Good morning, RVA! It's 48 °F, and we've got another amazing, even cooler, day ahead of us. Today you can expect dry skies and highs around 70. Looking towards the weekend, and it is officially time to start keeping an eye on Hurricane Ian and its potential impacts on our region. As of right now, NBC12's Andrew Freiden says we should expect moderate to heavy rain on Saturday and Sunday as the storm's remnants move through Richmond. Spend 10 minutes today thinking about your plan should we see significant rain and lose power for a bit—never hurts to be prepared!
Water cooler
Megan Pauly at VPM reports on yesterday’s student walkouts protesting Governor Youngkin’s regressive anti-trans policies for public schools. Pauly talked to students from all over the region about the protests—from Glen Allen High School, Henrico High School, Midlothian High School, Appomattox Regional Governor's School, and Open High School—representing Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield school districts. The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Jessica Nocera and Anna Bryson spoke to a few of our elected representatives and grabbed a few videos of the walkouts, too. Apparently students at over 100 schools across the state walked out or had some sort of protest! These diverse, statewide student protests—which fill me with big, proud feelings—were timed to coincide with the Governor's anti-trans policies dropping on the State's online public-comment platform, Virginia Regulatory Town Hall. As of right now, just a couple of days into the comment period, over 25,000 comments already exist. Yes, you probably should go ahead and make your own comment in opposition to the policies, it's easy and certainly can't hurt, but the Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction has already said the administration doesn't really care about the total number of comments and will only consider "substantive" comments. Your guess is as good as mine for how they plan on pulling out the "substantive" comments from a bucket of tens of thousands.
Eric Kolenich and Michael Martz at the RTD have a follow up report to this week's story about Bon Secours "buying medicine at a discounted price through a federal program intended for low-income patients and dispersing it to customers throughout the area, regardless of their financial ability." It sounds like Bon Secours has not violated the letter of the federal law, but opening clinics in wealthy parts of Henrico and Chesterfield certainly doesn't feel inline with the intended spirit of the program. In fact, Mayor Stoney submitted this letter to Health and Human Services Secretary asking them to "investigate the deeply troubling use of section 340B by Bon Secours", saying "It is immoral to profit off the backs of Black and Brown residents under the guise of 'healthcare,' and it must cease immediately." And Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams looks a bit further down the road and writes about how Bon Secours can make amends for extracting resource and profits from residents by investing in a fully functioning, full-service hospital in the East End.
A quick and unhelpful update: I didn't get to listen to Council's Public Safety committee meeting yesterday, but, this morning, I did see that the Civilian Review Board ordinance is marked as "recommended for approval with amendment." Thrilling! The text of the amendment hasn't yet been posted to the City's website but the video of the meeting has (if someone wanted to spend the next two hours of their life listening to a public meeting for the greater good).
Because I'm lazy, I still haven't made it down to the canal to see the new murals. Luckily, this panorama via /r/rva gives me an idea for its new flavor. Look at all of those colors!
This morning's patron longread
Aaron Burr was tried for treason for insurrection, long before Trump
Submitted by Patron Sam. I don't think there's even a double-digit chance that Trump gets tried for treason, but this Washington Post article about Aaron Burr's treason trial in Richmond was fascinating. I did some quick Googling and it sounds like the Eagle Tavern mentioned below was located where the Martin Agency sits today.
In February 1807, Burr was arrested in Alabama and taken by military guard on horseback about 900 miles to Richmond, then a town of about 6,000 people, of whom more than 2,000 were enslaved. Burr was put under guard at the city’s Eagle Tavern hotel. Public testimony before a grand jury began on May 22 in Richmond’s federal circuit court. Crowds of people swarmed into Richmond. “They were so numerous that the trial had to be held in the legislative chamber of the State House, which was fitted with sandboxes to catch the flying tobacco juice,” wrote R. Kent Newmyer, author of “The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr.” Newspapers reported that one street orator was future president Andrew Jackson, who berated Jefferson for “persecuting his innocent friend.” Others called for Burr to find justice at the end of a rope. “May his treachery to his country exalt him to the scaffold, and hemp be his escort to the Republic of dust and ashes,” a Baltimore man wrote.
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