Make the holidays last longer: Plant your Christmas tree

AFP

Enjoy your Christmas tree year-round when you buy it live and plant it in your garden or home landscape. Live Christmas trees are those with the root ball still attached to the tree. Live Christmas trees that do well outdoors as well as indoors in Virginia are green spruce, blue spruce, concolor or white fir, white pine and Fraser fir, according to Augusta County horticulturalist and holiday décor enthusiast André Viette.

randy forbes

Randy Forbes: Here we mark the price of freedom

AFP

It was one of those days where the heat takes your breath away. It was mid-summer in our nation’s capital and the sun beat down on the marble monuments and city sidewalks. I squinted my eyes and stood shoulder to shoulder with members of my staff handing out water bottles as our guests filed off of the buses, slowly but determined, one by one. They were eager. And so were we.

newspaper

Cloverdale Foods Company recalls beef and pork product due to misbranding, undeclared allergen

AFP

Cloverdale Foods Company, a Mandan, N.D., establishment, is recalling approximately 5,208 pounds of beef and pork jalapeño cheddar bratwurst product due to misbranding and an undeclared allergen, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

dominion virginia power

Dominion informs NRC of intent to seek second license renewal for Surry Power Station

AFP

Dominion Virginia Power, a unit of Dominion, today became the first U.S utility to notify the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its intent to file a second license renewal application for one of its nuclear stations. Surry Power Station would be one of the first nuclear stations in the nation to receive a second license extension if Dominion completes the process and the application is approved.

Wild Virginia: FERC rejects Atlantic Coast Pipeline soil testing data

Chris Graham

In a 23-page letter dated November 5, 2015 to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Clyde Thompson, Forest Supervisor of the Monongahela National Forest, requested that FERC reject all soil testing data generated by Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia and the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia.

Governor McAuliffe issues gag order to state agencies on natural gas pipelines

AFP

On Tuesday, The Roanoke Times reported that the decision to share pipeline comments with the governor’s office before making them public was one outcome of an Oct. 28 meeting in Richmond that included representatives from 13 state agencies involved in the permitting process or mitigation efforts for the proposed pipelines. The Times reported the purpose of coordinating with the Governor’s office was to “ensure that state agencies will speak about the pipeline projects in the same way.”