In the neonatal intensive care unit at UVA Children’s, Dr. Brooke Vergales noticed that many babies who were nearly recovered had to overcome one more hurdle: feeding. These babies were often fitted with a nasogastric tube to help them take in nutrients as they are bottle-fed around-the-clock to ultimately move them off the tube. Vergales, an associate professor of pediatrics and neonatology, suspected that babies would do better at home, where their parents could care for them. 

Local hospitals say they are extremely busy, but there is still bed space available for people who need it. UVA Health spokesperson Eric Swensen says the hospital normally is very busy, and some delays are possible. “We can experience delays in a patient’s admission if this specialty bed is not immediately available while we wait for a patient to be discharged,” he said in a statement.

Afghanistan is about 6,000 miles away, but students at the University of Virginia are mourning for their home country. UVA organizations like the Afghan Student Association and Persian Cultural Society are taking action and raising awareness for Afghanistan.

When former All ACC wide receiver Canaan Severin set aside his NFL dreams he started writing, and that writing turned into his newest short film "Lean In."

Ben Kohles is back on the PGA Tour. The former University of Virginia golfer earned his PGA Tour card for the second time in his professional career on Sunday after finishing in the top 25 of the Korn Ferry Tour’s 2020-21 regular season points standings. 

Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political handicapping newsletter at UVA, believes that GOP redistricting gains might go as high as five or six seats. But Kondik stresses that just because the Republicans can rig more districts than that does not mean they actually will. It is not as if the GOP suddenly will become the party of good-government reformers. But Kondik points out the forgotten part of the equation “is what House members want and what state legislators want.”

(Editorial) The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol showed wisdom in choosing Tim Heaphy as chief investigative counsel.

Larry Sabato, the director of the UVA Center for Politics, says it is a difficult situation for Americans to watch unfold. “The loss of life is the most important thing of all. The fact that over 2,400 Americans have lost their lives trying to preserve freedom for Afghans, and now we don’t see a return on that very high price and blood and treasure ... it’s easy to understand why people are so upset,” Sabato said. “It’s gonna be a miracle if there isn’t a lot of bloodshed.” However, Sabato says, sending troops back likely will not be the cure-all solution.

Some analysts are skeptical that Biden will pay a price at the ballot box. Larry Sabato of the UVA Center for Politics, noted that the fall of Saigon hardly featured in the 1976 presidential race. “Vietnam was not an issue just a year later in the presidential election, and we lost 58,000 Americans there in a war that was more intense.”

As schools nationwide emerge from a pandemic that upended educational norms, and caused rates of depression and anxiety to increase among teenagers, reformers hope educators will use this moment to remake middle school, turning it into a place where early adolescents not only survive, but thrive. “This is an opportunity to think about what we want middle school to look like, rather than just going back to the status quo,” said Nancy L. Deutsche, the director of Youth-Nex: The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development.

Not requiring employees at a company making COVID-19 vaccine to be vaccinated against the disease seems counterintuitive, experts said. Vivian Riefberg, a professor of practice at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, said a vaccine mandate from vaccine makers could show faith in their product. "It could send a signal to other companies that could be valuable," she said.

The Blue Ridge Poison Center is seeing several calls about snakebites. According to a release, the center has received more than 85 calls about snakebites. "I would say we're about on where we usually are," said Dr. Chris Holstege, chief of UVA’s Division of Medical Toxicology. 

(Podcast) Physician and Evolution News writer Howard Glicksman discusses an exciting new discovery by researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, described at Science Daily as uncovering “the location of natural blood-pressure barometers inside our bodies that have eluded scientists for more than 60 years.”

Marine biologists have known for a while that the secret lies somewhere in the way they can alter the rigidity of their tails. The problem is that it’s difficult to measure that while a fish swims. However, using a combination of fluid dynamics and biomechanics, researchers from the University of Virginia say they’ve derived a formula that not only provides an answer to that question but also allows a robot with a specially designed tail to be nearly as good as its natural counterpart at speeding up and slowing down in water.

Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission Chair Frank Friedman cut the ribbon Monday to launch the eagerly anticipated Afton Express commuter bus, which is scheduled to begin service on Sept. 1. Rebecca White, director, of the UVA Department of Parking & Transportation, Waynesboro Mayor Bobby Henderson and Jen DeBruhl, chief of public transportation with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, shared remarks and excitement for the new service connecting Staunton, Fishersville and Waynesboro to destinations in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

Emerson Stevens was granted an absolute pardon on Monday by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. Stevens was convicted in 1986 of murdering Mary Keyser Harding, a 24-year-old mother of two, in a small fishing town on Virginia’s Northern Neck. The Innocence Project at the University of Virginia had been working to exonerate him since 2009.

Two men convicted decades ago of serious crimes in Norfolk have received pardons thanks to the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project. According to two law school news releases, the cases were unrelated but both carried hefty sentences.

A Reedville man who served three decades in prison for an abduction and murder in Lancaster County for which he always maintained he was innocent has been pardoned by Gov. Ralph Northam. Emerson Eugene Stevens, paroled in 2017, was granted an absolute pardon on Friday by the governor who cited an April 2020 opinion from a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who wrote that the evidence overwhelmingly showed no reasonable juror would have convicted him. It was the third absolute pardon won by the The Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law since July.

Rangina Hamidi is the first female minister of education for Afghanistan in 30 years. Born in Afghanistan, she fled to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation and immigrated to the U.S., where she attended high school and received a degree in religion and gender studies at the University of Virginia. In 2003, she returned to her home country to help rebuild Afghanistan and champion the rights of girls and women.