The Los Angeles Dodgers have re-signed infielder/outfielder [and UVA alumnus] Chris Taylor, perhaps the most difficult to replace of the Dodgers’ 12 free agents. The 31-year-old Taylor drew interest from multiple teams following his first All-Star season but chose to return to the franchise where his career blossomed. The deal is expected to be for at least four years and $60 million, with a club option for a fifth year.  

Edward Finley, finance professor at University of Virginia and a regular correspondent, wrote to point out that how value stocks respond to changes in rates depends on how stocks in general respond to rates, a relationship that has changed a lot over time. Before the 1990s, stocks and bonds were positively correlated (so when stocks rose, bond yields went down). He explains: “Until the ‘90s, investors had little confidence in the Fed’s ability to control inflation.

“Be cautious, he has no record,” warns Larry Sabato, the founder and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “He displayed a talent in the campaign for giving all the right signals to the right groups without committing to very much. He’ll be doing a tap dance, depending on the issue. It’s clever, but you don’t have to admire it or think it’s courageous. It worked politically.”  

Giving What We Can and the wider effective altruism movement are not without their critics. These say that such charitable donations should never be seen as a substitute to a decent level of taxation and state social services. Jennifer Rubenstein, assistant professor of politics at the University of Virginia, and author of Between Samaritans and States, adds that effective altruism “does not empower poor people as political actors or entities.”  

(Audio) We often hear from Washington that the United States is locked in another great powers conflict with China. But is the “great powers” Cold War era analogy the right one for modern China? Among the guests is Melvyn Leffler, professor of history emeritus at the University of Virginia and author of several books on the Cold War.  

Pathologists believe it is likely a matter of time before the omicron variant of the coronavirus appears in the D.C. region, but labs across Virginia are scanning millions of previous positive tests for it. It all depends on the new variant’s transmissibility, Dr. Amy Mathers with the UVA Health Lab told WTOP. “We don’t know if omicron is going to take off like delta did.

We spoke with Dr. Taison Bell, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Virginia who specializes in infectious diseases, to learn about Omicron compared to previous COVID-19 variants. … Dr. William Petri, another infectious disease expert at UVA Health, highlighted how quickly the Omicron variant appeared to become dominant in South Africa, the first country to identify the mutation.  

The University of Virginia Procurement Department is getting ready to host a couple of online workshops. According to a release, these free workshops are targeted toward small, woman-owned and minority-owned businesses.  

Tiger Fuel has made a $20,000 donation to JackFest. The money will help with an expansion project at the Ronald McDonald House in Charlottesville and UVA Children’s.  

UVA Health is searching for the omicron variant through a method called sequencing. Researchers use computer coding to study positive COVID samples across the state to detect the new strain. UVA Health associate professor of medicine and pathology Dr. Amy Mathers says there’s good news so far. “We’ve sequenced about 5,000 SARS-CoV-2 locally and on behalf of the state and did not find a single omicron,” she said.  

UVA Health is among the few medical labs sequencing COVID-19 samples to look for the omicron variant right now. It studies COVID-19 positive samples from across the commonwealth looking for variants.  

One approach is to create a vaccine that targets a feature that most coronaviruses (or at least SARS-CoV-2 variants) have in common. “If you want to make a universal vaccine, what you’d want to do is try to make a vaccine that targets something that the virus can’t apparently change,” Steven Zeichner, a pediatrician and infectious disease researcher at the University of Virginia, said.

Birdwood typifies the multi-purpose direction that future golf developments would be wise to study. Located about 10 minutes from downtown Charlottesville, it’s a convenient, upscale public course that serves as an amenity to an adjacent resort, with a walkable routing across interesting and varied land.

The very first words of the First Amendment are a warning against government establishment of religion. That is why the state of Utah’s welfare-provision system being intertwined with the LDS Church is “troubling,” said Douglas Laycock, a UVA law professor and a leading expert on the separation of church and state. “I can’t think of anything at all analogous,” he said.  

When the going got weird, Dr. Amy Mathers got going. The associate director of clinical microbiology at the UVA Medical School, Mathers joined other researchers and clinicians in switching from their normal studies to working on the mysterious virus that caused COVID-19 at a time when little was known about the disease.

The rivalry between Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia will generate plenty of excitement this weekend on the football field. It’s also putting food on the table for many families in western Virginia. The Hokie Bird was on hand at Feeding Southwest Virginia Tuesday morning, as Smithfield delivered a truckload of ham. The company is a presenting sponsor of the Commonwealth Clash. The donation includes 40,000 pounds, and more than 160,000 servings for Feeding Southwest Virginia. A second truck was headed to the food bank that serves the Charlottesville area. ...

Kihei Clark scored 11 points and dished seven assists for Virginia, which turned in a solid defensive performance to earn a 61-43 win over Lehigh on Friday night at John Paul Jones Arena. The win was Tony Bennett’s 300th for Virginia, putting him 26 shy of Terry Holland’s mark for career victories coaching the Cavaliers.

In case you are looking for extra things to be grateful for today, here’s our (incomplete) list of things Virginia fans can be thankful for.

For Alex Walsh and Kate Douglass, the signature moments of their swimming careers happened together, on the morning of July 28 in Tokyo. The two University of Virginia swimmers were each competing in their first Olympic final, Walsh in lane three and Douglass in lane four as medals were on the line in the 200 IM. Months after two 19-year-olds had helped deliver a national championship for their Cavaliers, the first ever for the school’s swimming program, they would be right next to each other in the biggest moment of their respective swimming careers.

Virginia’s women’s soccer junior forward Diana Ordonez is forgoing her remaining years of eligibility and declaring for the 2022 National Women’s Soccer League, Ordonez announced via social media post on Wednesday. This past season, Ordonez led the ACC with 18 goals, was named to the All-ACC First Team, and was the ACC Offensive Player of the Year. Her 18 goals this season are tied with Angela Hucles (1997) for fourth-most in a single season in UVA history.