4/28/26 - Supreme Court of Virginia hears redistricting case
Showing mention at 2:00 — highlighted below
Transcript
58 segmentsThe VPM Daily Newscast is sponsored by Dominion Energy. When your small business keeps you busy, don't sweat the energy bill. Budget billing is a free program that provides consistent monthly bills so you can focus on running your business instead of worrying about higher summer bills. Enjoy more stable expenses without the seasonal ups and downs. Learn more about the free program at dominionenergy.com slash budget billing.
You're listening to you're listening to to the VPM Daily Newscast, the recap of today's top stories in central Virginia. From the VPM newsroom in Richmond, I'm Kim Strother. The Supreme Court of Virginia heard opening arguments yesterday in Scott v. McDougal, a case that could decide the Commonwealth's congressional maps for the 2026 midterm election. VPM News's Billy Shields was in the courtroom. State Republicans sued to block the redistricting referrifice. on state constitutional grounds, they argue that the special elections started earlier than the law allows
that the legislature could not use a special session that began as a budget spat to consider the referendum amendment, and that voters were not given proper notice of the referendum at their local courthouses. Justice Wesley Russell Jr. had the lion's share of questions for the lawyers. It would strike me as pretty extreme for us to say that one rogue circuit court clerk just refusing to post it on a courthouse wall stops the entire Commonwealth from ever considering a constitutional amendment. The cases garnered national attention as legislators in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina have redrawn their election maps to favor the Republican Party in advance of midterm contests later this year. Billy Shields, VPM News.
Governor Abigail Spanberger marked her first 100 days in office on Monday. At the state capital yesterday, she touted the success. of her affordability agenda in the General Assembly. We're stopping predatory middlemen from hiking up prices on prescription drugs. We're capping the cost of insulin. At $35, we're making long-term investments in clean energy and weatherization to keep utility costs down. We're incentivizing new home construction and affordable housing in Virginia and across all localities.
Abigail Spanberger's agenda faces challenges. The state budget has not been finalized. Virginia is facing impacts from federal funding and workforce cuts. And a Washington Post poll earlier this month found that less than half of respondents approved of her work so far. Dozens of horses have been quarantined after potential exposure to a highly contagious neurological disease at a show in Culpeper County. Event organizers say that a horse at the April 17th show had a confirmed case of the disease known as EHM. 42 horses at the show and 13 from the horse's home farm in Loudoun County have been placed under a 21-day quarantine. Virginia's Agriculture Department says the virus that causes the disease is not transmissible to humans.
Henrico County officials bid farewell to the vacant Best Plaza building before the property is demolished to make way for a proposed arena-anchored development. VPN news reporter Lyndon German has more. A flood of memories rushed over a crowd of hundreds as guests tore the former Best Products headquarters one final time. The building's curved emerald glass exterior and iconic Eagle entranceway brought back a lot of memories for Richard Bragg. Bragg and his friend Nelson Johnson worked at the company in the 1970s. And seeing all these old people that we worked with is just awesome. Yeah, lots of hugs, lots of memories, lots of great, just great memories. The decision to demolish the 93-acre site comes after the deal to build Henrico's Green City development collapsed.
Carrie Tritina, director of Henrico's Economic Development Authority, says the county is still looking for partners to move the project forward. And we're ready to move alongside partners who see the same thing as we do. Opportunity. County officials say the demolition of Best Plaza could begin in the coming months and end as early as September. Linden German, VPM News. The Richmond-based organization that oversees organ transplants in the U.S. is partnering with NASA to study whether drones can safely deliver organs and other sensitive materials. The United Network for Organ Sharing announced the partnership with NASA's Langley Research Center last week, and the first test flights are set for this week, according to Axios.
Researchers will first test to see if drones can complete flights without relying on ground-based spotters. Then they will determine if test organs can survive those flights and remain viable for transplant. This has been the VPM Daily Newscast. VPM.