In The News

Where materials from demolitions or construction projects can be taken in Albemarle County soon could change. In an interview earlier this year, Mark Stanis, director of capital construction and renovation at the University of Virginia, said UVA is making a number of changes around its contracts for hauling materials. He said the University also initiated a protocol with Albemarle County that UVA would reach out as soon as it has a large site that it knows there is going to be hauling from to make sure that the county has been contacted by the contractor and that the site is communicated.

(By Christopher Ali, associate professor of media studies) For the last four years I have been researching and writing about rural broadband policy in anticipation of my forthcoming book, “Farm Fresh Spectrum: Rural Broadband and the Future of Connectivity,” which will be released in 2021 with MIT Press. The book is an analysis of rural broadband policy in the United States. My goal is to explain how is it that this country can spend upwards of $10 billion a year on broadband deployment and yet the digital divide is growing, not shrinking.

A new study from the University of Virginia estimates that very few Virginians have COVID-19 antibodies. Researchers said that 2.4% of the 5,000 blood samples they examined had antibodies. Dr. Eric Houpt, the head of the University’s infectious diseases division, led the study and said its purpose was to get a better picture of how many people were infected with the virus that were unknown to health officials.

A University of Virginia study is shedding light on troubles people prone to HIV may have in the South. It shows there are more people with HIV in the Southern states, but people with Affordable Care Act insurance policies also have the hardest time getting preventative treatments like PReP.

The University of Virginia will delay undergraduate in-person instruction and residence hall move-in dates by two weeks due to an uptick in local and national coronavirus cases, according to a news release from the university.

The University of Virginia is pushing back the start of in-person classes to Sept. 8 and delaying move-in day for undergraduates following an increase in COVID-19 cases in the state and nation. UVA leaders announced the change Tuesday in an email that also cited supply chain disruptions that have affected the availability of testing materials. 

The University of Virginia announced Tuesday that it will delay the return of undergraduates by about two weeks, a further sign of the tumult in higher education brought on by the rising threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

A new online portal aims to help University of Virginia students order self-administer COVID-19 test kits. UVA launched the portal on Monday, and all undergraduate and graduate students who plan on returning to Grounds must submit test results before they are allowed back.

Crews were called out to the area of Chemistry Plaza, off McCormick Road, around 9 a.m. Tuesday. A construction worker at the scene told NBC29 that a vehicle had driven up onto the plaza to make a delivery, but was so heavy that it crashed through the walkway.

Also Tuesday, the University of Virginia announced that it is delaying in-person instruction and residence hall move-ins in response to an uptick in coronavirus cases. The two-week delay means undergraduate classes will still start Aug. 25, but all classes will begin online before moving in-person Sept. 8.

John Thompson, Distinguished Institute Fellow at UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute and former U.S. Census Bureau chief, speaks on results of census deadline changing.

Society’s perception of child care being of lesser quality to education has rarely been so pronounced. Robert C. Pianta, dean of UVA’s Curry School of Education and Human Development, said the pandemic “pushes on a lot of the tectonics that are between those two systems.” He added that there has been a reversion to the erroneously assuming, “What child care does is warehouse kids, keeps them out of parents’ hair.”

Virginians are returning to work and visiting local businesses nearly at pre-pandemic levels, according to UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute. The institute says the rebound in economic activity is good news – but only if businesses and customers continue to follow guidance on safety, cleanliness and other restrictions laid out in Virginia’s reopening plan. 

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.