WFIR News Express 8-14-2026

It is Friday, August the 14th. I'm Clark Palmer. Our top story, the Western Virginia Water Authority is calling it an open house for water supply with no form of presentations, just the opportunity to drop by, look at future planning, and ask some questions. Ending it all, questions are welcome at the August 25th event, as WFIRS G Morano tells us. Laura Shermer is public relations manager for the Water Authority. She says whether or not those multiple data centers in Batatatat County get the green light. We know based on our most current water supply plan that our community has adequate water through the year 2060. It could be longer than that, but 2060 is the number that we are using to determine when we're going to need to find more water to support. the growing needs of our community. Shermer says the optics at Carvin's Cove are not good right now. The Bata-Tot data centers could pull about 2 million gallons of water per day per each building in the peak summer months to cool the high-tech chips that fuel AI. Carbon Cove is about 17 feet low. As we move into the fall month, our reservoir would have to be about 26 feet low for us to implement any kind of mandatory water restrictions. Hopefully we don't get to that point. We're hoping we've seen just improvement with drought monitoring in our region as we've had a little bit more rain. On Tuesday, August 25th from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Western Virginia Water Authority Field Operations Office on Holland's Road, local residents can learn about future. water supply planning, water treatment, and distribution, and ask questions. Sheen Moreno, WFIR News. A media outlet was reportedly not allowed inside a public town hall meeting last night that focused on that proposed Google Data Center campus at Greenfield in Bottasot County, hosted by county board of supervisors member Tim Snyder. WSLS10 reports that Snyder claims the event was for residents in the Amsterdam District, which you represent, due to the potential crowd capacity. The event featured a... 30-minute presentation from Google representatives and a 90-minute Q&A session. A Roanoke judge is continuing to deliberate whether or not to halt new state hemp regulations scheduled to go into effect tomorrow. This case started after state lawmakers hammered out a budget agreement back in June, which included provisions to establish a retail marijuana marketplace in the Commonwealth by July of next year. The transition calls for the elimination of the 25 to 1 rule, which allowed hemp products to contain more than 2 milligrams of THC, as long as there were at least 25 parts of non-intoxicated CBD for every one part of THC. The owner of a hemp business tells WDBJ7 crops from the upcoming season have already been planted, and products cannot be altered quickly. Still not going to be able to get any sleep until we hear what the judge has got to say. I don't know when the ruling will come in, hopefully pretty soon. But until then, yeah, we're kind of still up in the air. Hemp sellers worry under the redefined legal limits, products currently classified as legal hemp could be classified as illegal marijuana.

The use of Flock surveillance cameras along roadways in Roanoke City to record license-played numbers was shelved recently, at least for now, over privacy concerns and misuse. That's been at issue elsewhere, and yesterday the Associated Press reported that Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley said new guardrails will be put in place. All law enforcement customers will have to implement an audit tool intended to flag abnormal search behavior and would then be locked out pending an internal review. The standard data retention window will be reduced from 30 days to 7, and users will be required to enter code from their records management system, tying each search to a specific case before it is run. Incidentally, on Monday, D.Flock Roanoke will rally at 6 p.m. outside of the municipal building prior to Roanoke City Council's 7 p.m. meeting. Sustained nonpartisan community solutions are successful in reducing political tension in rural communities according to a new report on four counties in Virginia. That study examined how community works chapters under the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative influence political polarization. The chapters support Democrats and liberals in rural areas as they work with neighbors to address nonpartisan issues. Nicholas Jacobs, professor of American government at Colby College in Waterville and co-author of this report, said he was surprised at how quickly attitudes changed over the course of just two years. These are not the new bastions of political comedy where everybody is sitting around singing kumbaya, but there was a measurable, substantive, and statistically significant difference across all these measures. The surveys revealed hostile attitudes towards the opposing party dampened in Community Works counties, while partisanship rose sharply in other counties. The four areas studied were Page with Grayson and Scott counties. Bedford County officials say a fire at Forest Middle School early yesterday morning happened when an 8-foot python escaped his enclosure and knocked over a heat lamp inside a classroom. According to the Forest Fire Department, when crews made their way into the classroom, they found smoke and the snake, which was placed in a temporary closure. The fire has been determined to be accidental in nature. Five Point Summer Concert Series will be benefiting more than just the ears with its next act, as WFIRs, Emma Thomas tells us. Five Points Music Sanctuary is teaming up with Bradley Free Clinic to host a benefit concert at the Dog Bowl. Next Saturday, local yacht rock group, empty bottles, will take the stage at 6.30 p.m. proceeds from the event will go toward supporting the clinic's operations. Janine Underwood, executive director of Bradley Free Clinic, says that support is needed now more than ever, as the clinic faces budget cuts and a growing... patient population. The number of patients that we've seen has more than doubled in the last couple of years. So we've been trying to find ways to bring in additional financial resources.

Underwood says buying tickets to the concert isn't the only way to help, though. She says the clinic is also looking for volunteers to help with everything from providing health care services to patients to helping them navigate the new and confusing changes to Medicaid set to take effect in January. We're also going to need volunteers to help us with patients that are going to struggle navigating Medicaid. Our patients are going to have to re-enroll every six months. And I think a lot of individuals are going to be falling off of Medicaid just trying to navigate through this new system. Tickets range from $15 general admission to $50 VIP tickets that come with a catered barbecue dinner from Poked Joe's. To buy your tickets or learn about how you can get involved with Bradley Free Clinic, click the link attached to this story on WFIR News.com. Emma Thomas, WFIR News. The 20th annual festival of India is set to return to Elmwood Park tomorrow. a chance to experience the culture, cuisine, and live music performances of India here in the Star City. Organizer, Dr. Brejjash Kash Patel, tells WDVJ7, the Festival of India always has a theme, and this year it's music. Every year we have a different theme. Past few years, we have themes about the world being a one big family, you know, yoga and holistic way of life. This year, we have music as the theme. Music connects people, music heals, music inspires. So this is the time for us to celebrate music and learn about the Indian music. The Festival of India's free admission tomorrow from 4 to 8 p.m. That's the latest. You can find our next update on Monday. Clark Palmer, WFIR News.