Sarah Kearney found her mission right out of high school. That summer, a wealthy family asked her to help launch a philanthropy focused on fighting climate change. She’d so impressed Arunas Chesonis, who made his fortune in telecommunications, during her internship at his company that he promised her the job once she graduated from UVA. Seventeen years later, Kearney has not only mastered the skills needed to run a charitable organization and a venture capital fund worth around $50 million, she’s pioneered a new way of financing clean technology startups and emerging technologies.

Most laws that are subjected to such a test – lawyers refer to this rigorous level of constitutional analysis as “strict scrutiny” – are struck down. Yet, while the Court used three loaded words in Sherbert, the judiciary applied something much less rigorous than strict scrutiny in cases involving religious objectors. A 1992 study by James E. Ryan, now the president of the University of Virginia, found that federal courts of appeals heard 97 free exercise cases applying the “compelling interest” test between 1980 and 1990, and those courts rejected 85 of these cases.

"These forests can be some of the only really clear signs we can see on the landscape of the salt water coming in," says Cora Johnston Baird, director of UVA’s Coastal Research Center. Baird helped design the collaborative “Ghosts of the Coast.” She says it’s part botany lesson, part field study, part revelation.

The Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli reported on Thursday that the team plans to trim staff in scouting, baseball operations, and research and development. That doesn’t include Mike Cubbage, a long-time assistant to general manager Mike Rizzo. Cubbage, a former UVA standout, confirmed Thursday that he was retiring at the end of this month.

For Biden to understand why Unite the Right happened in Charlottesville goes beyond just the statues, UVA professor Jalane Schmidt said. She noted the connection between Charlottesville’s racist past, President Donald Trump’s rhetoric during his last campaign, and the growing rise of white supremacy and neo-Nazism from fringe into mainstream in recent years.

UVA Sustainability Director Andrea Ruedy Trimble says the University is making its efforts in conjunction with Charlottesville and Albemarle County as part of their Climate Action Together partnership. The University made a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and free of fossil fuels by 2050. 

In one sense, it’s not surprising that Americans don’t know much about how hegemony shapes other countries’ politics and societies. As UVA political scientist Brantly Womack explains in his book, “Asymmetry and International Relations,” hegemonic powers like the United States have the privilege of treating their relations with weaker countries more or less as hobbies simply because there’s rarely much at stake for them.

Jalane Schmidt, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, said the Virginia Flaggers represent a fading ideology, even if they follow through with pledges to add flags elsewhere. “It’s like mushrooms. It’ll probably just pop up somewhere else. This is how they do it,” Schmidt said. “The thing is, what’s happening with this cultural change in Virginia – the former capital of the confederacy – is fewer and fewer people are on board with valorizing the Lost Cause.”

Breast Cancer Awareness Month isn’t over just yet, and one fitness studio in Charlottesville is trying to raise money for research and treatment through cycling. Zoom held its Tapbacks for Tatas fundraiser all day Thursday to raise money and awareness to benefit the University of Virginia’s mobile mammography unit.