AP
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A state Senate subcommittee unanimously approved a proposal Monday to develop statewide regulations governing the use of seclusion and restraint in Virginia public schools. The panel acted after hearing from a series of speakers who said the techniques for controlling students’ unruly behavior are being abused in some school divisions. Among them was a 9-year-old boy who told of being sent repeatedly to a “crisis room” by his first-grade principal and was so traumatized by the experience that he didn’t want to go to school anymore. The measure introduced by Sen. Barbara Favola, an Arlington Democrat. It would direct the state Board of Education to develop regulations restricting use of the techniques and laying out requirements for training school personnel and notifying parents when the techniques are used.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A Senate panel has killed a proposal to raise Virginia’s minimum wage. The Senate Committee on Commerce and Labor voted 11-to-3 Monday to table a proposal aimed at incrementally raising the state’s minimum wage above the current $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour by 2017. Proponents included liberal activists and labor officials. They said raising the state’s current minimum wage would help low-income workers escape poverty. While corporations have enjoyed growing profits rise, they argued that workers’ wages have stagnated. But opponents including business groups said raising the minimum wage would result in higher unemployment and hurt Virginia’s business climate. While raising the minimum wage is a top legislative priority for Democrats, those efforts have little chance of passing the GOP-controlled General Assembly.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Advocates and opponents of gun control held dueling demonstrations at the Virginia Capitol as the perennial debate over the hot-button topic began anew. Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is pushing a package of gun control measures ahead of this fall’s state legislative elections even though they stand little chance of passage in the Republican-controlled General Assembly. Pro-gun forces held a rally Monday morning. Many attendees wore orange “Guns Save Lives” stickers and a speaker assailed McAuliffe and other gun-control advocates as “gun grabbers.” In the afternoon, gun-control backers wore yellow “Background Checks Save Lives” stickers and displayed a string of red paper hearts representing the more than 800 gun deaths in Virginia last year. Among the speakers was Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia lawmakers are receiving fewer gifts in the wake of former Gov. Bob McDonnell’s prosecution on corruption charges. The Virginia Public Access Project released an analysis of financial disclosure forms Monday showing that the number of gifts to lawmakers dropped by 27 percent from 2013 to 2014. The decline was more pronounced among Republican lawmakers than Democrats. McDonnell, a Republican, was indicted, tried, and found guilty last year of illegally accepting more than $165,000 worth of loans and gifts from a vitamin salesman in exchange for helping to promote his products. Lawmakers have promised to make ethics reform a key issue of the 2015 legislative session. Among the proposals they are considering is a $100 gift cap.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A bipartisan effort to repeal an A-F grading scale for entire schools is advancing in the General Assembly. The A-F scale for schools was adopted in 2013 at the urging of then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, as a public measure of school quality based on student test scores. But the law was never implemented. The 2014 legislature delayed it two years. On a 3-2 vote Monday, a Senate subcommittee endorsed Sen. Richard Black’s bill to abolish the A-F scale entirely. A similar measure is pending in the House of Delegates. Black, a Loudoun County Republican, said he initially supported the grading scale but has become convinced that an F grade would stigmatize a school’s students and make it hard to recruit teachers. Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s administration supports repeal.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A spokesman for Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe says he is undergoing a medical procedure after being thrown from a horse during a family trip and breaking seven ribs. Spokesman Brian Coy says the governor was with his family in Tanzania over the Christmas holidays when the riding accident occurred. The governor had been working since his return from Africa, but Coy said doctors identified increased fluid around his lungs that required treatment. He was hospitalized in Richmond on Monday and was expected “back in action” after two or three days of recovery. Coy stressed that the injury is not a “dire thing” and the governor has been on the job since the accident. That includes delivering the State of the Commonwealth last week.
Former Virginia
Gov. Bob McDonnell
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was hired as a consultant for a mechanical contractor after his conviction in a federal corruption case. Bay Mechanical Inc. CEO Rod Rodriguez tells The Virginian-Pilot he offered McDonnell the job in September. It was about a week after the former governor and his wife, Maureen, were found guilty of taking gifts and loans from a vitamin executive in exchange for promoting his products. McDonnell started the new job in October. Rodriguez, who’s known McDonnell for about a decade, says McDonnell has worked 24 to 30 hours a week at the company’s Virginia Beach headquarters. Rodriguez says the former governor’s monthly salary is around $5,000. McDonnell was sentenced earlier this month and is scheduled to begin his two-year prison term Feb. 9.
Sen. Mark Warner
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The Virginia Republican Party wants the U.S. Senate to investigate whether Democratic Sen. Mark Warner violated federal law when he discussed possible job opportunities for a former state senator’s daughter. GOP Party Chairman Pat Mullins sent a letter Friday to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics asking it to investigate Warner. He was part of a group of Democrats that tried unsuccessfully to prevent former state Sen. Phil Puckett from resigning last summer. Puckett’s resignation gave Republicans control of the state Senate. Warner has acknowledged he “brainstormed” with Puckett’s son about possible job opportunities for Puckett’s daughter but did not make any explicit job offers. Federal prosecutors indicated in December their investigation into Puckett’s resignation was closed. A Warner spokesman called the GOP complaint a “pathetic partisan attack.”
George Huguely V
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ The Supreme Court of Virginia won’t be rehearing a former University of Virginia lacrosse player’s appeal in the killing of his former girlfriend. The court Thursday denied a December petition to rehear George Huguely V’s appeal of his 2012 second-degree murder conviction in the death of fellow U.Va. student and lacrosse player Yeardley Love. The Daily Progress reports that the judges didn’t state a reason for denial. The court first refused to hear the appeal in November. Huguely’s slaying of the suburban Baltimore woman occurred in May 2010 in Charlottesville. The two had had an on-again, off-again relationship. The Chevy Chase, Md., defendant is serving a 23-year prison term in Virginia on the second-degree murder charge and for a grand larceny conviction, which he did not appeal.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia and 40 other states losing money after Congress ended subsidies to counties that contain national forest land. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Thursday that the U.S. Forest Service is distributing more than $50 million to 746 timber counties nationwide. That’s compared with about $300 million during the final year of the Secure Rural Schools subsidies program. Virginia is set to receive more than $282,000 this year. That’s down from about $1.58 million last year. For decades, the Forest Service has paid a quarter of its logging revenues to counties with forest land to be used for roads and schools. About 20 years ago, with logging being reduced to protect the spotted owl and salmon, Congress began approving the subsidies. Efforts to renew the subsidies died in Congress last month.