Good morning, RVA! It's 49 °F, and the highs today aren’t much higher. Expect temperatures to top out just under 60 °F for the next two days. After that, though, things should warm up, but put on your boots and layer up this morning!
Water cooler
Big COVID-19 news, which I typically address on Fridays: Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield are, as of this past Thursday, at a low COVID-19 Community Level. Our region hasn’t seen low levels since...I have no idea actually. Maybe late spring / early summer? This is great news since it means the amount of COVID-19 spreading around our communities and the COVID-19 burden on our hospitals are both down. And, of course, the best way to keep the level at low and to keep our region painted a bright, carefree green on the CDC’s map is to schedule your bivalent booster today. If, for some reason, you’re still not quite convinced, Katelyn Jetelina had a good post last week about some new studies showing how the bivalent boosters definitely do provide good protection against the Omicron variants (in humans, even!).
The path forward for Marcus-David Peters Circle got more complicated last week when the City’s Urban Design Committee recommended that Planning Commission reject the current landscaping plans. Planning Commission has the final say and could make their decision as soon as today. Honestly, I thought the proposed plans were OK and would be the easiest and quickest path to getting the horrible fencing down before the end of the year. While a fully landscaped circle does not do much to bring the space back in line with the beautiful community gathering place it became in the summer of 2020, it does get the fencing and blockades taken away—which are, again, horrible and entirely in opposition to the spirit of the place. If Planning Commission rejects the landscaping plans, or pushes them past the fall planting season, I can definitely see the City deciding to keep the fence up until a new plan is approved. This is all very frustrating—to everyone involved regardless of how you feel about the proposed landscaping plan. The City really needs to figure out their process for reimagining Monument Avenue, get it down on paper, and start letting people know how it’s going to work. That’d make the consequences of installing some temporary landscaping a lot less weighty.
Also City-related, Council will meet for a special meeting today so Councilmember Mike Jones can officially hire a new liaison. Make sure you update your City Government Email Addresses lists, and, when you get a second, say hello to the new 9th District Liaison Myquael McLane!
I think everyone should sign up for as many City Councilmember newsletters as possible. They’re all very different, and I always learn something from each one. This week, take a minute to read through Councilmember Jordan’s newsletter from September 30th and then go ahead and subscribe. I learned two cool things from this newsletter! First, Jordan answers the question I had last week about how Council would amend the new Civilian Review Board ordinance (ORD. 2022-261). She explains that the amendment will require “a five year minimum residency requirement for board members.” Mystery solved, if, perhaps, with less drama than anticipated. The CRB will show up on Council’s October 10th agenda. Second, the City has put together a Diamond District newsletter, to which you can subscribe here. I have no idea what kind of things they send out through this newsletter, so no promises yet!
Richmond’s School Board will meet tonight and get into whatever it is that they decide to bring up. On the agenda, though, is this resolution to reject the Governor’s regressive, anti-trans policies. Should the resolution pass, I don’t know what it will practically mean for the District, but I do know many school districts across the state rejected the previous Governor’s policies supporting the rights of trans students with literally no consequences.
What’s this!? Another new bike share station on the Southside? That brings the total number of stations to 24, with three on the Southside and four in the East End. I think 24 stations is an all-time high for Richmond, and it definitely feels like we have some bike-share momentum at the moment. I forget, do plans and funding for the next 20-some stations exist yet?
I don’t know a lot about sushi, but Akida and Sticky Rice (both for different reasons) have been my mainstays for a longtime. RICToday has a list of spots to try, that I mostly want to link to because of the excellent fish pun in the first sentence.
This morning's longread
How the Apollo missions transformed our understanding of the Moon’s origin
Monday morning moon read! Science is just so cool.
According to the GIH, 4.5 billion years ago, when the planets had just formed, a titanic collision took place. A young, Mars-sized planet (named Theia) collided with the early Earth. The impact ejected a huge amount of material. While some of this material escaped into space, the rest of it stayed in orbit, and consolidated to form the Moon. For decades, the consensus of the planetary science community has been that the GIH is the best model to explain the formation of the Moon and account for its properties. While scientific literature on evidences for the GIH are varied in nature, in this article we focus on the Apollo missions. The Apollo missions represent a crucial dataset because they allowed us to test long-standing hypotheses using multiple in situ measurements, thanks to the 382 kilograms of samples that were brought back to Earth. Data from the Apollo landings show that the Moon’s formation isn’t as simple as we first thought. The results have been difficult to reconcile and interpret.
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Picture of the Day
It must take a lot of work to make a manhole cover.
