FREDLINES
Claire Marshall Watkins, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Fredericksburg Free Press
Caroline County Public Schools adds inaugural Hall of Distinction
By Taft Coghill Jr. 11/10/2026
In its first year, the Caroline County Public Schools’ Hall of Fame committee inducted 16 individuals for their athletic accomplishments.
This year, CCPS added a 3E component to the honor. Alums could now be selected based on their success in future enrollment, enlistment or employment opportunities.
At Monday night’s school board meeting, CCPS Communications and Community Engagement Specialist Lisa Stevens announced the seven inductees for this year’s class — four into the inaugural Hall of Distinction and three into the Athletic Hall of Fame.
Who is Betty Hume? UMW alum joins the “Jeopardy!” club
By Adele Uphaus 11/10/2026
Two months after filming “Jeopardy!” in Culver City, California, Betty Hume keeps in touch via group chat with her fellow contestants.
“All of the contestants are together in the green room watching the games, so you see everybody else’s game while waiting for your turn. Everybody is supportive and cheering for each other,” said Hume, who appeared in three episodes of the long-running television quiz show over the last week. “It’s not cutthroat competition. I was there for two days, so I’m in two different chat groups, and we’re still keeping in touch via text. So, that’s nice.”
The Free Lance-Star
Five things to know about Spotsylvania’s Kalahari water park (paywalled)
By Scott Shenk 11/10/2026
The Kalahari Resorts & Conventions is set to open Thursday in Spotsylvania County. The African-themed resort will have more than 1.38 million square feet of commercial space, a 267,429-square-foot indoor water park, a 10-acre outdoor water park, a 900-room hotel and a 156,278-square-foot convention center. Here are five things to know about the new Spotsylvania County water park.
1. Who is behind Kalahari Resorts & Convention water park? Todd and Shari Nelson were a high school couple who married and later opened a pizza restaurant, followed by a bar, according to Kalahari’s bio on the family. They founded Kalahari in 2000 after being inspired by a family trip to Africa in the 1990s. The family opened the first resort in Wisconsin in 2000. Kalahari’s Spotsylvania water park is their fifth resort. Kalahari operates two resorts in Wisconsin, one in Ohio and another in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. The couple and their five children own and operate the Kalahari parks.
Spotsylvania County road, intersections project complete (paywalled)
By Scott Shenk 11/10/2026
A two-year work zone is officially gone at two Spotsylvania County intersections that were part of one project.
The Virginia Department of Transportation announced on Monday that work is complete on the $12.3 million project to widen a section of Harrison Road between Gordon Road and Old Plank Road, an area that has long been a traffic problem.
Emma Brown slated to lead Hugh Mercer Elementary School (paywalled)
By Pilar Davis 11/10/2026
Emma Brown has been tapped as the next principal of Hugh Mercer Elementary School.
Brown, a longtime educator, has served with the Fredericksburg City Public Schools since 2012, when she was a teacher at Walker-Grant Middle School. She then worked at Walker-Grant and Hugh Mercer as an instructional technology coach.
In 2017, Brown was named Fredericksburg division’s Teacher of the Year. Since 2022, Brown has served as assistant principal at Walker-Grant Middle School.
What to know: Downtown Greens wants to find the Fredericksburg region’s best tree (paywalled)
By The Free Lance-Star 11/10/2026
Got a favorite tree? Downtown Greens wants to see it. The Fredericksburg nonprofit is inviting residents to show off their favorite trees in a new competition called The Best in the Bark: Fredericksburg Edition. According to a news release, the goal is to celebrate the trees that give local neighborhoods their character.
Backyard favorites and neighborhood landmarks are welcome. Trees in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Stafford, Caroline and King George counties are eligible. Whether it’s a towering oak, a colorful fall favorite or a tree with a special story, residents can nominate it for the title.
Potomac Local News
Stafford proposes ambulance rate hike to 135% of Medicare levels after rates sat frozen since 2013
By PLN News 11/10/2026
Stafford County Fire and Rescue wants to raise ambulance rates for the first time in 13 years, recommending specific increases that would put the charges at 135% of current federal Medicare rates while leaving soft billing for county residents unchanged.
Fire Chief Joseph Cardello, Assistant Chief Joe Granger and Chief Fire Protection Engineer Andrew Milliken outlined the proposal Oct. 27 during a Board of Supervisors work session. No vote was taken. Staff plan to seek advertisement of a public hearing Nov. 17, with a hearing targeted for Dec. 15 and a possible effective date around Jan. 1 if approved.
ADVANCE READS
Steve Watkins, Phil Huber, Lisa Messano
Obscene and Not Heard
Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR
It all started when the school librarian in Northumberland—let’s call him Dale—invited me over to do an afternoon talk and book signing at the middle school, where the Common Read that year was one of the books in the popular Ghosts of War series I’d written for Scholastic Press. The school had purchased hundreds of copies and given them out to all the students.
And since I was going to be there anyway, Dale asked if I might come a little early to speak at a high school assembly next door and do a reading from my newest Young Adult novel from Candlewick Press, Great Falls, about a returning Iraq War veteran and his family.
On the appointed day, I drove over to Northumberland and checked in with Dale. “I thought I’d read a passage where the Marine veteran reluctantly agrees to give a pep talk to his younger brother’s high school football team,” I said. “There’s some profanity. Any problem with that?”
Who Decides When America Goes to War?
Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
This week, the House of Representatives faces a question that goes well beyond Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: Who decides when America goes to war?
The question comes from an unlikely source. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky has introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth. Under House rules, his resolution requires action within two legislative days. House members may vote on impeachment or move to set the resolution aside. Either way, they will have to take a position.
Here in Fredericksburg, this is not an abstract argument about Washington politics. Our region includes Marines at Quantico, Navy personnel and civilian specialists at Dahlgren, military retirees, defense contractors, and families whose sons and daughters serve around the world. When political leaders commit American forces to war, these are among the people who bear the consequences. They deserve to know that the decisions were made lawfully and that Congress has done its job.
November 12 is Deadline for Public Comments Opposing NextEra/Dominion Merger
Lisa Messano, League of Women Voters, GUEST COLUMN
I recently participated in a call hosted by Virginia Organizing about the proposed merger of Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy and later read several articles on the topic in the Virginia Mercury. I am sharing my concerns ahead of the November 12 deadline for Virginia residents to submit public comments, advocate for themselves, and demand adequate protection for Dominion’s Virginia customers.
The decision on whether these giant energy companies should be permitted to merge rests with three people at the Virginia State Corporation Commission, and they have only six months to decide. In this golden age of power demand, as data centers are planned and built at a rapid pace, it begs the question of who would benefit from a merger of this size. If approved, this merger would create the largest regulated utility in the country and the fourth-largest merger in the United States.
STATE OF THE STATE
VaNews/VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT
Data center sales tax break totaled $4 billion over 5 years
By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)
Virginia’s sales tax exemption for data centers has totaled more than $4.05 billion over the five years ended June 30, 2025, a new report from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found. The report found each $1 million of sales taxes that data centers did not pay generated 29 jobs and gave a $6 million boost to the state economy. JLARC said its adjusted figure for the exemption’s value in fiscal year 2025 was $1.42 billion — that’s down from the $1.9 billion tax benefit that the state Department of Taxation reported in January in its report on the value of the exemption and the investment it generates.
State report dings Virginia’s elder care systems
By BRAD KUTNER, WVTF-FM
Services and options for Virginia’s older adults are insufficient for its growing population of seniors, according to a state watchdog report released Monday. There aren’t enough beds in most facilities because of staffing issues, regional services aren’t meeting the need, and pretty much every form of care is underfunded. Monday’s meeting of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission offered a bleak view of care options for Virginia’s elderly.
Virginia elected a female governor. The state Constitution still says ‘he.’
By NATHANIEL CLINE, Virginia Mercury
Virginia has its first woman governor, but its constitution still describes the office as a man’s job. Abigail Spanberger’s election last year renewed attention to outdated laws governing voting rights, campaign finance safeguards and the K-12 funding formula. But after her election and 11 eventful months in state politics, there has been no notable effort to address them, especially compared with other states. Joan Porte, president of the League of Women Voters of Virginia, said the state Constitution should be revised accordingly.
New Va. subsidies help lure people back to health insurance
By MICHAEL MARTZ, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)
Blanca Bonilla was trying to help an older couple find health insurance they could afford after the husband was laid off from his job in the northern Shenandoah Valley. They weren’t old enough for Medicare coverage and earned too much for other public health subsidies, and Congress had allowed enhanced federal health insurance premium subsidies to expire at the beginning of this year. Bonilla, who has worked as a health insurance navigator at Enroll Virginia! in Winchester for six years, looked at the options, which this year include financial aid that Virginia is providing to offset the loss of the federal subsidies to make insurance premiums more affordable.
By MARC DAVIS, New York Times (Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)
From her seat in the old Art Deco federal courthouse in Norfolk, Va., Judge Rebecca Beach Smith presides over perhaps the most intriguing case in maritime law: the salvaging of the Titanic. Since 1987, the company R.M.S. Titanic Inc. has raised about 5,500 artifacts from the ship with the court-sanctioned understanding that it can never sell the objects. But it can put them on display. So the company has permanent exhibitions in Las Vegas and Orlando plus traveling shows that have been seen by 35 million people. In March, though, the company argued it was broke — so broke, it said in court papers, that it needed to auction hundreds of the artifacts so it can take good care of the rest and pay off its debts.
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