FREDLINES
Eve Evans, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Slow local news weekend and start to the week, so here’s a Dolly Parton video for you instead. See you tomorrow.
ADVANCE READS
Matthew Jeans, Steve Watkins, Phil Huber
The Perfect School Lunch Is Useless If Your Kid Won’t Eat It
By Matthew Jeans, ADVANCE CONTRIBUTOR
Every August, the internet fills up with pictures of school lunches that appear to have been assembled by tiny Michelin-starred chefs. There are strawberries cut into hearts, sandwiches shaped like bears, vegetables arranged by color and little handwritten notes tucked beside reusable containers. They’re adorable. They’re also not how most families have the time, money, or energy to pack lunch every morning. That gap matters when we talk about children’s nutrition.
I spent years working in pediatric nutrition research, including research on breakfast consumption in elementary-school children, and one thing becomes quickly obvious when you study how kids actually eat. The nutritionally perfect meal on paper is not necessarily the best meal in real life.
Veterans Affairs Top Press Secretary Has a Cow, Says He Wants Advance Commentary Taken Down
By Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR
I got an email late last week from Quinn Slaven, a 28-year-old MAGA operative appointed Press Secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs this past April. Before that, he’d been communications director for an obscure Republican congressman from North Carolina, and before that he’d bounced around different PR jobs after graduating from a small college in Iowa. I wasn’t surprised to learn from his Linkedin profile that he’s also earned certificates from Google in “Writing Prompts like a Pro” and “Generative AI.”
Quinn’s informal salutation—“Hi Steve—suggested something friendly would follow, but instead he launched into eight paragraphs of hammerhead criticism of a FXBG Advance commentary by one of our columnists, Phil Huber.
STATE OF THE STATE
VaNews/VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT
Confederate statues removed from Capitol Square
By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)
Capitol Square’s three Confederates retreated Friday, as crews removed the statues of Stonewall Jackson, William “Extra Billy” Smith and Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire. They’re headed to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, a nonprofit that preserves the valley’s battlegrounds and operates two museums detailing the Civil War campaigns in the valley, the breadbasket of the Confederate States. ... Although the state Senate passed a bill on party lines calling for the statues’ removal, the measure stalled in the House of Delegates Rules Committee. But authorization to remove the statues was tucked into Page 78 of the 887-page state budget, passed just days ahead of a looming state government shutdown.
Newly formed Virginia Crusade for Voters draws rebuke from Richmond Crusade leaders
By GEORGE COPELAND JR., The Richmonder
The Richmond Crusade for Voters held a press conference to denounce a new group that it says is drafting off of its decades-long legacy. The new group, named the Virginia Crusade for Voters, was formed in part by Jesse Frierson, a member of the Richmond Crusade. “This is a 70-year-old entity that is well known throughout Virginia,” Richmond Crusade First Vice President Robert Lester said Wednesday. “For you to take that name, that legacy, and start another organization, that’s where the problem is.”
Does Perriello stand a chance? Democrats say yes, experts say no, and the numbers say maybe
By DAVID VELAZQUEZ, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Democrats, on the state and national level, are all but certain they can flip Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, a Republican stronghold for nearly a quarter-century. That conviction flies in the face of every single prediction made by election forecasters watching this year’s midterm elections, including the Cook Political Report, Decision Desk HQ and, more locally, University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Gambling Addicts Hope ‘Skill Games’ Will Go Bust
By NICK KEPPLER, New York Times (Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)
Driving home on a recent Friday after another monotonous week of installing drywall, David Peck passed by the sole gas station in Millheim, Pa., and felt a familiar urge. The front of the Millheim Food Mart, the convenience store attached to the gas station, houses six video screen kiosks, each matched with a swiveling bar chair. With just $8 in his pocket, Mr. Peck, 46, stopped in the store and slipped the money into one of the machines. ... Skill games remove physical or psychological barriers between gambling and nongambling spaces, said Carolyn E. Hawley, a professor of rehabilitation counseling at Virginia Commonwealth University and the director of the Virginia Partnership for Gaming and Health.
***
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.”