In The News

UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs will host numerous virtual events, including ones looking at the coronavirus pandemic and the return to school. On Sept. 10, there will be a discussion about a new book critiquing the modern presidency with author Saikrishna Prakash, a law professor at UVA.

Even though Utah 4th Congressional District candidate Burgess Owens spoke during last week’s mostly virtual Republican National Convention, it’s not clear how much of an impact his brief appearance is having on his bid to unseat the state’s only Democrat in Congress, Rep. Ben McAdams. For now, McAdams still has the edge in the race, according to J. Miles Coleman, a political analyst for the University of Virginia’s “Sabato’s Crystal Ball.” 

One of the commission’s biggest recommendations would make African American history a graduation requirement for Virginia students. Derrick Aldridge, chair of the commission’s professional development subcommittee and professor of education at the University of Virginia, said a newly established elective course could fulfill this requirement. 

(Commentary by Ashley Deeks, professor of law and a senior fellow at UVA’s Miller Center) “Indeed, the executive branch should welcome secret reason-giving opportunities, because reason-giving can both enhance accuracy and foster executive branch legitimacy.”

Sixteen Virginia hospitals earned a top score of 100 on the 2020 Healthcare Equality Index survey, a national LGBTQ benchmarking tool from the Human Rights Campaign released Monday. Four University of Virginia health care facilities earned a score of 100.

(Commentary) Researchers from the University of Virginia and Brown University found an alarming projection: Students are likely to return this fall with only two-thirds of the gains in reading and less than half the gains in math we would normally expect. And projections from a leading consulting firm show that will only worsen – months and months of learning lost – without access to high-quality, full-time instruction. That translates to a lifetime of negative impacts. 

As the state surpasses 120,000 total cases, the University of Virginia’s COVID-19 model suggests Virginia could see over 187,000 total cases by Thanksgiving. Researchers are now basing their model on “adaptive fitting” methodology, tracking past and current trends to predict future cases. 

In the first month of life, one in 4,000 babies will have a stroke, but new research from UVA’s School of Medicine is looking into the development of the brain’s immune defenses and how they respond to stroke.

The UVA COVID Tracker was last updated on Monday morning. Since Aug. 17, there have been 83 positive cases reported in students; 115 total positive cases in faculty, staff, students and contract employees. 

The number of COVID-19 cases at the University of Virginia continues to grow, but the number of cases reported among the pre-arrival tests remains low. On Grounds, the number of COVID-19 cases between faculty, staff, students and contract employees is 115. Among students, there are 83 cases.

(Commentary by Laurie Archbald-Pannone, associate professor of medicine and geriatrics) The number of cases of dementia in the U.S. is rising as baby boomers age, raising questions for boomers themselves and also for their families, caregivers and society. Dementia, which is not technically a disease, but a term for impaired ability to think, remember or make decisions, is one of the most feared impairments of old age. 

A commission on African American history education created by Gov. Ralph Northam released its final report Monday, including over 30 pages of proposed edits to the state’s history curricula. The commission is co-chaired by Derrick Alridge, director of the Center for Race and Public Education in the South at the University of Virginia. 

A police stop could have cost former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin his career in space before he ever got started. Melvin, a UVA alumnus who was never afraid launching into space on two Space Shuttle Atlantis missions, never knew what was going to happen when the cops pulled him over. 

The University of Virginia football team held a virtual “Meet the Team Day,” on Saturday. During an hour-long question-and-answer session, fans were able to submit questions for players on offense and defense, as well as head coach Bronco Mendenhall. 

As the Philadelphia 76ers search for a new head coach, many potential candidates are expressing interest in the job. Count Philly native Dawn Staley as potentially one of them. According to a televised report, Staley “would be open to having discussions with her hometown team if they were to reach out to her.” Staley, University of South Carolina’s head coach of the women’s team, is well known in the sport of basketball. After competing for the University of Virginia for four seasons from 1989 to 1992, Staley became the ninth-overall pick of the 1999 WNBA Draft.

Devan Coombes, a third-year student at the University of Virginia, said: “I vote because I can. One hundred years ago, women didn’t have that opportunity. In some countries today, women still don’t. We live in an amazing country that is free where we have the opportunity to have our voice heard every election cycle. I believe I should practice that right; we all should.”

Five steps? Sounds doable! In this book, New York Times bestselling author John Gottman provides readers with all the necessary tools to work on all aspects of their relationships with a special emphasis on emotional connection. It took him almost 20 years to develop this system and it’s so powerful, it works not only with spouses and lovers but also children, siblings, and even your colleagues at work! “When he says his five steps will help you build better connections with the people you care about, you know that they have been demonstrated to work,” said E. Mavis Heatherington, a ...

“The private schools can be much more nimble,” said Bob Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. “They’re smaller by almost all scale. They deal with a more homogenous population, typically more resourced.” The renewed interest in private schools doesn’t surprise Pianta. He said the University of Virginia has been inundated with calls from parents looking to organize small pods, home-based classes with a few parents pitching in to pay a teacher for private lessons.

The complete pseudo-verse soon grabbed the attention of John F. Kennedy, who – as UVA Italian studies scholar Deborah Parker explains – copied it into his book of quotations in 1945. He first cited it publicly at an event hosted by the National Conference of Jews and Christians in 1956 to praise U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and other men for taking strong stands against religious and racial bigotry. JFK repeated the line over the years as one of his favorite sayings when denouncing inaction at times of moral crisis.

The Supreme Court’s decision in June striking down a Louisiana restriction on abortion clinics is giving abortion opponents an unlikely opportunity in other states. University of Virginia School of Law Professor Richard Re, a scholar on court rulings that produce no majority opinion, said those arguments are likely to persist. “This is the latest round of debate about what counts as precedent and how you evaluate precedent,” Re said. “The debate will rage on.”