RICHMOND — Virginia’s House of Delegates voted unanimously Friday to repeal restrictions recently imposed on a college tuition program for military families, but Senate leaders do not intend to take the bill up when that chamber meets Monday, saying they want to limit any repeal to one year.
Virginia
Virginia man assaults woman and officer, vehicle goes up in flames following chase
SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. – A Virginia man is facing multiple charges after assaulting a woman and an officer.
The suspect has been identified as 36-year-old William Alexander Chandler of Spotsylvania, Virginia.
Police arrived in the area of Plank Road and the Harrison Crossing shopping center where citizens witnessed a violent domestic assault between a man and woman resulting in injuries to the woman. According to police, the domestic altercation continued into a vehicle that went west on Plank Road towards Orange County.
911 dispatchers received calls from witnesses and an officer spotted the vehicle in the area of Plank Road and Elys Ford Road. The vehicle initially stopped in the area of the intersection, but drove off at high speeds with the woman screaming in the vehicle.
Officials chased the vehicle for several miles until it lost control and crashed in the area of Orange Plank Road and Brock Road. According to police, they were able to rescue the female victim and take the male suspect into custody. After the suspect was taken into custody, he spat into the face of a detective.
He was arrested and charged with felony eluding, violation of an emergency protective order, assault on law enforcement, domestic assault, abduction by force, malicious wounding, obstruction of justice by flight, obstruction of justice without force, driving while suspended and no insurance.
Chandler was incarcerated at the Rappahannock Regional Jail under no bond.
Virginia
Trump steps up ground game in Virginia after Biden’s shaky debate
Virginia
Youngkin looks to unify GOP at massive Trump rally: ‘Virginia is in play’ – Washington Examiner
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) joined former President Donald Trump for a massive rally in Virginia as the vice presidential hopeful makes a bid to flip his state red this November.
“It is time to elect strength back into the White House,” the Virginia governor proclaimed to thousands of enthusiastic rally attendees as he introduced the president. “Let’s join together and welcome the next president of the United States, Donald J. Trump!”
Trump, freshly victorious from a debate deemed a disaster for his opponent President Joe Biden, beamed as Youngkin doled out glowing words for his former rival.
“Mr. President, this is the best Trump rally that you’ve ever had, and you’re doing it in Virginia,” Youngkin told the presumptive GOP nominee Friday. “And yes, on behalf of 8.7 million Virginians, Mr. President, we are going to go to work and get you back in the White House!”
Massive crowds roared as the two shook hands, cementing a show of goodwill over a past mired in conflict.
“He’s got the policies that made America great,” Trump said of Youngkin, widely rumored to be on the vice presidential short list. “We’re proud of him. He’s done a great job.”
The joint appearance comes as the GOP convention looms. Trump is expected to announce his running mate before then.
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In 2020, Biden claimed Virginia by a solid 10%. Recent polls showing the president in a dead heat with Trump has shocked the GOP into action to capitalize on Republican gains. While Trump and Youngkin have had a fractured relationship, with Youngkin toying with mounting a presidential challenge to Trump and declining to speak at multiple rallies, their joint appearance is intended to signal to Virginians that a unified GOP could flip the state red this November.
As the Virginia governor told Fox News just hours before the rally, “The president coming to Virginia today … is reflective of the fact that Virginia is in play.”
Virginia
Virginia House votes to repeal restrictions on military tuition program
Created in 1930 to aid the families of World War I veterans, the program has expanded over the years to include out-of-state residents, graduate students and relatives of service members with non-combat-related injuries. The price tag has risen exponentially in recent years, from $12 million in 2019 to more than $65 million last year. Universities have borne the cost or passed it to other students.
Amid warnings that the program was unsustainable, legislators and Youngkin agreed to new restrictions, which require participants to tap federal aid, such as Pell Grants, before accessing the state program, and limit eligibility to Virginia residents pursuing undergraduate degrees.
They also require military families to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which uses a formula to calculate how much families can afford to pay for higher education. The wealthiest participants would pay a portion of the “expected family contribution,” expected to be capped at about $3,750 a year.
Current participants were grandfathered in, as was anyone who applied to college before May 15 under the budget language, which also provides $20 million to colleges and universities to offset waiver costs.
Those changes drew swift and vocal pushback from military families, leading Youngkin and the Democrats who lead the House and Senate to promise fixes. But they have not been on the same page about just what to do.
Youngkin and the House have favored fully repealing the restrictions until the issue can be studied, while Senate leaders have leaned toward more limited tinkering.
The House gathered for about an hour Friday to pass a bill to repeal the changes and provide $20 million a year for the next two fiscal years to cover some of the cost.
“It’s often been said if you find yourself in a hole you don’t want to be in, stop digging. Mr. Speaker, today I’m glad that we stopped digging,” Del. Mike A. Cherry (R-Colonial Heights) said on the floor ahead of the vote, praising Democratic and Republican leaders who’d pledged to “not weaponize” the issue.
But Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said that the measure will not move forward in the Senate, which on Monday will meet for a second time to try to advance its own fix.
“It will not be considered,” he said.
Senate leaders are backing a new bill to postpone the restrictions until July 1, 2025, provide $65 million over the next 12 months to cover the cost, and require the state’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission to review the program and make recommendations by Sept. 1.
“We’re willing to repeal the new restrictions for one year … and use the surplus to take the burden off other students who are currently funding the program,” Surovell said.
House Speaker Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said he was confident the two sides will eventually work out their differences.
“Regardless of what happens on Monday, we’re very, very close in concept,” Scott said. “I think everybody recognizes that the way the program is designed now, it can’t go on like that. But we want to make sure that we get it right.”
Scott said he would support means-testing and other restrictions once the issue has been fully studied.
“I’m a disabled veteran as well. I can afford to pay for my daughter’s tuition,” he said. “So I think we need to do some means-testing. We need to get some residency requirements. I think we need to take a look at it and see what’s doable.”
The Senate initially met June 18, when Democratic leaders hoped to pass a bill to lift the Pell Grant and FAFSA requirements for relatives of veterans killed in the line of duty or disabled in combat, but not those with non-combat disabilities. They met for more than five hours that day but did not advance the legislation.
Youngkin praised the House’s action Friday and leaned on the Senate to fall in line with that plan.
“Our veterans, first responders, and their families have spoken, and we have heard them,” he said in a written statement. “Now it is time for the Senate to pass the bill on Monday, so I can sign it immediately. … If the Senate Democrat Leadership does not support a repeal of the language, they are holding our veterans, first responders, and their families, hostage.”
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