A day after presumptive Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe made a statement about his desire to implement Medicaid expansion, Governor McDonnell and McAuliffe’s GOP opponent have responded.  McDonnell says he’s not caving in to the pressure to implement the expansion without reforms… and has submitted budget amendments to require those changes.  As Virginia Public Radio’s Tommie McNeil reports, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says the Governor is doing the right thing.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government has pledged to pay the full cost for additional Medicaid recipients and will scale back to paying no less than 90% after that.

There are still eight long months before Virginians head to the polls to choose a new governor, but Quinnipiac University’s Peter Brown expects the race to about as tight then as it is now. And as Virginia Public Radio’s  Tommie McNeil reports, that may have a lot to do with candidate identity—or the lack thereof—when it comes to Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

If you’ve been saving photos, notes and videos to your favorite social media sites and are counting on them to be there indefinitely, think again.  As Sondra Woodward explains, the Web may not the best place for storing the record of your life.

In the rural beach community of Accomack County on the Eastern Shore, state and federal investigators are searching for clues in the ashes of what is now the 73rd arson since last November.

Many of the old farmhouses being targeted are used only during the summer by visitors or migrant workers who harvest and pack produce.

State Police spokeswoman Sgt. Michelle Anaya said the arsons happen at night and neighbors live a mile or more away from each other making it difficult to see anyone suspicious.

Much of the evidence is either burned or washed away by fire hoses. But investigators do have the beginnings of a profile.
Sgt. Anaya says this person or persons are very familiar with the territory; they are very familiar with the abandoned buildings.

The youngest and the oldest people in our communities sometimes find themselves marginalized.  Often they are seen in terms of what they take from society, because of what they cannot yet do, or what they can no longer do.  Robbie Harris has this report on what these book end generations are doing together.

Safaris in Africa remain a popular choice for travelers in search of adventure, but they’re expensive and often require vaccinations and medications to guard against life-threatening disease.  Now, a British company is offering something it believes will sell just as well – setting up headquarters in Virginia and selling trans-Atlantic travelers on an American Safari.  Sandy Hausman has more.

Several northern Virginia communities are the healthiest in the state.

The annual County Health Rankings & Roadmaps lists Fairfax County as number 1, followed by Loudoun, Arlington, Albemarle, and York Counties.  Meanwhile, Henry, Dickenson, Buchanan, and Tazewell Counties were at the bottom followed by the city of Petersburg, which had the least healthy residents.

All 133 Virginia localities listed in the report were measured on the length and quality of life as well as health factors.  Bob Hicks from the Virginia Department of Health, says the rankings haven’t changed much over the four years the study has been conducted.

“Between the social and economic factors and the access, I think we keep seeing the same sort of problems in Southwest and Southside Virginia that we need to get more facilities out there that people have access to.”

But money for more clinics can be a challenge, no matter where in the Commonwealth they would be located.

“Some of our poor areas want to attract more economic development.  And they find the corporations, the companies that want to come to these areas are looking for a healthy workforce.  So there’s a willingness to maybe sometimes invest in some of these changes that can be made to try to change and improve the health of the workforce.”

Hicks says the report is a tool to spur dialog in the communities and to create or continue programs for promoting good health.

–Beverly Amsler

Producing a book in the 21st century is no easy job, unless you decide to publish yourself, but a Waynesboro woman has found her niche and is now writing the fourth of seven books commissioned by a prominent publishing house.   What’s more, she’s up for a national award as Sandy Hausman reports.audio https://virginiapublicradio.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/prerollaggie.mp3%5D

You can hear more from Molly Bryan during the Virginia Festival of the Book.  She’s on panels meeting this week  in Charlottesville.

Stock Photo

Virginia’s Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is investigating the mysterious deaths of four bald eagles found on the Eastern Shore.

Like a detective eliminating suspects Dr. Megan Kirchgessner, the vet investigating the deaths said one autopsy shows no smoking gun, literally.

“The one eagle that I necropsied I did not see any evidence of gunshot or trauma. I sent two intact eagles to one laboratory and we still have a fourth one in the freezer in case we need any extra samples,” she said.

A fifth immature eagle was recovered alive. The Wildlife Center of Virginia found the bird had ingested metal fragments and treated it for lead poisoning.

“He’s doing quite well. He arrived at the Wildlife Center a little bit depressed, dehydrated a little bit thin. But eating really well, and has been moved to an outside cage,” said Kirchgessner.

Kirchgessner said the bird offers no clues as to what happened. But the answer may be in lab results.

–Pamela D’Angelo

A Virginia Republican is getting some heat for supporting a bipartisan bill to stop gun trafficking.

Scott Rigell was one of the first Republican lawmakers to sign onto gun control legislation. The bill he supports increases penalties on people caught trafficking guns. That did not sit well with the National Association for Gun Rights which put up ads in Rigell’s district saying the Republican wants to “pass Obama’s gun control.” Rigell says that’s an utter distortion.

“There’s no infringement whatsoever. The bill is very narrow in scope. It’s good legislation, so I’m glad I sponsored it.”

But the attack ads show how much pressure is on Republicans, and even Democrats, to keep the nation’s gun laws unchanged. But Rigell says he has no regrets.

“Well I certainly knew that there was some risk in standing next to my Democratic colleagues as a Republican on this issue, but there’s risk in doing what one thinks is right.”

Rigell also notes that he opposes universal background checks and banning assault weapons.

-by Matt Laslo

The Virginia Festival of the Book gets underway Wednesday, and this year the program features a remarkable writer who, with the help of his Virginia lawyers, saved a mountain.

Jay Leutze got his law degree from the University of North Carolina, but he decided not to practice.  Instead, he moved to his family’s cabin on Yellow Mountain in the Roan Highlands – an area famous in geological circles for its grassy balds.

“They’re open pastures.  We believe that they were kept open by wooly mammoths, then bison and elk, and then when European settlers came in, they were kept open by grazing cattle.”

He planned to hike, fish and write novels, but a real life story caught his ear when crews began cutting down trees across the valley to make way for  a massive surface gravel mine – a facility that would blast and crush stone 24 hours a day.  A permit had been issued without a single public hearing, but Leutze wasn’t sure anything could be done, until he got a call from a neighbor.

“She informed me that she had evidence that the mine owner was violating the Mining Act of 1971, and  she asked me to meet her the next day, and that’s when I learned that she was a 14-year-old child.  She was being raised by her Aunt Ollie and her Uncle Curly, and her Uncle Curley had given her a dial-up Internet connection for her birthday, and what she uncovered led to one of the great cases in regulatory history.”

Leutze also got help from Southern Environmental Law Center, based in Charlottesville, and because the mine could be seen and heard from the Appalachian Trail, its superintendant stepped in.

“When the Department of the Interior sent Pam Underhill into Avery County at one of these public meetings, it’s like time stood still in our little county.  That the federal government was in the house to urge the state of North Carolina to revoke the permit — it was incredibly powerful!”

Opponents of the mine also used the Internet to reach hikers around the world.

“The most public comments that had ever been received in writing by this department on a mining permit was twelve.  We submitted 3,650 public comments, and we basically shut down the state of North Carolina division for about three months.”

During a four-year battle to save their mountain, Leutze got to know and respect his neighbors – in particular Ashley’s aunt.  He was so taken with her intelligence and humor, that he began his book with a description of Ollie Cox.

“The story of the Southern Mountains is told in her face.  The crepe soft skin is laid over stone hard bone.  She is as white as February snow, but her  blue eyes smoulder.

I ask her, ‘Where did they come from-your father’s people?” I want to hear about her ancestors – the Cherokee side and the Scotch-Irish kin, the old timers who came here to hide or scratch dirt or seek a wage felling timber.  I want to hear about her wire thin Appalachian grandmothers who walked these steep ridges, these wildflower slopes, but she can’t call it up.  Either she can’t remember or she won’t.”

“She only shakes her head softly.  ‘Son, you ain’t mountain.  I’m mountain.  That’s all the hell I am, and you wouldn’t never understand.’  She is right, but I will try.”

He succeeded so well that a publishers’ bidding war broke out over his book – Stand Up That Mountain, a memoir that ends with a victory in court.  In 2004, the Putnam mine was closed, and when its owners asked to mine gravel at a site six miles away – beside the Blue Ridge Parkway – the state told them to take a hike.  

About 1.7 million Virginians rely on wells, springs and cisterns for their drinking water.  While municipal water supplies are tested daily under the Safe Drinking Water Act, people who rely on wells and springs are completely responsible for the care and maintenance of their water supplies.

The Montgomery County Water Clinic is Tuesday March 19)  at the Blacksburg Recreation center.

Here is a list of the counties where water clinics are happening over the next 6 months: New Kent, Pittsylvania, Goochland, Hanover, Floyd, Montgomery, Shenandoah, Halifax, Mecklenburg, Roanoke, Pulaski, Powhatan, Albemarle, Charlotte, Frederick, Lunenburg, Nottoway, Warren, Charles City, Franklin, Rappahannock, Botetourt, and Clarke.

A new report from the University of Virginia shows some dramatic changes in the way Americans live, with nearly half of first births occurring out of wedlock and a tendency by couples to marry in their late rather than early 20’s.  Sandy Hausman has details.

Conservatives from across the U-S are at the convention center at National Harbor for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Matt Laslo is there and reports that Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli kicked off the event.

Virginia is in the process of closing its state centers for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In 2012, the commonwealth reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice on the Americans with Disabilities act.  It helped spur a movement that began decades ago to people out of institutions and into private homes, where they could receive the most compassionate, least restrictive care.  Robbie Harris has more on the story.

A female bald eagle has been released in the Northern Neck of Virginia after recovering from injuries. Onlookers came for a variety of reasons, some quite personal. Pamela D’Angelo reports.

You can watch the progress of other animals and follow the bald eagle NX at wildlifecenter.org.

The heavy snow continues to fall in parts of Virginia, downing power lines and cutting off service to thousands of Virginians.  Beverly Amsler has the latest on the winter storm.

The federal government’s role in the use of drones inside the U.S. may be expanding, but state lawmakers have put the brakes on deploying them within Virginia’s borders.  Legislation that’s now under review by Governor McDonnell would place a moratorium on state and local use of drones.  The unmanned aircraft could not be deployed for two years—while parameters and safeguards are studied.

Concerns that drones could violate rights and invade privacy prompted an alliance between the state ACLU and lawmakers to put drone deployments on hold—at least temporarily.

“I want to live in a world much more akin to that that was envisioned by our Founding Fathers than one that was envisioned by a gentleman named George Orwell. And I think we’re rapidly approaching a time in our history where this type of technology is so pervasive that we could very well lose what we think of as our privacy rights,” said Delegate Todd Gilbert, who sponsored one of the bills.

He said the initial plan was not for a moratorium.

“We were trying to develop a framework by which we could allow law enforcement and regulatory agencies to use this technology in a way that was not an invasion of privacy.  And I think a lot of the law enforcement elements did not want anything but the unfettered use of this technology, and that gave us great pause.  So we decided to go with a moratorium.”

Exceptions are made for searches and rescues, Virginia Guard training and emergencies, Amber or Senior Alerts—or Blue Alerts when police officers are in danger.  But the drones cannot be weaponized.

–Anne Marie Morgan

Each year, half a million people in this country have knee replacement surgery, and by 2030 that number is expected to reach three million. After surgery, you might expect those patients to be more active and to lose weight, but a study by Virginia Commonwealth University suggests the opposite is true – and that could spell trouble for the nation’s long-term health as Sandy Hausman reports.

Prosecutors and public defenders in Virginia are paid by the state, but on average, lawyers who work for the Commonwealth’s Attorney make 25% more than lawyers who defend the poor.  Now, Sandy Hausman reports that one public defender is asking for a raise, and others may follow suit.

Officials in Virginia are bracing for the impact of the federal budget cuts that start trickling down. Matt Laslo reports that lawmakers in the commonwealth disagree about what should be done with the sequestration.