THE MONDAY ADVANCE: READS, FREDLINES, and STATE of the STATE
AUGUST 3, 2026. All About the Day.
ADVANCE READS
Steve Watkins, Shaun Kenney, Phil Huber
Four City Council Members Say Hard No to 1500 Gateway Data Center in Fredericksburg
By Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR
The majority of Fredericksburg’s City Council members have announced that they oppose the Penzance Development company’s recently announced plans to seek permits for a million-square-foot, two-building, 75-foot-high data center at 1500 Gateway Boulevard in an 84-acre wooded area in the city known as the Hylton Tract.
“Simply put, it’s the wrong location for a project such as this,” Ward I Council Member Matt Rowe said in an email to The Advance. “It’s too close to existing residential development, and the power lines that would be necessary to accommodate this project would need to be routed just behind Hugh Mercer ES or loom over all of Cowan Boulevard from Route 1 to 1500 Gateway.”
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Blame Trump as a Symptom of the Times, but Until Institutions Address Their Own Sins, The Worst Is Yet to Come.
By Shaun Kenney, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
Donnie Johnson writes on the back and forth over stolen elections, particularly with regard to Trump in 2020 without exactly mentioning the hue and cry of the political left in 2016 where Russia stole the election. Both of these hyperbolic claims have been proven demonstrably untrue by serious minds, yet the myth continues and perhaps for no small reason than our culture is indeed soaked in a mindset that when Americans lose we are somehow cheated of victory.
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The Misdirection Frame Game
By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
Turn on the evening news long enough and the script starts to sound familiar. A Republican spokesman often will not begin with roads, wages, childcare, housing costs, or grocery prices. Instead, the message comes wrapped in warnings about schools, gender, immigration, religion, crime, “wokeness,” socialism, communism, or even “TDS.” The goal is to make you look here and not there.
That is political framing. It pulls attention away from the problems people live with every day and points it at an emotional target. A kitchen-table issue becomes a cultural panic. A policy debate becomes a moral fight. An argument about government becomes an argument about fear, identity, and belonging.
FREDLINES
Eve Evans, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Fredericksburg Free Press
Virginia votes Tuesday: Everything you need to know about the 2026 primary elections
by Markus Schmidt. Virginia Mercury, 08/03/2027
Virginia holds its delayed 2026 primaries Tuesday, pushed back nearly two months after this year’s congressional redistricting referendum created uncertainty over which district maps would apply. More than 30 candidates are on the ballot statewide, including a contested three-way GOP Senate primary—featuring Kim Farington, Bert Mizusawa and David Williams—to challenge Democratic incumbent Mark Warner, plus competitive congressional primaries in seven districts. In the 7th District, which covers Fredericksburg and Stafford, three Republicans (Philip Harding, Douglas Ollivant and Rick Smithers) are vying for the chance to face unopposed Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman. Polls run from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., voters must show ID or sign an identity confirmation statement, and since Virginia doesn’t register by party, voters may choose either party’s ballot but not both.
Virginia senators request special session to act on ’deeply alarming’ groundwater report
By Shannon Heckt Virginia Mercury, 08/01/2026
A newly released 117-page Virginia DEQ report finds groundwater east of I-95 is “constrained,” with declining availability that would make it difficult to support major new industrial withdrawals—including data centers—without risking saltwater intrusion and threatening drinking water supplies. In response, Sens. Russet Perry and Richard Stuart sent Gov. Abigail Spanberger a letter urging a special legislative session, arguing that the report’s months-late release, past the legally required deadline, deprived lawmakers of critical information before this year’s session and budget decisions. The senators want the General Assembly to act on the report’s recommendations, including updating the 1992 Groundwater Management Act to let DEQ deny permits that would drop aquifer levels too low and requiring local growth plans to account for groundwater limits. The push adds to mounting pressure on Spanberger, who received a separate special-session request last week from Sen. David Suetterlein and Del. Joe McNamara over the proposed Dominion-NextEra merger.
Potomac Local News
Heavy Thunderstorms Pose Flash Flood Risk This Afternoon
By Uriah Kiser, 08/03/2027
Scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected tonight before clearing, with a low around 68, followed by a mostly dry Tuesday reaching a high near 86 and only isolated storms south of the Staunton-to-Fredericksburg line. An active, humid pattern returns Wednesday and persists through the weekend, bringing daily afternoon and evening storms, a heightened flooding risk, and possible severe weather from Thursday onward. Heat indices could near 100 degrees by late week, though some models hint at drier air arriving early next week.
The Free Lance Star
Deputy accused of possessing child pornography for 3 years
By Keith Epps, 08/02/2026
A former Stafford County Sheriff’s Office first sergeant, Justin Thomas Lee Forman, 37, was fired and arrested this week on federal child pornography charges after an FBI investigation found he had been receiving child sexual abuse material since at least mid-2023. Federal court records allege Forman used Bitcoin to purchase illicit content via Telegram and detail multiple videos involving young children, including an infant, that were sent to his account. The FBI seized 16 electronic devices from his home during a search executed Thursday, and Forman is being held at the Truesdale Adult Detention Center in Alexandria ahead of his Monday arraignment in U.S. District Court.
STATE OF THE STATE
VaNews/VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT
Virginia senator calls for data center moratorium
By TYLER ENGLANDER, WRIC-TV
Sen. Glen Sturtevant (R-Colonial Heights) wants to hit the pause button on the approval and development of data centers in Virginia. Virginia is the data center capital of the world, as it has the highest concentration of these high-tech developments globally. “Every one of us in our electric bill pays for the generation and transmission lines that are needed for these data centers,” Sturtevant told 8News. “And now we’re also learning about the impacts on our waterways and our water resources.”
Grid operator warns of 6,800 MW shortfall as data center growth outpaces new power
By SEAN JONES, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)
The operator for the electric grid serving Richmond and much of Virginia says the region is on track to come up thousands of megawatts short of the electricity it expects to need within the next two to three years. PJM Interconnection, which manages the power grid for 67 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia, says the region is projected to be about 6,831 megawatts short of the capacity it needs by its 2028-29 planning year. Put into perspective, that is roughly the output of seven to nine large power plants ...
Virginia politics: It’s big business, and business is good
By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)
Politics in Virginia is a big — and fast-growing — business. The hundreds of millions of dollars that businesses and individuals earn getting candidates elected to state offices and then lobbying them to enact laws have outpaced inflation and the growth of the state economy, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found. Some of those firms and individuals are also the ones who run political hopefuls’ fundraising efforts, creating an even more feverish chase for funds based on the argument that money wins elections.
More lobbyists in Va., making more money — and more law
By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)
Walk the hallways of the General Assembly Building, and you’re sure to run into lobbyists stopping by a state senator’s or delegate’s office. And although the more spacious hallways seem less crowded with lobbyists than the narrow, twisting passages in the Pocahontas Building that housed legislative offices before 2024, there are more of them — just over 1,100 — as clients spend more money than ever. Spending on lobbying is up 72% over the past three gubernatorial and House election cycles, from the 2017 to 2025 cycles, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis of state Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commission data found.
As Trump Promotes Critical Mineral Mining, a Company Eyes the Seafloor in Coastal Virginia
By CHARLES PAULLIN, Inside Climate News
When Katie Dawson’s deckmates measure a black sea bass that’s too small, she asks to return it. ... Dawson has cared for the black sea bass, and the broader ecosystem they’re a part of in coastal Virginia, for 40 years. She runs a commercial fishing business with her husband on a vessel named Salacia, the name of the Roman goddess of saltwater. She’s worried that the ecosystem that supports her livelihood could be in jeopardy: A company wants to mine almost 2,500 square miles of the seafloor, an area larger than Delaware, between three and 64 miles east of the Delmarva Peninsula and just south of Dawson’s home.
As $43 million for Southwest flood relief remains unspent, residents who can’t afford to fix their homes wait for help
By ELIZABETH BEYER, Cardinal News
David Cruey hadn’t slept well — he woke up in the middle of the night gasping for air. The power had gone out briefly. The four box fans and the window air conditioning unit circulating air throughout the trailer home had turned off, along with his oxygen machine. When that happened, as it had many times before, everything needed to be turned back on; otherwise, the air in the home would become heavy with mold and mildew. That made it difficult for Cruey to breathe, a condition that has worsened since last year’s flood caused mold to bloom in the home. State funds meant to help repair Cruey’s home have yet to arrive. Even if they do, because Cruey lives in a mobile home, the help will likely cover little of the cost to repair.
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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.
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