Virginia’s Largest Universities Raise Tuition

By Dayne Kaufman
VCU Capital News Service
Virginia’s five largest state universities – Virginia Commonwealth, George Mason, Old Dominion, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia – have raised tuition by 5 to 7 percent for the coming school year.
The tuition increases will help offset a decrease in state support for higher education. The state budget cuts [...]

Slave Trail Seeks to Free City’s History

By Stephanie Power and Anna Yates
Capital News Service
RICHMOND – Near the corner of 17th and Main streets downtown is the site of Lumpkin’s Jail, where African slaves arriving at the Manchester docks were held before being sold off.
Down the street, under a parking lot, is an old burial ground for slaves and poor free blacks. [...]

Sites along the Richmond Slave Trail

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The Richmond Slave Trail mirrors the experience of many African slaves in Richmond. It begins on the south side of the James River at Ancarrow’s Landing and ends a little more than three miles later at the First African Baptist Church near Main and 15th streets.

Storyteller Mulls America’s Heritage

By Stephanie Power and Anna Yates
Capital News Service
Late one night, Nessa Baskerville Johnson received a strange phone call.
“I think I’m your cousin,” said an unfamiliar voice.
Stranger still: The caller told Johnson that their common relative was a great-grandfather five generations back – a white man who enslaved members of Johnson’s family. The newfound cousin was [...]

Shad Smoked; Candidates Roasted

Amanda Ladden-Stirling
VCU Capital News Service
WAKEFIELD – The 61st annual Shad Planking kicked off Virginia’s political season with cold beer, smoked shad and a poignant roast of the 2009 gubernatorial candidates.
Three of the four candidates for governor – Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrats Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran – poked fun at each other in a [...]

Nicholas Langhorne Talks General Assembly

By Brittany Allen
VCU InSight
VCU’s Capitol News Service students have a special assignment. They report on the goings-ons of the Virginia General Assembly. InSight’s Brittany Allen sat down to talk to CNS reporter Nicholas Langhorne about Crossover Day.

Donations, Like Votes, Favor Obama

By Alyssa W. Walden
VCU Multimedia Journalism
If dollars were votes, Virginia still would have swung blue in 2008 for Barack Obama.
Barack Obama received $17,031,854.04 from Virginians alone in the time before the Nov. 4 election. Virginians gave $15,404,295.78 to presidential hopeful John McCain.
According to a recent computer analysis of data from the Federal Elections Commission, Virginians [...]

Tough Job Listing Donors’ Occupations

By Alyssa W. Walden
VCU Multimedia Journalism

RICHMOND, Va.–Presidential incumbent Barack Obama’s campaign team may have been more diligent in following campaign finance laws, a recent computer analysis shows.
Based on data from the Federal Elections Commission, more dollars from Obama’s Virginia contributions were properly documented than those received by Republican John McCain.
According to federal campaign finance law, [...]

Film industry says it’s too quiet on the set

By Alexander Harris
Capital News Service

The red carpet was rolled out in front of the Byrd Theatre for the premiere of the HBO miniseries “John Adams.” Executive producer Tom Hanks and actor Paul Giamatti, who plays Adams, attended, as did Gov. Tim Kaine. Hundreds of cast and crew were invited, and crowds filled the sidewalks to [...]

Top 5 Communities for Recycling

By Alex Bahr
Capital News Service

Here are the five solid waste planning units with the highest recycling rates in 2006, according to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. All of these localities have population densities higher than the state average, data from the U.S. Census Bureau show.