Norfolk leaders, losing patience, consider new options for stalled casino project

July 10, 2023 Chris Tyree

Original proposal for the Pamunkey casino on the left and the revised first phase version on the right. Renderings of the HeadWaters Resort & Casino. (Courtesy of HeadWaters Resort & Casino provided to the City of Norfolk)

A scaled-down Norfolk waterfront casino proposal is facing choppy waters from city leaders who have lost patience with the much-delayed project.

Norfolk City Council members in a recent closed session discussed options for scuttling the city’s agreement with the Pamunkey tribe, which submitted an application for a phased development with a $150 million initial investment, far shy of the upscale $500 million resort hotel, marina, entertainment space, and casino showcased to voters during a 2020 referendum.

Who was the Big Winner in Virginia’s Primaries?

July 6, 2023 Guest User

Dominion Energy headquarters, as seen in Richmond, Va., on June 22, 2023. *(Jimmy Cloutier/OpenSecrets)*

The overwhelming share of campaign funding in the low-turnout, yet expensive, primaries in Greater Richmond and the Hampton Roads came from political organizations, business interests and corporate-aligned political action committees, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of campaign finance reports. Most candidates who raised big-donor money won.

Veteran Democratic powerbrokers face off in Hampton Roads Senate primary

June 14, 2023 Louis Hansen

Sen. Louise Lucas is photographed with members of the Moms Demand Action booth at Pride in the ‘Peake in Chesapeake, Va., on Sunday, June 11, 2023. *Photo by Kristen Zeis*

It’s been decades since two Hampton Roads Democratic state senators, Louise Lucas and Lionell Spruill, were out of the public eye.

Lucas launched her political career in Virginia by winning a Portsmouth City Council seat in 1984. Spruill, a Chesapeake native, first won a seat in the Virginia General Assembly in 1994.

Both legislative stalwarts rose from poor backgrounds to become ambitious, long-standing powerbrokers in southeastern Virginia. On June 20, one will be out of a job.

For expectant and new mothers in Virginia, troubling COVID-19 trend

April 19, 2023 Guest User

Erashea Bellany holds her daughter, Amenjah. Bellany, from Richmond, gave birth at her mother’s home in Hampton. After delivery, Erashea hemorrhaged and her midwife, Nicole Wardlaw, rushed her to the Sentara CarePlex hospital in Hampton. Both mother and daughter are doing fine. *Photo by Karen Kasmauski // Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO*

Virginia’s maternal mortality rate leaped by 130% during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO. In 2021, women in Virginia died of pregnancy-related complications at a rate of 50.1 per 100,000 births, more than double the pre-pandemic rate in 2019, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Virginia mothers died of pregnancy-related complications at a rate of 21.6 per 100,000 births in 2019.

The state also fared poorly compared to the U.S. average of 33 deaths per 100,000 births in 2021. Only Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama had higher death rates of the 22 states with publicly available data.

Moving toward independence

April 6, 2023 Guest User

On Thanksgiving 2022, Barb Baxter shared a moment with her son, Pete, in the family’s kitchen. Pete, 24, is autistic and has an intellectual disability. He recently moved into a Charlottesville apartment with the steady support and supervision of family and community.

The road to adulthood begins for most when they graduate from high school and move on to a first job or college, to paying bills and living on their own. But for people with cognitive disabilities or autism, leaving high school is a more monumental step, one that will transform their relation to their families and the community that supports them.

That monumental step has been on the minds of Andrew and Barb Baxter, both 57, of Charlottesville, Va. for years. Their 24-year-old son, Peter, is on the autism spectrum and has an intellectual disability.

Forever chemicals a perpetual threat to Virginia drinking water

March 22, 2023 Chris Tyree

Wallops Flight Facility public affairs chief Jeremy Eggers, left, and NASA restoration program manager David Liu examine the granular activated carbon filtration system designed to filter toxic PFAS chemicals from the town of Chincoteague’s drinking water on November 16, 2022.

Toxic chemicals used to fight fires and found in a wide range of household and industrial goods for decades have ended up in drinking water across the state. Virginia health and environmental agencies have only begun to measure the scope of the problem. How worried should we be?

Amid high-profile shootings, Virginia gun policy remains a stalemate

March 13, 2023 Louis Hansen

Students on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, VA, mourn the more than 30 people killed on campus during a candle light vigil on the campus. Burruss Hall is in the background. Photo taken April 17, 2007. Photo by Christopher Tyree/file for The Virginian-Pilot.

In the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, elected leaders vowed to prioritize campus safety.

Then-Gov. Tim Kaine appointed a blue-ribbon panel and within a year signed more than 30 mental health, school security and gun purchase bills aimed at preventing future mass shootings. Several appeals for stricter gun policies, however, were voted down.

More than 15 years later, in the aftermath of another school shooting — this time at the University of Virginia, where three students were shot and killed in November — state lawmakers considered a range of gun policy proposals: a ban on new assault-style weapons, new punishments for those who fail to secure their guns, an expansion of the state’s “red flag” law and restrictions on possessing firearms in school buildings.

But just one major safety measure survived: a $300 tax credit for firearms owners to purchase gun safes. A second bill requiring public universities to more quickly and comprehensively respond to a potential threat passed the House and Senate but still awaits Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s signature.

Virginia hemp farmer preps – and waits – for legal marijuana

February 16, 2023 Chris Tyree

A hemp plant is shown under colored lights in a grow house at the testing greenhouse operated by Veg Out Organics in Virginia Beach. *photo by John-Henry Doucette*

Virginia legalized limited growing and possession of marijuana by private individuals in 2021, but sale of recreational marijuana remains illegal. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, has not signaled support for legalizing retail sales, and measures to set up a legal market failed this year in the General Assembly.

Will recent mass shootings turn Virginia’s public safety debate?

December 22, 2022 Chris Tyree

Following the murder of three University of Virginia football players by a fellow student, UVA students hoist a banner over the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in November. *Photo by Christopher Tyree*

Following the back-to-back mass shootings at the University of Virginia and a Chesapeake Walmart, Republicans and Democrats are touting proposals to help prevent future tragedies – again.

Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, said he intends to file legislation to ban new assault weapons and launch a gun buy-back program.

Suspect in custody after mass shooting at UVA leaves 3 dead, 2 wounded

November 14, 2022 Louis Hansen

A University of Virginia student has been caught and charged with murder in the Sunday night shooting that left three university football players dead and wounded two other students.

Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., 22, was apprehended by Virginia State Police Monday, hours after the mass shooting put the campus on lockdown, stranding students and members of the university community across the grounds in libraries, campus buildings and dorms.

The shootings took the lives of three members of the Cavalier football team: D’Sean Perry, a 4th year linebacker from Miami; Lavel Davis Jr., a 3rd year wide receiver from Dorchester, S.C., and Devin Chandler, a 2nd year wide receiver from Huntersville, N.C.

The long journey for the right to vote

November 6, 2022 Chris Tyree

James L. Rivers, 81, stands outside of the New Calvary Baptist Church in Norfolk. As a teenager, Rivers met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who addressed the congregation in 1966, setting Rivers on a path of social activism.

James L. Rivers grew up in Norfolk in the 1950s and 1960s - a southern city with opportunities and obstacles for a young Black man.

Rivers was the first generation in his family to graduate from college, earning degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the Norfolk branch of Virginia State College, the predecessor to Norfolk State University. But, as Black man, he also had to pay a poll tax before he could vote for the first time in the early 1960s.

He became active in the civil rights movement as a student at Booker T. Washington High School. He met Martin Luther King Jr., joined sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, and fought to bring voting rights to Black Virginians.

His calling to civil rights continued through service in the Navy, a long career as a counselor in Virginia prisons and jails, and decades of work with the Norfolk chapter of the NAACP, where he served as president. He’s been a deacon at New Calvary Baptist Church in Norfolk for four decades.

On the Line: A visual journey along Virginia’s rail system, exploring the past, present and future

November 2, 2022 Chris Tyree

Russell Hopkins, 20, of Iron Gate, Va., waves as a coal carrying train heads southeast, out of town.

Using gravity, and some rather strong mules, self-taught civil engineer Moncure Robinson moved a cart of coal along a set of rail tracks he designed in 1831. From a coal seam in Midlothian, Robinson guided his cargo 13 miles away to Manchester's wharves on the James River—making Virginia’s Chesterfield Railroad one of the first to operate in the United States and stoking Virginia’s economic engine.

Towns built on the rails became strings of small, economic dynamos stretching across the commonwealth, supporting good jobs - in transportation, manufacturing, extraction industries and even tourism.

For many of these hamlets, the hey-days are long past. What happened to Virginia’s railroad towns? Who lives by the tracks today? How deep is the poverty? Where are there signs of regrowth and hope? Have old dividing lines between the right and wrong sides of the track changed?

Scrimp, scroll, square off: First-time homebuyers in Virginia face rising prices and fierce competition

October 23, 2022 Louis Hansen

Ellie Jernigan, 27, and her dog Gracie at a home for sale in Henrico County. She and her husband, Zach, are first-time homebuyers and have been looking for months to purchase a home so they might start a family.

The hopes and dreams of young first-time buyers often crash into the waking horror of today’s real estate market. Driven by an influx of millennials, low interest rates and the scarcity of “for sale” signs planted in the suburbs and cities, Virginia housing prices rocketed during the pandemic. Supply has scraped record lows, driving bidding wars on properties even as interest rates have more than doubled in the past year.

Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO awarded ProPublica Grant

October 20, 2022 Chris Tyree

The Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO has been awarded a Local Reporting Network grant from ProPublica. The grant will support work by journalist Brandi Kellam, an Emmy-award winning reporter who has produced national stories for CBS News.

Housing in Hampton Roads is less affordable than Northern Virginia - and many other pricey areas

October 19, 2022 Guest User

Hampton Roads has long had a reputation as an affordable alternative to Richmond or Northern Virginia. A WHRO data analysis shows the region is one of the most unaffordable in the state. *Photo by Cameron Houck.*

In a comparison of housing prices and local wages, Hampton Roads is less affordable than other major Virginia metros, similarly sized metro areas on the East Coast and even the Washington, D.C. area.

A generational challenge - Where are Virginia’s Black male doctors?

October 5, 2022 Leah Small // VCIJ at WHRO

Jaz-Munn “Jaz” Johnson plays with a child during a healthy baby clinic at the Whitcomb Court Park and Recreation Center, 2302 Carmine St, Richmond, Va. Whitcomb Court is a public housing community.

Despite historic changes in educational and economic opportunities, the share of U.S. physicians who are Black men has remained unchanged since 1940. Virginia medical schools are still struggling to attract talented young men – a key to building trust between healthcare providers and the Black community.

VCIJ has a new home at WHRO Public Media

September 9, 2022 Chris Tyree

The Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism is excited to announce that it has become part of the growing news operation at WHRO Public Media.

Launched in 2019 by veteran Virginia journalists Christopher Tyree and Louis Hansen, VCIJ has been offering enhanced news coverage and in-depth reporting on issues vital to residents of the commonwealth.

“VCIJ started as an effort to bring quality, independent journalism to growing news deserts in the state,” Hansen said. “Investigative journalism is vital to a functioning democracy. We want to bring to light issues that have been under-covered, and serve as a watchdog for the community. Our partnership with WHRO enhances and expands our mission.”

“It was clear after talking with citizens, that Virginians wanted a trustworthy news source looking out for them,” Tyree said. “As an independent news organization with a statewide focus, our coverage of important issues will continue to give Virginians the information and tools they need to be active participants in our representative democracy.”

Spearhead Trails – Path forward for Southwest Virginia, or a slippery slope?

September 5, 2022 Chris Tyree

A headwater stream above Laurel Fork – a New River tributary – muddied by erosion and runoff from ATV use on Spearhead Trails’ Original Pocahontas Trail System in Tazewell County. The environmental and economic health of the trail system has been a source of controversy and bitter division in Southwest Virginia. *Photo courtesy Wally Smith.*

The state created a new recreational agency to breathe life into struggling Appalachian communities once dependent on coal for jobs. But has a sprawling ATV trail network ignored environmental rules and met its economic promise?

A new focus on Charlottesville’s trauma

August 31, 2022 Chris Tyree

Documentary photographer, Eze Amos, stands at the site where the equestrian statue of Stonewall Jackson once stood near the Albemarle Country Circuit Courthouse. *photo by Christopher Tyree // VCIJ at WHRO*

After years as a street photographer, Eze Amos turned his lens on the upheaval in his adopted hometown of Charlottesville.

In 2017, Amos photographed the series of demonstrations and protests leading up to the violence of the Unite the Right rally.

He captured the quaint college town’s quick transformation into a frenzied battlefield on August 12. He shot defining photos of James Fields, the white supremacist who drove a car through peaceful protesters on the mall, killing Heather Heyer.

Amos took more than 9,000 photos of the demonstrations, searing violence and ensuing public ceremonies. And then, he ignored them for years.

“That left a big, big, big black eye on the community,” said Amos, a 47-year-old native of Nigeria. “That's stuff that we're still living with today.”

He revisited the photographs several months ago, just before the fifth anniversary of the demonstrations. He discovered, amidst the violence, moments of humanity, fellowship and strength.