Free Republic

The Virginia teacher who was shot by her 6-year-old student texted a loved one before she was wounded that the boy was armed and that school officials were failing to act, according to a source close to the situation. The source on Tuesday said Abigail Zwerner sent the text about an hour before she was shot on Jan. 6, saying that the student said he had a gun in his backpack and administrators at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News weren’t helping. The text “showed her frustration,” said the source, who only disclosed details of the single text message to...

While New York, California, and Boston continue to be the most expensive rental markets in the country, some unexpected locales have actually experienced the largest increases in one-bedroom apartment prices year-over-year.Greensboro, North Carolina, sits atop the list with rent increases of 74.2 percent, followed by Newport News, Virginia, at 60.7 percent, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, at 59.8 percent, according to Rent.com’s August report. Jon Leckie, a researcher with Rent.com, told The Epoch Times that such increases aren’t unusual, given the amount of people who have been flocking to these areas.“We’re seeing a pattern where the markets around the larger metro areas...

A former Heritage High School student was sentenced Friday to 10 years behind bars in a shooting that wounded two students at the school last fall.Circuit Court Judge Christopher Papile sentenced Jacari Taylor — who was 15 at the time of the September shooting and is now 16 — to a blended sentence that will include juvenile detention and state prison time. Prosecutors said Taylor and a 17-year-old student were arguing in the school cafeteria One bullet entered behind the 17-year-old’s left ear, lodging in his lower left jaw, with the teen also struck in the leg and finger. Another...

Newport News shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls reverses their position on the vaccine mandate and claims they misinterpreted the federal requirement. After further consultations with the federal government, the shipbuilder now says the vaccine mandate doesn’t apply. “This recent information is different from what we understood to be the government’s and the Navy’s intent,” the company said. Huntington Ingalls previously said all of its 25,000 workers would need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a “condition of continued employment” due to the vaccine mandate for federal workers and contractors. [Media Link] However, Newport News Shipbuilding President Jennifer Boykin said in a...

Report: Navy Shipbuilding Contractor Suspends Vaccine Mandate After Workers Threaten to QuitHuntington Ingalls Industries (HII), the parent company to Newport News Shipbuilding, suspended its federally-enforced coronavirus vaccine mandate after the U.S. Navy “confirmed that our contracts do not include a requirement to implement the mandate,” and some workers threatened to quit, according to the Daily Press and WTKR....Initially, the shipyard announced all 25,000 employees would be required to be fully vaccinated by December 8 as a “condition of continued employment,” according to WAVY. That deadline was extended to January 4, with the blessing of the federal government, but has now...

HAPPENING NOW: Newport News Police investigating shooting at high school. Authorities are on the scene of a shooting at Heritage High School. Students are being evacuated — and sent to tennis courts, said police. Parents can meet children there. pic.twitter.com/Svo4rGx4oz — Eugene Daniel 13News Now (@eugenedanielTV) September 20, 2021 Breaking: Newport News Police are conducting an aggressive assault and sweep of Heritage High School, many students have come running from buildings. Radio traffic indicates there are at least several patients with gunshot wounds. Including one to the head. https://t.co/5FoR9WLQmE — Chris Wiggins 🏳️‍🌈 (@CWNewser) September 20, 2021 Latest updates here…...

The President is holding a Peaceful Protest in Newport News, VA on 9/25. I'm wondering if his internal polls are showing he is close in VA or, possibly, is ahead. If Trump wins VA, I think it's game over for the Dems. Any VA FReepers have a sense of the President's chances?

A Virginia man lost his job with a leading national naval manufacturer after refusing to take off his “Trump 2020” hat at a safety meeting prior to a shift, according to local reports. Dave Sunderland spent about eight years working at Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, which is the only manufacturer of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and one of just two firms that produce nuclear-powered submarines. Despite company policies prohibiting campaigning and political clothing, Sunderland told the Daily Press newspaper in Virginia that he’d worn Trump hats over the past few years without incident and had...

Collecting tolls in Hampton Roads is a $180-million-a-year business — nearly twice the size of the region’s fishing and farming sectors combined — and is set to grow. Much of that money goes to finance a private venture’s $1.5 billion expansion of the road and tunnel network connecting Norfolk and Portsmouth. A somewhat smaller amount goes to the public body that’s spending nearly $800 million to dig a parallel tunnel for the 55-year-old, 23-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. A much smaller part goes to keep the Coleman Bridge over the York River in shape, and to pay off the cost...

In the next year or two, the seabed between Hampton and Norfolk will start to change. Mud and sand will slowly move as a custom-built boring machine tunnels alongside the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Travelers funneling through the existing HRBT may not notice the adjacent construction just on the other side of the tunnel wall. Cargo ships and Navy vessels, carrying thousands of containers and sailors, may pass over the project’s construction completely undisturbed. And that’s the way Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization officials want it to stay. “It’s something we’re really proud of,” said Robert Crum, executive director for the...

HHI may be downsizing its shipyards, but not HII. Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries says that over the next five years, its yard at Newport News will need 7,000 new shipbuilders to work on subs and warships for the U.S. Navy, including 2,000 net new positions. HII's Newport News Naval Shipyard needs to recruit enough people to meet its workforce demands for the Ford-class aircraft carrier and Virginia-class submarine programs. The new hires will also support production of Columbia-class ballistic submarines, increased submarine fleet support work and the refueling, overhaul and defueling of Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. The overall hiring need is...

Newport News police said they found a man's body inside and that he had been dead for several years. Officers believe the man was in his late 60s. Other neighbors told WTKR they think the situation is strange. Some thought the man could've possibly been sent to a nursing home or moved away with his family, but instead he was inside his home the entire time. The neighbor who did the initial welfare check and called police said the man's family is in California and he lived alone taking care of himself. "He was very secluded. He didn't want to...

RICHMOND — Democrat Shelly Simonds has conceded the tied 94th District race out of Newport News that was decided by a random drawing last week. Simonds, who had suggested she might seek a second recount or contest the election, said she did not see any paths forward to challenge Republican Del. David Yancey’s re-election. She tweeted about 45 minutes before the General Assembly convened that she was conceding with “great disappointment.” I have conceded because I do not see any legal pathways forward and I want representation for the 94th district today. — Shelly Simonds (@shelly_simonds) January 10, 2018

Election officials say they've postponed their plan to break a tie in a Virginia House race that could decide party control of the chamber. Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortes confirmed the postponement Tuesday in an email to The Associated Press. Election officials had planned to draw names from a bowl Wednesday.

A Virginia Democrat running for a seat in the state’s House of Delegates against her Republican opponent filed a motion Tuesday asking a court to reconsider its decision to tie the race. A recount appeared to declare candidate Shelly Simonds victorious over Republican delegate David Yancey by one vote last week. But a day later, a three-judge panel certified the tie with 11,608 to 11,608 in the 94th District in Newport News. Now, she’s arguing that the court failed to follow state election rules after a controversial vote was counted to tie the race. The Virginia State Board of Elections...

WASHINGTON — Democrat Joshua Cole will not contest his narrow election loss to Republican Bob Thomas, despite earlier indications that he was considering asking the House of Delegates for an election do-over. Thomas won the 28th District race by 73 votes. Cole had repeatedly raised concerns about the 147 total voters in the Stafford and Fredericksburg area who cast votes in the wrong races across the 28th, 88th and 2nd House districts because they were assigned to the wrong districts in a state voter registration database. Cole, who had signaled he was strongly considering filing a contest, will instead continue...

A 39-year-old man was convicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy, including murder, attempted murder, robbery, obstruction of justice, murder in aid of racketeering, conspiracy, and attempted murder in aid of racketeering, in addition to other charges, Monday. Michael Hopson, also known as "Hop" and "Big Homie," was the leader and founding member of the P-Stones gang. The gang is often referred to as the P-Stone Bloods and Cobra Stones. The gang is from the Denbigh area, and is known for engaging in violent crimes, such as murder and illegal drug trafficking. snip Hopson was also employed as a security guard...

NORFOLK, Va. – A Navy civilian engineer has been indicted on charges he tried to steal schematics of an aircraft carrier under construction and have them sent to Egypt. Federal prosecutors said Mostafa Ahmed Awwad, 35, of Yorktown, Virginia, was arrested Friday on two counts of attempted exportation of defense articles and technical data. Prosecutors said Awwad tried to steal technical data in the designs of the USS Gerald R. Ford in late October. Awwad provided computer drawings downloaded from the Navy to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Egyptian intelligence officer. The Ford is the lead ship in...

A Navy engineer was arrested and charged Friday with attempting to steal plans for the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier, now under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding. Mostafa Ahmed Awwad, 35, a York County, Va., resident who worked at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia, was indicted on two counts of attempted exportation of defense articles and technical data, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each count. Awwad intended to send the schematics to Egypt, authorities said. Court documents describe a saga that included...

Subpoenas show that investigators honed in on Sen. John Miller, D-Newport News By Peter Dujardin, pdujardin@dailypress.com | 247-4749 10:28 PM EST, March 2, 2012 NEWPORT NEWS — A federal grand jury met in Newport News late last year and again last month as part of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding state legislation that gave a tax break to a Newport News air services firm. Documents show that the clerk of the Virginia Senate was served twice in November and once in January with federal subpoenas for documents pertaining to legislation that benefited the Orion Air Group, now located at...