Author: James A. Bacon
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Violent Crime Down 7% in 2024, Homicides by 19%
Hooray, the Virginia State Police has finally published its Crime in Virginia 2024 report! The big news was that violent crime in the commonwealth dropped 7% that year compared to 2023. The number of homicides (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter) declined from 520 in 2023 to 421 in 2024 — 19 percent! There’s much more to…
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VRS Slowly Closing the Funding Gap
But liabilities still exceed assets by 17 percent. Earlier this week, we discussed how deferred maintenance represents a form of hidden deficit spending. Underfunding pension contributions is another classic gambit of state government. Since bottoming out in the mid-2010s, the Virginia Retirement System has been inching closer each year toward full funding for teachers and…
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Beardsley Selected to Run UVA. Is a Blue-on-Blue Execution Next?
I figured the University of Virginia’s presidential selection would appoint someone from within the University because who in their right mind would move across the country to Charlottesville knowing the kind of reception he or she would get from Virginia politicians:
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A 10 Percent Increase in Real Wages?
Wow! … if true. From Secretary of Commerce Juan Pablo ‘s December newsletter: Over the last year, we’ve announced 156 billion dollars in net new capital investment across the Commonwealth. That growth is broad-based. We currently have 220,000 open jobs, with 85,000 more on the way, plus another 40,000 construction jobs. Because of this opportunity,…
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Gun Killings Down in 2024
But homicides remained highly concentrated in nine old urban localities. From the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission report, “Effects of Community Gun Violence in Virginia“: Virginia ranks 23rd highest among states for violent firearm offenses, with 88 per 100,000 residents annually on average (slightly below the 50-state average of 93). Virginia’s statewide gun homicide…
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Fairfax Forfeits Transgender Case
Fairfax County Public School leaders capitulated after a student challenged their pro-transgender policies in court, offering hope that the era of so-called “transgender rights” is coming to a close. by Stephanie Lundquist-AroraRepublished with permission from IWFeatures Last month, Fairfax County Public Schools, represented by Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, extended a Rule 68 Offer of Judgment to a former…
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State Govt’s Maintenance Backlog: $1.1 Billion+
An insidious form of deficit spending is deferred maintenance. Could that be a problem in Virginia? The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission took a look at state-owned buildings, valued at between $31 billion to $47 billion. The M-R FIX [database] shows that about half of state-owned buildings are almost 50 years old or older,…
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Advocacy and Activism for Teachers
The Virginia Education Association emphasizes radicalism and resistance over reading and math. by Victoria Manning The Virginia Education Association (VEA), the state arm of the National Education Association, has no interest in educating your children. Instead, they want to push “advocacy and activism for educators”—a goal they stated explicitly and repeatedly throughout their November 2025…
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A Coordinated Effort to Delegitimize and Intimidate the UVA Board
by The Jefferson Council Any discerning observer paying attention to the ongoing barrage of unprecedented attacks on the University of Virginia Board of Visitors (BOV) and its leadership cannot help but notice a striking similar pattern. The same allegations—largely manufactured, repetitious, and thinly sourced—are recycled again and again, apparently in the belief that if a…
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Great Idea: Online FOIA Libraries
I’d love to see one of these for the University of Virginia! — JAB