Fitch Ratings has assigned a ‘AAA’ long-term rating to the following series of bonds issued by The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, on behalf of the University of Virginia.

(By Marlene Daut, professor of African diaspora studies) Much of the reparations debate has revolved around whether the U.S. and the U.K. should finally compensate some of their citizens for the economic and social costs of slavery that still linger today. But to me, there’s never been a more clear-cut case for reparations than that of Haiti.

(Commentary co-written by James Ceaser, professor of politics) As political observers speculate as to the consequences of a contested presidential election outcome with President Trump alleging fraud and refusing to leave office, we pose another nightmare scenario with perhaps greater likelihood: a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College.

(Video) Two UVA students and Stephen Mull, vice provost for global affairs, discuss a new federal rule that requires international students to leave the country if their classes are fully online.

The announcement also seemed to satisfy what the University of Virginia’s Carmenita Higginbotham, who teaches and studies Disney, told The Washington Post just last week was required of the company. “What Disney has to do is figure out how to make itself matter, how to get in front of audiences in very different ways than it has in the past,” she said. “Because the previous rules … of just riding safely down the middle of American society” no longer work.

Multiple anesthesiologists are questioning the amount of Ketamine, a widely employed sedative, used on Elijah McClain just before he stopped breathing last August, with one doctor saying it was, “Too much, twice too much.” Ketamine, which is used in association with anesthesia, is commonly used by first responders on individuals exhibiting excited delirium symptoms. But Dr. Ebony Jade Hilton, a UVA anesthesiologist, said the 500 mg dose used on McClain was far too much.

In his Independence Day Celebration speech, controversially located at the base of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, President Donald Trump announced the issue of an executive order to create a “National Garden of American Heroes.” Released July 3, the executive order calls for the creation of a national garden that will pay tribute to “the giants” of the U.S.’s past. “Presidents certainly have a role in shaping national conversations about the meaning of our history. But this comes off as a desperate act of political grandstanding to his base,” Kevin K. Gaines, a professor o...

A new map of the entire sky, as seen in X-rays, looks deeper into space than any other of its kind. The map, released June 19, is based on data from the first full scan of the sky made by the eROSITA X-ray telescope onboard the Russian-German SRG spacecraft, which launched in July 2019. “At present, we probably know about a little less than 8,000 clusters of galaxies,” says Craig Sarazin, an astronomer at the University of Virginia not involved in the work. But over its four-year mission, eROSITA is expected to find a total of 50,000 to 100,000 clusters. In the first sweep alone, it picked up ...

This summer, communities across the country are putting in place measures to restrict beach and pool access amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. Places of public recreation, including pools and beaches, have long been flashpoints of race and class conflict. We spoke to Andrew Kahrl, professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Virginia and author of “Free the Beaches: The Story of Ned Coll and the Battle for America’s Most Exclusive Shoreline.”

Last year, Democrats’ path to at least a 50-50 split, according to Dr. Larry Sabato, the director of UVA’s Center for Politics, was a “possibility” but not necessarily the “probability.” “Now, I still wouldn’t call it the probability, but I would say, at worst, for Democrats is 50-50 – and I don’t mean 50-50 Senate seats – I mean that it’s a coin flip as to which party will control the Senate,” he said. 

(Video) Claire Kaplan, an advocate against sexual assault and violence, is retiring from UVA’s Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center.

More than a dozen new interactive chalkboard murals will be painted by a local artist at UVA Health’s Department of Inpatient Psychiatry.

The new analysis from researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden and the UVA School of Medicine confirms this simplistic storyline, but also finds both silver linings and a potentially darker explanation for the pandemic’s death toll in the country.

(Commentary by Nicholas Sargen, lecturer at the Darden School of Business) With the U.S. stock market recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, investors are wondering what, if anything, can halt its run. One thing they are wary about is the prospect of a renewal of the U.S.-China trade conflict, because it could jeopardize prospects for a global recovery. 

“The notion of separation of church and state is dead, and the PPP loan program is the evidence of that,” UVA law professor Micah Schwartzman said. “The money is going to fund core activities of many organizations, including religious organizations. That’s something we’ve not seen before.”

College towns like Charlottesville are likely to take a hit during this year’s census, says Spencer Shanholtz at UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. “Most colleges went online, and those students – many of them – went back to their home communities,” he said. “And therefore they were not necessarily counted where they would normally have been on April 1.”

Vashti Harrison, a 2010 UVA alumna with a double major in media studies and studio art, moved to New York City in December 2016. She has two books on the children’s middle grade hardcover list (“Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History” at No. 2 and “Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History” at No. 7) and two on the children’s hardcover picture book list that she illustrated.

Emergency room doctor Leigh-Ann Webb, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia, said fair and efficient health care has always been a problem for Black people in the U.S. "Our system in America is not built to serve everyone equally, and the health care system is not immune to that," she told CBS News. 

The NFL and Football Research, Inc. have awarded a total of $1.37 million in HeadHealthTECH grants as part of the NFL Helmet Challenge. Four recipients will use the funding to further develop their helmet prototypes. University of Virginia professor Matthew Panzer ($223,047) is designing energy absorbing layers from a foam metamaterial—an assembly of smaller components.

Voters who dislike both presidential candidates this year tend to be younger, more liberal than in 2016. Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA’s Center for Politics, said, “It makes some sense that these kinds of voters would prefer change to the status quo, and Biden is the change candidate in this race.”