Clark Palmer
Franklin County emergency crews are responding to a house fire this morning in the 3 hundred block of Rolling Hill Drive in Boones Mill. Investigators said the home was full engulfed for about 30 minutes before crews knocked down the flames. Now they are monitoring for hot spots. No one was home at the time of the blaze.
The father of UVA catcher Logan Michaels , who recently beat pancreatic cancer, says watching his son hit his first homerun of the year was one part of a special Father’s day. WFIR’s Clark Palmer has that story.
On June 20, 2021, at approximately 1:31 a.m., Roanoke Police responded to the 100 block of Campbell Avenue SE after hearing numerous gunshots. Responding officers located an adult male with what appeared to be serious gunshot wounds. The male was transported to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital by Roanoke FireEMS. While officers were on scene, they were advised that a second adult male with what appeared to be non-life threatening injuries from a gunshot wound had arrived via personal transport to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. It was determined that these injuries were from the same incident.
No arrests have been made regarding this incident at this time. This remains an ongoing investigation. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call (540)344-8500 and share what you know. You can also text us at 274637; please begin the text with “RoanokePD” to ensure it’s properly sent. Both calls and texts can remain anonymous
The Charlottesville City Council is offering to transfer ownership of one (1) or two (2) statues/outdoor bronze sculptures to an entity, upon terms deemed by City Council to be appropriate and advantageous. From June 7, 2021 through midnight on July 8, 2021 the City’s offer is extended to any museum, historical society, government or military battlefield interested in acquiring the Statues, or either of them, for relocation and placement. On or after July 8, 2021, if the statutes, or either of them, has not been transferred to such an entity for relocation and placement, City Council may make other disposition(s).
The Charlottesville City Manager issues this Request for Statements of Interest (“RFI”) [<–the RFI information at this link will be published on June 8, 2021] to determine whether, and how many, entities are or may be interested in discussing specific terms for acquisition of either or both statues.
The statues that are the subject of this RFI are (i) a bronze statue/ sculpture of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and (ii) a bronze statue/ sculpture of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. The Lee Statue is located in a City park situated on West Market Street, between 1st Street North and 2nd Street NE. Information regarding the Lee Statue can be found at: https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/104-0264/ . The Jackson Statue is located in a City park situated on 4th Street NE, between East Jefferson Street and West High Street. Information regarding the Jackson Statue can be found at: https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/104-0251/.
From Appalachians Against Pipelines
UPDATE: The pipeline protesters have been arrested after halting work on that portion of the pipeline for seven hours.
PREVIOUS: Mountain Valley Pipeline protesters have established a blockade in the Pembroke area of Giles County that is preventing MVP workers from accessing the construction site. According to Appalachians Against Pipelines, the blockade includes a large wooden duck, with three people locked to it and another person on top.
Courtesy of US Senate Historical Office
One Virginia’s longest serving U.S. Senators and ex husband of a Hollywood actress has passed away. WFIR’s Clark Palmer has that story.
Former Republican Virginia Senator John Warner died yesterday evening at 94-years-old of heart failure, with his wife and daughter at his side. That’s according to an email sent out overnight to Warner alumni and family by his longtime chief of staff Susan Magill. The World War II and Korean War veteran served three decades in the Senate after a stint as secretary of the Navy.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Former Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, a courtly figure and longtime military expert whose marriage to Elizabeth Taylor gave him a potent dash of starpower, has died at 94.
Warner died Tuesday of heart failure at home in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife and daughter at his side, his longtime chief of staff, Susan A. Magill, said Wednesday.
A centrist Republican, Warner had an independent streak that sometimes angered more conservative GOP leaders. But he was hugely popular with Virginia voters.
That popularity was only amplified by his marriage to a mega movie star, which drew huge crowds when he was elected to the Senate in 1978.
Warner was the sixth of Taylor’s seven husbands. The two were married in 1976 and divorced in 1982. Taylor wrote later that they remained friends, but she “just couldn’t bear the intense loneliness” when he became engrossed in his Senate duties.
Warner served five Senate terms before retiring from the chamber 30 years later. He was succeeded in 2008 by Democrat Mark Warner — no relation — who had challenged him for the Senate in 1996 and went on to serve a term as Virginia’s governor. After years of rivalry, the two became good friends.
“In Virginia, we expect a lot of our elected officials,” Mark Warner said Wednesday. “We expect them to lead, yet remain humble. We expect them to serve, but with dignity. We expect them to fight for what they believe in, but without making it personal. John Warner was the embodiment of all that and more. I firmly believe that we could use more role models like him today.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said, “Once I came to the Senate, I understood even more deeply the influence of John Warner. I came to know John McCain, Carl Levin, and so many others who served with him and attested to his integrity and outsized influence in a body he loved so dearly.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lauded Warner as “a great patriot…a leader unafraid to speak the truth but always committed to finding common ground and consensus.”
The courtly senator with chiseled features and a thick shock of gray hair was so popular with Virginia voters that Democrats did not bother to challenge him in 2002.
A veteran of World War II and Korea, Warner devoted most of his career to military matters. He served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and as Navy secretary.
He was a key supporter of President George W. Bush’s declaration of war and often defended the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq. But he also showed a willingness to buck the White House.
After a 2007 trip to Iraq, Warner called upon Bush to start bringing troops home. He summoned top Pentagon officials to hearings into the torture of detainees at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison and the Iraq war.
In 2005, Warner was part of a group of centrist senators who defused a showdown over judicial filibusters on Bush’s appeals court nominees. That same year, Warner was the lone senator to formally object to the federal government stepping in on the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case. She had suffered brain damage and her husband sought to remove her feeding tube, over the objections of Florida lawmakers.
“Greater wisdom is not always reposed in the branches of federal government,” he said at the time.
Republicans nominated Warner for the Senate in 1978. He was ridiculed by some who thought he was riding on the coattails of his then-wife, Taylor, whom he had married in late 1976.
In 1994, Warner angered conservatives by opposing GOP nominee Oliver North’s bid to unseat Virginia Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb. Warner declared the Iran-Contra figure unfit for public office and backed independent J. Marshall Coleman, who drew enough independent and moderate GOP votes to ensure Robb’s reelection.
“I sure risked my political future, that’s for sure,” Warner said in 1994. “But I’d rather the voters of this state remember that I stood on my principle. … That’s the price of leadership.”
Steamed by what they viewed as disloyalty to the party, GOP conservatives tried to deny him a fourth term in 1996, backing a challenge by former Reagan administration budget director Jim Miller. Miller portrayed Warner as an elitist who spent too much time squiring celebrities, including Barbara Walters. But Warner easily defeated Miller in the primary, and went on to beat Democrat Mark Warner in the general election.
John Warner mended his strained ties with the GOP by supporting the successful campaigns of Jim Gilmore for governor in 1997 and George Allen for Robb’s Senate seat in 2000.
Born in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 18, 1927, Warner volunteered for the Navy at 17 and served as a 3rd class electronics technician. He received an engineering degree from Washington and Lee University in 1949.
He entered law school at the University of Virginia in the fall of 1949 but volunteered the next year for the Marines, serving in Korea as a first lieutenant and communications officer with the First Marine Air Wing. Following Korea, he returned to law school and received a degree from the University of Virginia in 1953.
He was a law clerk at the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, went into private practice, and then served four years as a federal prosecutor. He became under secretary of the Navy in 1969 and served as secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974.
Warner got an estimated $7 million fortune in the breakup of his first marriage, to Catherine Mellon, daughter of multimillionaire Paul Mellon. He and Taylor divorced in 1982 and he married real estate agent Jeanne Vander Myde in 2003.
Warner had three children, Mary, Virginia and John, and was a member of the Episcopal Church.