockers in patch- and pin- covered jean jackets, cutoff shorts and moth-eaten band T-shirts packed into the front room at Magnolia House. Some donned well-worn baseball caps, two wore dreadlocks, one wore a dangly yin-yang earring. Charlottesville punk band Haircut had second billing on the hardcore […]
Crops are tops: Have your pick of summer’s bounty
We’re halfway through June, which means fruit harvest season has begun, and that means now is the time to do our best impression of the very hungry caterpillar. You know the story: A tiny caterpillar eats through fruit after fruit (and a piece of cake, an ice cream cone, a pickle, etc.) on his journey […]