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

The Agenda | Tuesday, Aug. 4

A look around the Virginia and Valley politics landscape as we head into Tuesday, Aug. 4 …
- Creigh Deeds continues his Deeds Country Tour. The updated schedules that we keep getting haven’t let us in on when and where the Creigh Deeds campaign will make it here to the Staunton-Waynesboro area, and I haven’t gotten any phone calls or e-mails asking me to help coordinate a Waynesboro event, so … .
My guess is we’ll get a Staunton visit on Thursday or Friday. Read more

Voting trends and distracted drivers on today’s ‘Chris Graham Show’

It’s talk radio on the web the way it oughtta be. “The Chris Graham Show” returns with an interview with Virginia Commonwealth University professor Cary Funk discussing a recent study showing that despite recent voting results in Virginia trending blue, the political direction of Virginia is still very much up in the air. Also featured is an interview with a Virginia Tech researcher confirming what we would all expect about cell phones and their impact on us when we use them while driving. Length: 19:31. Read more

RMH adds two to breast health navigator team

Patricia Cheeks, RN, MSN, and Libbi Fitzgerald, RN, have joined RMH Women’s Health Focus as breast health navigators.
The RMH breast health navigator position was created in 2005 to provide help for women diagnosed with, or undergoing evaluation for, breast cancer. Annually, more than 300 women receive integrated care provided through this role.  Read more

EMU forges ties with Korean school

A little over one year ago, representatives of two schools with similar values, including a strong commitment to international learning, gathered on the Eastern Mennonite University to get better acquainted and to formalize an agreement between the two institutions. Read more

Tom Perriello | Fifth District Report

As I return home from Congress for an extended work period in the district, I will be devoting most of my time to discussing health care reform with constituents and doctors. For weeks, I made clear to Congressional leaders that we should not rush a vote on health care. I have already met with over 150 doctors and medical professional in our district about health care, and each meeting produces better ideas for improving health care and reducing costs. So my stated position was that Congress should take the month of August to present ideas to the American people and give them time to understand, critique and improve those plans so that we could get this done right, rather than just done right away. Read more

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