President, Webb, Warner mark enactment of New GI Bill
At George Mason University on Monday, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) was joined by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki, former Sen. John Warner, and student veterans at an event celebrating the enactment of Webb’s “Post-9/11 GI Bill,” which offers comprehensive educational benefits to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Saturday, August 1, the Department of Veterans Affairs began distributing tuition payments to schools across the nation participating in the program. Read more
Holding the line at the pump
Up and down, up and down – that’s where gas prices are right now.
“With five weeks remaining in the summer driving season, AAA expects gas prices to remain fairly stable,” said Martha M. Meade, manager of public and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic. Read more
Staunton businesses looking to take advantage of sales-tax holiday
Mommy and Me Children’s Consignment Shop and Off the Wall Photography in Staunton are teaming up for an all-day event on Saturday coinciding with the annual state school sales-tax holiday. Read more
News from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Monday, Aug. 3, 2009
- Press Briefing with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
- Remarks by President Obama and Kuwait Amir Sheikh Sabah before Oval Office meeting
- Remarks by President Obama at George Mason University on the Post-9/11 GI Bill
- Statement by the press secretary on the visit of President Mubarak of Egypt to the White House Read more
State funds focus on disability employment
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced last week that the Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services (DRS) awarded $500,000 in federal funding to 12 Employment Services Organizations (ESOs) with projects designed to increase employment for Virginians with disabilities. The funds were made possible through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a portion of which serves as recovery funding directed to the state’s vocational rehabilitation system. The projects range from expanding a laundry service operation, to purchasing a multi-passenger van for transporting workers, to creating local community enclaves (small mobile crew of workers with disabilities). Read more
A new class of landlords
As homeowners contend with a chilly housing market, many are turning to others to pay their mortgages for them – by renting out their properties. Through first quarter 2009, Allstate saw approximately a 25.3 percent increase in the number of Virginia homeowners switching to landlord policies over prior year. Read more
The issues, please
People in Wise County prefer to be on welfare, to hear the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia tell it.
Mullins made a comment to that effect last month, according to a report in The Recorder, a weekly newspaper based in Highland County, in summing up a story about a Wise County insurance company that had to close two offices because he said it couldn’t find employees. Mullins told a gathering of local Republicans at a Monterey restaurant that the company owner tried to recruit employees from a nearby college campus to work, but “(t)hey preferred to be on welfare,” Mullins was quoted in the report. Read more
