Good morning, RVA! It's 74 °F, and today's looking hot, looking humid, and got me looking forward to tomorrow when the heat breaks. I swear to you, that at least for the moment, the forecast for next week has a daily high that starts with a seven! Endure today, and then it's cooler temperatures for the next little while.
Water cooler
Tyler Layne at WTVR covered the Richmond Police Department’s quarterly-crime-update press conference yesterday, which you can watch in full here. Of note, Chief Smith started the briefing by saying, "We are closing all discussion about the planned Fourth of July mass shooting." and took no questions from reporters about it. Former RTD reporter Sabrina Moreno had the same immediate, salty thought I did when reading this headline. If the RPD's plan is to just not say anything and hope this fades into the background, I think they're going to be disappointed by how that goes. Anyway, if you're interested, Patrick Larsen at VPM gives a bit of an overview of the crime statistics the Chief presented (I couldn't find the presentation PDF on the RPD's website, but I know its out there somewhere).
Sorry, one other RPD update! Ned Oliver at Axios Richmond reports that "charges against one of the two men arrested in the [July 4th] case have been downgraded to a single count of entering the country illegally...both had previously faced charges of illegally possessing firearms." What? So one of the two men arrested for a potential mass shooting is no longer charged with any gun-related anything? Oliver says the two men are scheduled to appear in court today, and that "so far, prosecutors have not mentioned the alleged plot described by police in court filings."
The Virginia Mercury's Graham Moomaw reports on the early work to change Virginia’s recall process. I've mentioned it before, but the Commonwealth's process to recall local elected officials ultimately ends with a judge's decisions—which, as you can imagine, is not the most democratic thing in the world and judges probably hate it. State Sen. McClellan put together a bill last General Assembly session that would clean up that process, increase the number of signatures required to kick things off, and remove the judicial decision—but the legislation got punted. Moomaw says legislators might consider similar legislation this coming session, though.
I don't know what to make of it, but yesterday Trump said the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago and searched his safe. According to the Washington Post, anonymous people, apparently in the know, said the investigation related to the "potential mishandling of classified documents." Since last night, I've seen many, many takes on this news—ranging from the umpteenth iteration of liberals shouting"WE GOT HIM!!" into a void, to literally "DEFUND THE FBI!" from a current Republican congressperson. I think my current take is "whoa, fascinating", and I will wait to learn more before stringing up my Mission Accomplished banner.
Ha! There's an entire Instagram account for shaming people who park their cars in Richmond’s bike lanes—this one in particular is a decapitation waiting to happen. DM your pics to @youareinthebikelane_richmond for sweet, cathartic relief!
Quick reminder: The City will host the first meeting to discuss those three fun zoning changes (short-term rentals, parking minimums, and accessory dwelling units) tonight at the Main Library (101 E. Franklin) at 6:00 PM. Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense has some more information should you want to do some homework beforehand. If I come across materials or presentations from these meetings, I'll be sure share!
This morning's longread
Beach Vacationers Are Doing It Wrong
OK, OK, I disagreed with, like, half of this article in the Atlantic about how this one man defines a successful vacation. I mean, I just returned from a vacation where the person I'm married to read 13 books and seemed like she was living her best life. But! I did think the below paragraph really captured why I like riding bikes for hours at a time.
Recently, a close friend and his wife invited my husband and me to join them on a cycling vacation. I was a bit nervous; I’m a serious swimmer but not an experienced cyclist. Riding 30 to 40 miles a day through Vancouver’s impressive hills for five days sounded like hard work, not pleasure. But by the end of our first day of riding, I was overtaken by euphoric calm. The work of managing hills by bike has a special way of commanding your attention. I was so busy thinking about whether I could hold my pace for the next rise and how fast I could go downhill without wiping out that I had no time to think about myself. I started looking forward to getting up early and hitting the road. I took in the mountains and forests, dense with cedar and fir, but my focus was really on the bike and the road.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
