Good morning, RVA! It's 68 °F, and today you can expect too-hot highs in the 90s for much of the day. Later this evening we could see some severe thunderstorms roll through, but it won't do much to cool things off. Temperatures return to springlike this weekend, so, until then, accept the sweat and stay hydrated!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as: 418, 39, and 13.6, respectively. VDH reports a seven-day average of 44.6 new cases in and around Richmond (Richmond: 6.6; Henrico: 18.0, and Chesterfield: 20.0). Since this pandemic began, 1,322 people have died in the Richmond region. 42.5%, 52.9%, and 49.4% of the population in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. I rewrote the top of this email! What do you think? I may keep tweaking it over the next couple of weeks—thrilling stuff!
Yesterday, Moderna announced that it plans to submit some new data to the FDA and will seek Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 12 through 17 in early June. The Washington Post has more details. This would be big news, even though we have loads of Pfizer laying around for this age group; the Pfizer vaccine is just so challenging to work with. Expanded authorization of Moderna would make things easier for folks on the ground who are still out there planning vaccination events and jabbing arms.
I didn't expect this! The Roanoke Times reports that "students, faculty and staff at Virginia’s community colleges will not be required to be vaccinated to be on campus this fall." Hmmm, I wonder that that means.
Whoa, Ali Rockett and Chris Suarez in the Richmond Times-Dispatch have an entire piece today, titled "Mayor Levar Stoney wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times reflecting on last summer. Here's what he left out:," point-by-pointing fives specifics the Mayor included in his recent column. I think I agree with most of these fives things and, if it had been me after this past summer in Richmond, I definitely would not have written a national opinion piece with the same tone. That said, it was just that: an opinion piece. The Mayor doesn't have to mention his current tussles with the Civilian Review Board or the ongoing investigation about the cost of tearing down the monuments. He can tell his story how he wants, which most certainly casts himself as this summer's hero. You can disagree with his telling of events, but I do think the NYT piece probably accomplished the Mayor's political goals and raised his profile—especially among Virginians outside of Richmond. I do appreciate the local journalists who put this together to provide a more complete picture for readers of what happened a year ago.
Richmond Together has put out a thoughtful candidate questionnaire for the Commonwealth's Attorney race, and you can read the responses from incumbent Colette McEachin and challenger Tom Barbour. Have I ever read a candidate questionnaire for Commonwealth's Attorney before? I'm not sure. If you haven't either, take the opportunity to do so today—especially if you're not even sure what the Commonwealth's Attorney does. This questionnaire and the responses will give you a good idea for some of the roles and responsibilities one of these two candidates will have once elected.
VPM's Roberto Roldan reports on the Valentine Museum's struggle to come to terms with the racist history of its namesake, sculptor Edward Valentine. I like local scholar Ana Edwards's quote in this piece, "They all started off as institutions born into, if not the Confederacy per se, certainly the white supremacist South...That’s where they come from, that’s where their money comes from, that’s where their sensibility comes from.”
Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports on "the start of construction of a 36-home section at Armstrong Renaissance, the massive redevelopment of the 22-acre site along North 31st Street in Richmond’s East End." Armstrong Renaissance is by far my favorite new development in the entire city—it's beautiful, mixed-income, and has a lovely blend of density all set just a few feet from a decent bus line. I mean, check out these totals for the entire development: "130 income-based rental units, 90 apartments for seniors, and the 36 for-sale homes for both lower-income and market-rate buyers." Sounds great, now do this everywhere.
Today the City's Governmental Operations committee will meet and take up a deeply nerdy ordinance that will officially change the logo of the City from the brassy skyline, James River, and bridge situation, to the more contemporary silhouette of the bateau boatman (ORD. 2021-128). This doesn't really impact anything or any one, as the new logo is already in use, I just think it's neat reading the in-ordinance text descriptions of the old and new logos.
This morning's longread
The Dark Side of Congo’s Cobalt Rush
Cobalt is in probably two or three things you're touching right now or can see from where you're sitting.
The man stopped digging in his yard. Instead, he cut through the floor of his house, which he was renting, and dug to about thirty feet, carting out ore at night. Zanga Muteba, a baker who then lived in Kasulo, told me, “All of us, at that time, we knew nothing.” But one evening he and some neighbors heard telltale clanging noises coming from the man’s house. Rushing inside, they discovered that the man had carved out a series of underground galleries, following the vein of cobalt as it meandered under his neighbors’ houses. When the man’s landlord got wind of these modifications, they had an argument, and the man fled. “He had already made a lot of money,” Muteba told me. Judging from the amount of ore the man had dug out, he had probably made more than ten thousand dollars—in Congo, a small fortune. According to the World Bank, in 2018 three-quarters of the country’s population lived on less than two dollars a day.
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