1/21/26 - Richmond anticipates 6-12 in. of snow this weekend

You're listening to the VPM Daily Newscast, the recap of today's top stories in Central Virginia. From the VPM newsroom in Richmond, I'm Sean Magoey. Central Virginia could get hit with potentially hazardous snowfall and freezing temps this weekend. The National Weather Service says precipitation forecasts for Saturday and Sunday could blanket the region in more than a foot of snow. The Virginia Department of Health is providing tips to ensure you're prepared. VDH suggests creating an emergency kit for your home and car, including blankets, non-perishable food, and water. You should also check your home's smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and make sure you have enough fuel in your vehicle and at home to power any heating sources. Gladys West, who was among the pioneering black woman mathematicians known as the Hidden Figures, died Saturday at age 95. West was born in Dinwiddie County and graduated in the 1950s with bachelor's and master's degrees in math from what is now Virginia State University. She was also a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Her calculations at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in King George County precisely modeled the Earth's shape, building the foundation of GPS navigation. West was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2018. Maryland Governor Wes Moore was among the crowd at Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger's inauguration on Saturday. VPM news reporter Karas Manzanaris caught up with Moore afterwards to discuss how the two planned to work together. Governor Moore knows what it's like to make history, having been elected as Maryland's first African-American governor and the third black person elected to govern any U.S. state. Moore said neither he nor Abigail Spanberger got into this line of work to make history, but when it happens, it's a humbling experience. He praised her inaugural speech, which he said highlighted unity. She did a really nice job of wanting to show that she wanted to be a unifying figure. that this was not about an ideology. This was not a victory for a cause. It was a victory for the Commonwealth. The inauguration marked a new chapter for Virginia's executive leadership and Moore said cooperation between neighboring states is a key component to effective leadership. Whether you're talking about transportation, whether you're talking about energy, whether you're talking about public safety, whether you're about education. These are all things that in many ways, the regional focus is the thing that helps to, you know, helps to get you to the right answers. Moore said Maryland is facing many of the same challenges as Virginia, immigration, infrastructure, and the growth of data centers. And he's looking forward to having a partner like Abigail Spanberger to tackle those issues. K. Rismansaneris, VPM News. State lawmakers are trying to curb the use of gas-powered leaf blowers in the Commonwealth. Fairfax County delegate Rip Dan Sullivan introduced a bill that would permit localities with at least 2,500 residents per square mile to bar or regulate gas blowers. The bill would allow cities and counties to collect civil penalties for violating the ordinance and use the funds to help residents purchase non-gas leaf blowers.

After hours of stiff resistance from Hanover residents, the county's planning commission voted last week against a proposal to build a 10-building data center along Ashland Road. The proposal comes from local builders H.H. Hunt, who previously wanted to build housing on the 400-acre property. Commissioners heard testimony from residents like Brittany Clark of the Cold Harbor District. Once you approve a data center, you don't just prove one building, you set a precedent. You signal that Hanover County is open to industrial scale resource extraction at the expense of its residents. I ask you to choose long-term responsibility over short-term incentives and make the right choice for Hanover County residents. H.H. Hunt will have another opportunity to present its project to the county's board of supervisors, who will have final say over its approval. The board will meet sometime in February. A Virginia Senate panel scrapped a proposal Tuesday that would have repealed the Virginia Clean Economy Act. The law requires Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Company to retire all carbon-emitting power plants by 2050. Republicans have been trying to repeal it for years. The bill also included language supporting nuclear energy development. Environmentalists argued Virginia and its electric utilities are already investing in nuclear, and said renewables like solar are quick to build and can help meet towering electricity demand from data centers. The bill was voted down on party lines. Charlottesville residents told city officials last week during a series of community forums exactly how they want their tax dollars to be spent in the upcoming fiscal year. Hannah Davis-Reed with VPM News has details. This isn't the first time Charlottesville's held a budget forum to get resident input. Participants each receive $10,000 in fake cash to distribute among their priorities. Participation in past forums was low, says city manager Sam Bernie Sanders. So city leaders got creative. They get to put as much money into each box as they want, but they have a limited amount of funds, the same as I do when I'm approving budget items. About 80 people joined the three sessions. Director of budget and grants management, Chrissy Hamill, says public input ensures they aren't working in a bubble. The budget's only as good as the feedback we get. And so if we don't hear feedback, we'll just continue to do what we always did. Council adopts the budget in April. Henned Davis-Reed, VPM News. Jay Jones is Virginia's newly inaugurated Attorney General. He's a 36-year-old attorney from Norfolk who previously served in Virginia's House of Delegates and as an assistant attorney general for the District of Columbia before his election last November. VPM News reporter Billy Shields spoke with Jay Jones in Richmond as he was preparing to take the oath of office. They talked about his priorities and his place in history as Virginia's first black attorney general.

are contending for and protecting our rights. We will have a lot of work ahead of us and a big job ahead of us, but we're excited to hit the ground running. We've got a very, very talented team, and I look forward to enforcing the laws on the books as Attorney General of Virginia and working with the General Assembly and the Governor to get that done. How much of your predecessor's actions do you plan on rolling back or overturning? I think the major overarching thing that we've heard from Virginians since the election and even before is that they don't feel safe. They don't feel secure in their communities. And that is the most important job of any leader in elected office to keep our community safe. And as Attorney General, that's what I'll be focused on for these next four years. We will do a full assessment of all of the things that my predecessor has done to make sure that those are in line with what we've been talking about in terms of protecting Virginia's interests. We will do that aggressively over the first 30 days. And I look forward to getting to work to do that. I think there are obviously some very clear differences between how he operated and what we will do. But for me, at the end of the day, it's always been about protecting Virginians, not just in their communities and keeping them safe, but from the excesses and overreach of the Trump administration to make sure that we're protecting their pocketbooks. And that's the job that I was elected to do. And that's what we will do, my team and I very, very vigorously over these next four years. As Attorney General, are there lawsuits that... you plan to get into or get out of. Well, certainly we are very excited about the opportunity to join lawsuits that have already been initiated by other states across the country because their attorneys general have been fighting for their citizens. And I think as many people know, the Supreme Court ruled that when you are not party to a lawsuit, you don't get to share in the benefits of those remedies. And so we want to make sure we avail ourselves of those protections, especially as it relates to education funding, especially as it relates to health care and particularly as it relates to affordability. Those are some of the lawsuits that we will. seek to join immediately. And again, we'll be conducting a full review over these first 30 days about what lawsuits that we should join or initiate ourselves or take ourselves out of. I think we have to do a lot of work to make sure that the previous administration hasn't agreed to things with the federal government that have given away our rights and our freedoms here in Virginia in exchange for something that may not be in line with what the folks of Virginia are looking for. And that will be something that we'll be working really hard on, especially in the first month or two. Put yourself in the shoes of Virginians that are hearing you for the first time speak. What is one message that you hope you could give them today that you'd hope they'd hear? That this office has always belonged to the people of Virginia and we ran to return it to you and that every single day my team and I will be working to make sure that we're doing right by Virginians and doing the best we can to make sure that we're meeting the challenges that they are facing in this moment. because this is what it's all about. We heard them loud and clear over the course of the campaign and we're looking forward to getting to work, to restoring trust and to making sure that they know that we're here for them every single day using the full weight of this office to make their lives better.

Final question. What does success look like for you? Having Virginians in a place where it's more affordable to make sure that we've used our office to get that done. We've kept community safe working with state and local law enforcement to get that job done and to make sure that we've protected Virginia, our jobs, our health care, our economy. from the excess and overreach that we've seen from Washington. That's the stuff that we heard over and over again in this campaign. And we want to be responsive. We want to be dynamic and we want to be reflexive to the needs of the people in Virginia. And then if we can do that over the course of the four years, I'll consider that a major win. That was Virginia's newly inaugurated Attorney General, Jay Jones. Since taking the oath of office Saturday, Jay Jones has joined several existing lawsuits against President Donald Trump's administration. including suits related to birthright citizenship and restoring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. For more of this interview, and to listen to more from Virginia's new administration, visit vpm.org. This has been the VPM Daily Newscast.