Good morning, RVA! It's 59 °F, and we’ve got a great Thursday ahead of us with highs in the 80s plus a bit of sunshine. Tomorrow’s forecast looks actually hot, but, other than that, we’re staring straight into a significant stretch of really nice weather.
Water cooler
It’s officially June, and that means it’s the one time of year I remind you, reader of Richmond’s premiere zoning and rezoning email, that you can support this work directly (like, with money) by joining the Good Morning, RVA Patreon. Over 400 readers pitch in a small amount of cash each month, a number that, honestly, feels shockingly larger. However! Due to capitalism and things, I would, of course, like that number to be just a bit shockingly larger. To that end, this year I’ve set a goal of increasing GMRVA’s monthly patron support by $381. I think that seems like a challenging but still achievable goal. So, existing patrons, consider upping your donation by a dollar or two; new patrons, go ahead and starting chipping in a couple bucks each month. While I will continue to wake up at small-prime-number o’ clock to write this email regardless, I do think the work—while sometimes silly and simultaneously dry—is important and would deeply value your support.
I only just barely had on my radar the Supreme Court’s recent Sackett v. EPA decision and its impacts on the definition (and protection) of wetlands. Definitely tap through the previous link for a great summary by SCOTUS Blog, and then read this piece by Patrick Larsen at VPM, who reports on what could happen in Virginia as a result. Luckily, and fingers crossed it stays this way, it sounds like Virginia already has strict regulations and definitions that will continue to protect our wetlands.
Karri Peifer at Axios Richmond reports that our region’s first Shake Shack will open next Friday, June 9th, at 11:00 AM. While I’m off burgers (and think we definitely should not be opening new burger joints), I am still incredibly on French fries, milk shakes, and ShackSauce. If you end up testing your luck with the masses of humanity on Friday, lemme know how it goes!
The Virginia Mercury’s Graham Moomaw reports that Governor Youngkin will send 100 Virginia National Guard troops to...”help with border security in Texas”? Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent 800 soldiers to Texas a few weeks ago, so, I guess this is what you do as a governor running for president? Seems dumb.
Via /r/rva, the trailer for Next Goal Wins in which Michael Fassbender wears a VCU cap at the 1:46 mark!
From the New York Times: “The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed legislation negotiated by President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy to suspend the debt ceiling and set federal spending limits, as a broad bipartisan coalition lined up to cast a critical vote to pull the nation back from the brink of economic catastrophe.” Unsaid by that NYT quote is that Republicans entirely and unnecessarily manufactured the national catastrophe and then drove all the way up to the brink by themselves, just so they’d have the opportunity to defund and cut and generally make things worse for folks. Rep. McClellan “reluctantly voted to pass the budget proposal to prevent a catastrophic default,” and you can watch the rest of her statement over on Twitter. Now we wait to see how and when the Senate will act on the House’s compromise.
As of today, after a three-year coronabreak, the Greek Festival is back! Starting at lunch today and running through Sunday evening, you can head out to Malvern & Grove and pick up a healthy supply of souvlaki, spanakopita, and, of course, baklava. I mean, yes, I want to eat all the cheesy, meaty things, but really I want to walk out of there with the biggest possible box of desserts that will fit on my bicycle. Cover me in phyllo dough and honey, like some sort of delicious mummy!
This morning's longread
Testing New York Apartments: How Dirty Is That Gas Stove, Really?
Gas stoves are back! And by “back,” I mean “stories about the negative impact gas stoves have on indoor air quality are back.” The New York Times sent a bunch of air-testing equipment into a handful of apartments and found that, turns out, using a gas stove quickly pours lots of polluting, and potentially dangerous, chemicals into your home’s air. Not great! Everything I read about natural gas makes me more and more anxious about how Richmond really needs to divest from its natural gas utility.
The researchers got to work powering up their analyzers and setting up tubes, at roughly nose height, to pull in samples of air. After they took background readings, it was time to turn on the gas, a single small burner on high. The machinery quickly detected the change: a rise in concentrations of nitrogen dioxide — which, among other negative health effects, can irritate the respiratory system, aggravate symptoms of respiratory diseases and contribute to asthma. Concentrations climbed to 500 parts per billion, five times the safety benchmark for one-hour exposures set by the Environmental Protection Agency. (Concentrations of benzene, a human carcinogen that is present in cigarette smoke and car emissions, also tripled.)
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Picture of the Day
The saddest of RIPs.
