FXBG ADVANCE NEWSLETTER 7/7/26
Ranjit Singh: On the Destruction of Familiar Trees. Drew Gallagher: America’s Midas Turned the U.S. Men’s Game into Something Offal. Phil Huber: Feeling Our Way Back to Democracy
ERASURE: On the Destruction of Familiar Trees
By Ranjit Singh, Advance Environmental Columnis
Swatches of forest disappear in Stafford County, Virginia every day. I’ve written about this before, including how disorienting the rapid destruction is to many residents. Bulldozers clear away all vegetation and even the soil underneath, leaving the yellow earth scarred and infertile. Few places seem immune. Just a few years after my wife and I bought our house, the entire forest backing our lot was removed, leaving us atop a windy hill.
Last week, a nearby copse of trees that I’ve admired for decades was unceremoniously scraped away for new homes “starting in the mid-500s.” I have long known these trees were vulnerable, surrounded by older houses. But the act itself came as a shock. Especially since this is still early summer and the height of the nesting season. The trees’ sudden erasure sent me back to an ancient puzzle:
What are my kindred members of humanity thinking?
Read the full article
Feeling Our Way Back to Democracy
By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
A friend told me recently about his 30‑year‑old daughter. She’s liberal, politically aware, and furious. Not mildly upset, not rolling‑her‑eyes frustrated—furious. She watches what Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have done to our institutions, to our neighbors, to the basic idea of truth, and her whole body tenses up. She snaps at relatives, doom scrolls late into the night, and talks openly about giving up on this country.
I don’t blame her.
Read the Full Article
America’s Midas Turned the U.S. Men’s Game into Something Offal
By Drew Gallagher, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
I don’t believe in an interventional God. But I do believe in the gods of sports. On Monday night, the gods of soccer visited Seattle to remind FIFA and the world that no mortals should ever believe they are bigger than the game.
Read the full article
NEW NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE
VaNews/Virginia Public Access Project
Three-judge panel rejects consolidating gun law challenge cases
By HENRY GRAFF, WWBT-TV
A three-judge panel denied a request from the attorney general’s office to consolidate a slew of cases challenging some of the state’s new gun laws. During the hearing, the Attorney General’s office argued for consolidation due to resources, duplication of cases and chaos around new gun law enforcement. “The horse was sort of out of the barn and in this case, the horses were out of the barn, and there was no reasonable way to put them back. It was just too late to consolidate these cases,” said Ken Cuccinelli, Former Virginia Attorney General and lawyer for the Spotsylvania case. Lawyers over the four cases in question said each one is different and deserves its own attention.
New state budget helps 200,000 Virginians afford health insurance
By MICHAEL MARTZ, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)
The long and hard fight over a new state budget is proving its worth by extending a lifeline to 200,000 Virginians who either have lost their health insurance coverage or are struggling to keep it. The budget that took effect last week includes $150 million to help Virginians afford monthly premiums for health insurance they will buy on the state-run marketplace next year to partly offset the loss of federal enhanced subsidies at the beginning of this year.
House committee to compel testimony from Arlington’s top prosecutor in ongoing dispute
By DAN EGITTO, ArlNow
House Republicans are compelling Arlington’s top prosecutor to testify next week in a pair of ongoing disputes over politically charged topics. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is requiring Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti to appear for a deposition on Thursday, July 16. This caps months of written clashes between the two officials — first over Dehghani-Tafti’s handling of a criminal case involving a political activist, and later over her policies restricting contact with immigration enforcement. Both sides have accused each other of unjustified political interference.
Virginia joins multistate push against ICE rollback on detainee death reporting
By MARKUS SCHMIDT, Virginia Mercury
Virginia is joining a 22-state effort led by New York Attorney General Letitia James urging President Donald Trump’s administration to reverse a new federal policy ending investigations and public reporting of deaths that occur shortly after immigrants are released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. The change rescinds a 2021 Biden administration policy that required ICE to notify Congress and investigate when detainees had died within 30 days of being released from custody. Attorney General Jay Jones announced Monday that Virginia had joined the coalition calling on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Customs Enforcement to restore the previous reporting standards.
Central Virginia counties allocate $750K to fight Valley Link project
By HEATHER PRICE IVES, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Three Virginia counties have allocated a combined three quarters of a million dollars to fight the massive Valley Link transmission line project that Dominion Energy and its out-of-state partners say is necessary to feed the power-hungry data centers in Northern Virginia. The 115-mile, 765-kilovolt line, proposed by Virginia-based Dominion and its partners Ohio-based FirstEnergy and Transource Energy, would cut across the state, connecting the data center capital of the world in Northern Virginia with the Ohio River Valley, where utilities regularly produce more energy than consumers there need.
***
Articles from newspapers throughout the Commonwealth and Washington D.C. Firewalls will block you from reading some, but you’ll at least have some idea about what’s going on from the headlines and summaries. CLICK HERE.
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”