The budget bills on the desk of a state delegate. A budget conference committee has a tight deadline to find a compromise between the $400 million difference in their budget proposals.
Credit Steve Helber / AP

Virginia’s Senate and House have written their versions of the two-year state budget. But there’s a problem.

The two budgets are about 400-million dollars apart.

A handful of lawmakers are tasked with hammering out the difference.

But as Mallory Noe-Payne reports, all the wrangling happens behind closed doors.

  As part of their sentence, criminals are often asked to pay restitution to their victims. But in Virginia the money often goes uncollected and unpaid.
Credit Shawn/Flickr

One of the highlight compromises this legislative session is a deal to raise the felony larceny threshold.

The flipside of that deal is a crackdown on restitution. That’s the out of pocket costs criminals are often ordered to pay to their victims.

And Mallory Noe-Payne reports it often goes uncollected and unpaid in Virginia.

Lawmakers in Richmond are debating a bill that would make it easier for people with disabilities to make changes to their homes.

Michael Pope reports from the Capitol.

Eleven-month old Stephanie is one of four mastiffs brought to Charlottesville from a now-shuttered dog meat farm in South Korea. (Credit: Emily Richardson-Lorente)

If you’re a dog person, it may bother you to know that many dogs are bred to be eaten in South Korea. But increasingly, it bothers Koreans as well.

That’s why, in the last three years, the Humane Society International has been able to negotiate the closure of nearly a dozen meat farms.

Where do the dogs go after that? Well, it turns out many head to shelters here in the U.S. 

Emily Richardson-Lorente tracked down a few in Charlottesville.

In President Trump’s newly released budget the administration calls for drastic cuts to environmental programs, including the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund.

Matt Laslo reports from Washington that lawmakers from the region are divided on the role the Environmental Protection Agency should play today.

Lawmakers in Richmond are deep in a discussion about lifting a freeze on utility rates that has customers overpaying electric companies.

But what happens next?

As Michael Pope reports, lawmakers are divided.

Volunteers from Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Tidewater Oyster Gardener’s Association hauling oyster shell. (Credit: Pamela D’Angelo)

Virginia calls itself the “Oyster Capitol of the East Coast.”

But because the oyster population remains at historic lows, there’s a struggle for oyster farmers and state sanctuaries to keep up with the shell needed to continue producing more oysters.

Now, even homeowners are kicking in, as Pamela D’Angelo explains.

Lottery profits are supposed to go to education.

But critics say lawmakers are engaged in a bait and switch.

Michael Pope explains why.

Supporters of expanding Medicaid are celebrating movement in the House of Delegates after many years of resistance.

The House included an expansion in its state budget proposal released over the weekend.

But, as Michael Pope reports, they still have to get through the Senate.

The city of Buena Vista has won the latest round in its legal battle against an insurance company. And Culpeper County is trying to decide whether to embrace the solar power industry.

Those have been among the most read stories over the past week at the Virginia Public Access Project’s Va. News link.

Fred Echols reports.

Millennial generation lawmakers announce the formation of Future Caucus. (Mallory Noe-Payne/Radio IQ)

The freshman class in Virginia’s House of Delegates is the most diverse in history.

But, as Michael Pope reports, it’s also one of the youngest.

 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Virginia lawmakers have mixed reactions to the sweeping federal budget proposal President Trump released this week.

Correspondent Matt Laslo has more on what the document means and doesn’t mean for our state.

  A clap board is readied during the filming of an American Heroes Channel three-part series about the Revolutionary War in Powhatan County, Va., in 2014.
  (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Should Hollywood moguls get money from Virginia taxpayers? Lawmakers in Richmond are divided.

Michael Pope is at the Capitol with the latest.

The Navy Yard at Nofolk around 1917. Credit: Harry S. Truman Library & Museum

A hundred years ago this November, the First World War came to an end.

All of those who fought are now gone, but Virginia’s Historical Society wants Americans to remember what that conflict meant on the battlefield and here at home.

As Sandy Hausman reports, a special exhibit opens this weekend.

Gun violence is back in the news this week.

It’s also a topic that lawmakers in Richmond are debating.

Michael Pope is at the Capitol with the latest.

The Montpelier Foundation

It’s a question that has long vexed America: How do we teach our history of slavery?

Last weekend, James Madison’s Montpelier started working on an answer.

Jordy Yager has more.

New poultry houses in Accomack County near the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Pamela D’Angelo

Big poultry on the DelMarVa Peninsula began by accident when  homemaker Cecile Steele was shipped 500 chicks to raise instead of the 50 she ordered. She kept them, made a profit and ordered a thousand the next year.

And so, an industry was born and has been growing ever since.

But the hundreds of thousands of tons of manure produced each year so close to the Chesapeake Bay worries residents of Virginia’s Eastern Shore as Pamela D’Angelo reports.

Credit Tom Woodward / Flickr

Virginia’s capital city is raising its meals tax.

The money is earmarked to help fix the city’s crumbling schools. Richmond City Council voted late Monday night 7 to 2.

Mallory Noe-Payne was at the contentious meeting and has this report.

  Del. Lee Carter, D-Prince William recites the pledge of allegiance during opening ceremonies of the 2018 session of the Virginia House of Delegates. Carter may end the session with all of his legislative proposals killed.
Credit (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

The halls of power in Richmond are loaded with new members after the wave election in November.

But, as Michael Pope reports, that doesn’t mean their proposals are seeing much success.

Being a freshman House member in the minority isn’t easy. You just got here and you’re not sure how it all works. And you’ve got Republicans eager to kill your bills just because you’re new.

  A contest at the Curling Club of Virginia
Credit Brad Kutner

While Virginia’s warm climate might not offer the perfect venue for some Winter Olympic sports, indoor ice rinks have opened their doors to the ancient art of Curling.

Brad Kutner takes us inside a regional club for more insight ahead of the games.