The prospect of uranium mining occurring at Coles Hill in Chatham, the largest known uranium deposit in the country, took another blow when a Wise County Circuit Court judge ruled against Virginia Uranium, Inc. on Thursday afternoon. In his ruling, Judge Chadwick Dotson described the lawsuit, which had originally been filed in 2015 before finally going to a multi-day trial earlier this month, as “one last effort” by Virginia Uranium and other companies to utilize their property. … The Danville Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce, the Danville Industrial Development Authority, and the River Distri...
In just a few weeks, thousands of University of Virginia students are able to return to Grounds. One possible way to track their health is pool testing. That’s when a group of individuals is tested, typically in a low-risk population, to save resources such as reagents, which are difficult to come by right now. However, Dr. Amy Mathers, an infectious disease physician at UVA Health, says pool testing does have some shortcomings.
A judge dismissed a legal challenge Monday that had been blocking Virginia officials from removing a towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the state’s capital city, but he immediately imposed another injunction against dismantling the figure. UVA law professor Richard Schragger said the judge’s ruling was “favorable” for the property owners. “That doesn’t mean the state can’t prevail, but that the judge has at least taken the basic facts and read them in a favorable light for the plaintiffs,” he said.
The University of Virginia won’t know how many students are returning to Grounds and from which regions these students are coming until Aug. 5. UVA spokesperson Brian Coy explained that on Saturday, students will receive their final class assignments, which will let them know how many of their classes will be online or in-person.
UVA Wise announced that it is delaying the fall semester start from Aug. 12 to Aug. 26. Additionally, the school is mailing out COVID-19 test kits to students before they arrive on campus.
A new documentary produced by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia about the United States’ 41st president will hit television screens Tuesday. “Statecraft: The Bush 41 Team” is a documentary directed by local film maker Lori Shinseki about the presidency of George H.W. Bush.
The weekend provided the real-world test drive of a semiautonomous robot that researchers call Dingo. A UVA robotics professor and fellow researchers envision one day the prototype will be used in airports, grocery stores, train stations and other locations to kill viruses on surfaces. 
With much of the nation working from home, managers face a challenge: how to promote productivity when people aren’t in the office. Some are turning to sophisticated software to track workers’ every move online, but Roshni Raveendhran, a UVA business professor, says that’s the wrong way to go. 
Many people are fighting bitterly about all kinds of contracts, ranging from weddings to conferences to leases to factory output. What will happen to all of these contracts? It turns out that we can’t be sure, according to a new paper cowritten by Cathy Hwang, of UVA’s School of Law. 
The third round of COVID-19 athlete testing at the University of Virginia produced no new positive results, the school announced on Friday evening. The school has reported four total positive cases, three from the football team, out of 235 tests since athletes returned on July 5.
On June 2, the music industry launched #BlackoutTuesday, an action against police brutality that involved, among other things, Instagram and Facebook users posting plain black boxes to their accounts. The posts often included the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter; almost immediately, social-media users were inundated with even more posts, which explained why using that hashtag drowned out crucial information about events and resources with a sea of mute boxes. For Meredith Clark, a media-studies professor at the University of Virginia, the response illustrated how the B.L.M. movement had honed its abi...
In the meantime, funding agencies might be able to help researchers negotiate better rates, says Philip Bourne, dean of data science at the University of Virginia. The U.S. National Institutes of Health does this with its Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation and Sustainability Initiative – which uses cloud resources to streamline NIH data.
(Commentary by Jonathan Colmer, assistant professor of economics, and Jay Shimshack, associate professor of public policy and economics) Fine particle matter pollution concentrations in the United States have declined by roughly 70% since 1981. However, in a newly published study, we show that the areas that were most polluted in 1981 are still the most polluted today, and the least polluted areas in 1981 are still the least polluted today.
CIO
A recent article published by UVA’s Darden School of Business underscores how companies can unjustly minimize the value of diversity by only acknowledging its impact on profitability: “When companies value diversity for its impact on profitability, it commodifies blackness and objectifies black people, making them valuable to the extent that they can boost organizational performance.” Providing fair and equitable employment opportunities for all employees is an ethical obligation for organizations simply because it is the right thing to do. 
Built in the 1950s to serve freshmen students, Bonnycastle Hall is part of the McCormick Road Houses complex at the University of Virginia. Prior to their renovation, the buildings lacked many of the amenities and creature comforts found in newer residence halls on UVA’s campus. New interior finishes and an emphasis on transparency and daylighting create a contemporary aesthetic and make the space more attractive to students.
A documentary about the legacy of George H.W. Bush, co-produced by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs and VPM public TV, will debut nationally this week. Titled “Statecraft: The Bush 41 Team,” the film offers a unique look at the foreign policy legacy of Bush via the his Presidential Oral History, the historical record and accounts from advisers, according to a news release.
UVA officials will open up Grounds to students with a set of rules, protocols and tools in place – such as a contact-tracing cellphone app and a student-signed contract – that they hope will allow classes to commence and continue despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Commentary by William Petri, professor of medicine) As millions of people are recovering from COVID-19, an unanswered question is the extent to which the virus can “hide out” in seemingly recovered individuals. 
Researchers at the UVA’s Motivate Lab are asking students to share their stories of racial injustice to better help with the University’s diversity and equity efforts. 
A small cadre of medical care providers at the UVA Medical Center is following up with patients who spent time in the pandemic ICU once they go home.