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byline: Kate Andrews

Nexus Services CEO calls state AGs’ lawsuit ‘a form of retaliation’

Nexus Services Inc., the bonding company being sued by the states of Virginia, Massachusetts and New York, responded Friday with accusations of its own. In a statement, Nexus CEO and President Mike Donovan said that the state attorney generals’ allegations that the company financially preyed on immigrants held in federal detention are “offensive, 100% false and detrimental.”

Donovan said in the statement that he believes that the three attorneys general and the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which filed the civil suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia last month, sued the company “as a form of retaliation” after Nexus subsidiary Libre by Nexus filed suits against Virginia, New York and Massachusetts “to ensure the rights of prisoners.” Libre by Nexus also successfully sued CFPB in 2017 to suspend its investigation of Nexus.

Nexus, founded in Augusta County in 2013, is now legally based in Atlanta but its founders are residents of Fishersville and its principal place of business is in Verona, according to the complaint.

Donovan said in a statement released in February that “while the federal government continues to detain scores of immigrants, the AGs have ignored the fact that these detention centers operate within their own borders. From Buffalo, [New York], to Farmville to Suffolk, [Massachusetts], immigrants are tortured while Herring, [New York Attorney General Letitia] James and others conduct a shadowy investigation into the only company helping the immigrants they claim to be protecting.”

The company seeks to have the federal suit dismissed, according to documents filed with the court.

Libre by Nexus also announced Friday it has set up toll-free hotlines in the three states so callers can report “abusive government agents and policies” and have their claims reviewed by legal counsel.

On Feb. 22, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring joined the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts and the CFPB in suing Nexus and its Libre subsidiary, along with its co-owners, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Richard Moore, Nexus Services Director Evan Ajin and Donovan. The suit alleges they violated the federal Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 and “engaged in deceptive and abusive acts or practices in connection with Libre’s offer of credit to consumers for their immigration bonds,” and that Nexus and the three individual defendants “knowingly or recklessly provided substantial assistance to Libre in its deceptive and abusive acts or practices.”

Libre by Nexus offers to pay for customers’ immigration bonds to secure their release from government detention centers while they are being held by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement system. The attorney generals’ lawsuit allegations include that Nexus charged “large upfront fees and hefty monthly payments while concealing or misrepresenting the true costs of its services,” including $420 monthly payments for GPS ankle monitors that didn’t work since February 2018. According to the company, the GPS monitors were phased out in 2020, and instead customers are tracked with the use of an app downloaded to their smartphones.

Also, according to the suit, “from at least 2014 until at least late 2017, Libre used a multipart, written client agreement of over 20 pages, all written in English except for a single page written in Spanish,” although “the vast majority of Libre’s clients and their co-signers are Spanish speakers, most of whom do not read or write English and many of whom cannot read or write in any language.”

The states and CFPB filed 17 counts against the company in the February suit and asked the court to award Virginia up to $2,500 per violation, as well as $1,000 per violation in legal fees, along with other damages and restitution.

Libre, in a response to the suit filed earlier in March, argues that in earlier suits filed by Libre customers, “every time a Libre program participant has testified under oath regarding allegations of consumer fraud, three different, well-respected arbitrators (one a former judge) concluded that zero fraud took place.”

In December, the Virginia State Corporation Commission ordered that Libre by Nexus pay $425,000 to settle the state’s Bureau of Insurance’s investigation into the company, which was accused of acting as an unlicensed insurance agent. Libre is under investigation by at least nine other state or federal agencies, including the U.S. Justice Department.

“Libre by Nexus is hopeful that this baseless lawsuit will bring the real issues of detaining immigrants into the light and pledges to keep helping those who are being unfairly and egregiously detained, tortured and separated from their families,” the statement said. A hearing date has not yet been set.

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757 economic recovery plan focuses on cooperation

At a Thursday news conference, Hampton Roads regional leaders unveiled a new economic recovery plan for the next two years that focuses on cooperation and resiliency.

Hampton Roads Alliance President and CEO Doug Smith presented a report detailing multiple goals for the region to help it recover financially after the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting job and business losses. It is based on input from more than 200 nonprofit, government and business leaders who participated in meetings with the organization during the past six months.

The 757 Recovery & Resilience Action Framework focuses on the following broad goals: building regional unity; growing new jobs; growing, retaining and attracting talent; building resiliency and advancing regional infrastructure.

With a self-set deadline of October, the group hopes to recruit 1,000 “757 Champions” — a diverse group of leaders who will volunteer to promote different business sectors and create a more welcoming atmosphere, especially for minority business people. So far, Smith said, more than 100 people have indicated interest. Another goal to meet by October is the launch of the “Did You Know” regional marketing campaign, which will include a free app that can be used to award prizes to participants who answer quiz questions about the region. Smith noted that to encourage cooperation and local pride, residents need to know more about the full 757 region and its 17 localities.

According to the framework, the group will focus on the following goals this year: attracting young professionals to participate in the 757 recovery project; building a performance dashboard; attracting new companies and increasing productivity and growth of target industries; cultivating new industries, including offshore wind; and providing diversity and inclusion education and business-model training.

In 2022, the group’s goals will include growing the region’s startup ecosystem, as well as creating a business approach to energy and sea-level rise issues and attracting talent from outside the region, focusing on tech industries. In the longer term, the group hopes to address systemic problems that have held the region back.

Smith noted at the start of his presentation that the Hampton Roads region took more than eight years to fully recover from the 2008-09 recession, about three years longer than comparable communities, and its 2019 average per capital income of $52,011 and GDP of $50,609 is behind other regions, including Columbus, Ohio, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Smith and others say the region needs to bounce back faster this time.

More information on the 757 recovery plan is here.

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New jobless claims increased last week in Va.

Initial unemployment claims increased across the state last week, while continued claims dropped slightly, the Virginia Employment Commission reported Thursday.

For the filing week ending March 6, 13,736 people filed new claims for unemployment insurance, up from 12,155 the previous week. Meanwhile, 62,269 people filed continued claims, marking a 2.7% decrease from the previous week but still far higher than the same week in 2020, which saw 22,714 continued claims. People receiving unemployment benefits through the VEC must file weekly unemployment claims in order to continue receiving benefits.

“For the second consecutive week, initial claims for unemployment benefits increased in Virginia,” said Dominique Johnson, a research associate at Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy, in a statement. “More than 10,000 weekly claims has almost become the norm. But when compared to the same week last year, two weeks before the COVID-19 spike in unemployment, initial claims were less than 2,600. While down considerably from the peak of nearly 150,000 claims filed in the first week of April 2020, a return to pre-pandemic levels will take some time.”

Robert McNab, director of the Dragas Center, said that while initial and continued claims “remain well above those observed in previous recessions, we are likely at an economic inflection point in the recovery from the pandemic.”

More than half of the claimants who filed for benefits last week (and the prior four weeks) reported being in the accommodation/food service, administrative and waste services, retail trade and health care and social assistance industries, according to the VEC.

The regions of the state that have been most impacted continue to be Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads. 

Below are the top 10 localities, listed by number of initial unemployment claims, for the week ending March 6:

  • Norfolk, 630
  • Richmond, 583
  • Virginia Beach, 562
  • Fairfax County, 543
  • Alexandria, 440
  • Prince William County, 372
  • Newport News, 319
  • Chesterfield County, 299
  • Chesapeake, 294
  • Henrico County, 281

Nationwide, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims last week was 712,000, a decrease of 42,000 from the previous week’s revised level, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. There were 200,382 initial claims during the same week last year.

 

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Health Wagon receives COVID-19 vaccine doses after wait

A little more than a month after The Health Wagon’s director went on national television and said the Wise County-based free clinic system hadn’t received COVID-19 vaccine doses, it has now vaccinated 325 people in the past two weeks.

In a news release Thursday, The Health Wagon President and CEO Teresa Tyson thanked the Virginia Department of Health for providing Moderna vaccine doses, which the clinic is administering to people over age 65 and younger people with pre-existing health conditions. Currently the clinic is hosting drive-thru vaccination events and plans weekly events.

Vaccines are “first come, first serve,” according to The Health Wagon, and there is a waiting list. They advise calling (276) 328-8850 to be placed on the waiting list, and clinic employees will call when an appointment is available.

On “CBS This Morning” in early February, Tyson said she had asked the state government for doses for the clinic’s 5,600 patients in Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott and Wise counties. Many don’t have access to reliable transportation, which is why the clinic uses mobile units to get closer to patients’ workplaces and homes. Tysons also noted that her patients are demographically more likely to have co-morbidities that can place people at higher health risks from the virus. However, at the time the report aired, Gov. Ralph Northam and Dr. Danny Avula, the state’s vaccine coordinator, said the state wasn’t receiving enough doses yet to send them to everyone who wanted one.

However, over the past weeks, Virginia’s number of allocated weekly doses has almost quadrupled, nearing 400,000 a week, due to increased production of the Moderna and Pfizer Inc. vaccines and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s approval of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in late February.

In Virginia, eight pharmacy groups and other providers have joined hospitals, CVS pharmacies and local health districts in administering shots, making them more widely available across the state.

“We are so blessed to begin receiving vaccines,” Tyson said in a statement Thursday. “Thank you, Virginia Department of Health, for helping our people. My mission is to save lives in Central Appalachia, and these vaccines could not have come at a better time.”

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The pandemic — one year later

One year ago this week, Virginians started bumping elbows instead of shaking hands. We raced about trying to find toilet paper and hand sanitizer and began washing our hands obsessively as a virus we’d only heard about in the news suddenly appeared in Virginia and would quickly transform daily life as we knew it.

Virginia’s first COVID case was identified on March 7, 2020, and the first death followed exactly a week later, on March 14, 2020. In between those two events, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic.

By March 18-19, 2020, Virginia’s state universities and public schools had moved classes online. Metro reduced its service hours. State agencies and major companies like Capital One directed employees to stay at home and shift to telework, while restaurants, hotels and theaters closed their doors — some for a few weeks, others for good. Starting in mid-March 2020, the number of Virginians filing unemployment claims grew exponentially, as did the number of COVID-19 cases.

Virginians logged on Facebook to watch daily updates from Gov. Ralph Northam and State Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver, who reported the latest COVID-19 statistics and urged residents to wash their hands, stay six feet apart and remain at home if possible. Virginians who worked at grocery stores and hospitals assumed the heavy mantle of heroes as they performed essential jobs under high risk of contracting the coronavirus.

As we enter month 13 of the pandemic, the end is in sight, with more than 18.5% of Virginians having received at least their first dose of coronavirus vaccine since December. But we cannot forget that the coronavirus has claimed close to 10,000 lives in Virginia and more than 528,000 lives nationwide.

Here’s a look back at the key dates, statistics and moments of a year like no other in recent memory.

THE NUMBERS

  • 589,375 total COVID-19 cases recorded in Virginia, as of March 10, 2021
  • 24,925 people in Virginia hospitalized
  • 9,849 deaths in Virginia
  • 363 days under state of emergency declared by Gov. Northam in March 2020
  • 104,619 Virginians filed initial unemployment claims during the peak week of April 18, 2020
  • 63,998 Virginians remained unemployed according to continued claims filed the week of Feb. 27, 2021
  • 44,568 hotel-related jobs gone as of September 2020
  • 78,000 lodging industry jobs in Virginia expected to be lost before the pandemic is over
  • 113,000 Virginia businesses collectively received $12.5 billion funding during the first two rounds of the Paycheck Protection Program
  • 1.57 million Virginians have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
  • 2.42 million vaccine doses administered since December 2020

Click to expand photos

 

PRE-PANDEMIC

  • Feb. 27, 2020 — 59 people in the U.S. had confirmed cases of the coronavirus, which was first recorded in China in late 2019. Virginia had not yet seen its first case, but early effects were being felt. The University of Virginia issued warnings about traveling to countries with confirmed cases, including China, Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea. Businesses canceled international travel and the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association recommended that employers remind workers about the importance of effective hand-washing and staying home when sick.

THE VIRUS ARRIVES

  • March 7, 2020 — A U.S. Marine stationed at Fort Belvoir was Virginia’s first recorded COVID-19 case, swiftly followed by seven more cases, all in Northern Virginia. All eight cases were related to travel, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
  • March 10 — Virginia’s colleges and universities started discussing moving all classes online, canceling in-person classes after spring break.
  • March 11 — The World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
  • March 12 — Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency as the total number of cases among Virginia climbed to 17. Nearly 20 colleges and universities moved to virtual classes, and most large school systems closed to prepare for online learning as well. A day later, then-President Donald Trump declared a national state of emergency.
  • March 14 — Virginia reported its first coronavirus-related death, a man in his 70s from the Peninsula Health District.
  • March 15 — Northam made his first executive order aimed at preventing spread of the virus, banning all events with more than 100 people across the state. More orders soon followed, including limiting restaurants, fitness centers and gyms to 10 patrons or fewer. Meanwhile, Dominion Energy Inc. suspended service disconnections and restaurants began voluntarily closing dining rooms.
  • March 20 — Virginia extended its tax deadline by a month to June 1, 2020, and more than 16,000 Virginians filed unemployment claims.
  • March 23 — The governor issued more restrictions, closing K-12 schools through the rest of the spring 2020 semester, directing all entertainment and recreation businesses to close, banning gatherings of more than 10 people, and limiting customers at “nonessential” businesses. Not even three weeks into the pandemic, more than 23,000 hotel jobs were lost, according to the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association.

UNDER ORDERS, UNDER PRESSURE

  • April 2, 2020 — In one week, Virginia unemployment doubled. Nearly 159,000 Virginians filed claims in the last two weeks, compared with about 135,000 total in 2019.
  • April 11 — A little over a month into the pandemic, Virginia saw more than 5,000 total coronavirus cases; 141 people had died, including 42 at one nursing home in Henrico County.
  • April 15 — With the state under a stay-at-home order until June 10, 2020, Gov. Ralph Northam said life wouldn’t return to normal any time soon, at least until a vaccine or better treatment became available for COVID-19. Meanwhile, Virginia banks had received about 30,000 applications from businesses requesting $6.6 billion in Paycheck Protection Program funds, as the federal government anticipated the $349 billion fund would run out in less than two weeks.
  • April 22 — The General Assembly gathered for its veto session — but not in its usual space. Delegates voted under tents on the state Capitol grounds, while the state Senate convened at the Science Museum of Virginia. In this session and one in the late summer, legislators made significant budget adjustments due to the financial downturn. Meanwhile, protesters demanded lawmakers reopen the state.
  • May 8 — Northam announced the first phase of his Forward Virginia reopening plan would go into effect on May 15, 2020, allowing retail stores and houses of worship to open at 50% capacity and restaurants to offer outdoor dining with 50% seating capacity. A group of diverse business people from multiple industries and regions advised the governor and determined industry-specific safety measures.
  • May 29 — Northam’s mask mandate for all Virginians ages 10 and older went into effect, requiring face coverings in all retail stores, hair salons and restaurants, as well as on public transportation, government offices and other indoor, public spaces. The shift from recommendation to order launched a political firestorm as some Republicans — including President Trump — eschewed wearing masks, saying it was unnecessary.
  • June 10 — At the close of Northam’s stay-at-home order, the state gradually allowed many businesses to partially reopen. Positivity rates had fallen, and testing was more widely available, as was personal protective equipment (PPE). International pharmaceutical companies were engaged in developing vaccines.

MOVING FORWARD

In September, 2020, the state created a vaccine advisory group to make distribution plans. Virginia’s first delivery of Pfizer Inc. vaccine doses arrived in December 2020, earmarked for frontline medical responders, followed shortly by workers and residents in long-term health care facilities. Meanwhile, both in Virginia and across the nation, case numbers spiked again after a few months of relative respite, partly due to holiday gatherings in November and December. Deaths spiked as well, causing a ripple effect even now as the Virginia Department of Health works through death certificates and updates the numbers in its COVID database.

As of March 2021, Northam and state health department officials say they are confident that all adult Virginians will have access to COVID-19 vaccines by the end of May, an event that will herald the approach of projected herd immunity. But COVID-19 variants remain a wild card.

The federal government has recently approved more funding for individuals and business owners just as unemployment benefits and other federal programs expire. But the pandemic’s full impact likely won’t be known for a long time, including its effect on industries, education and jobs here in Virginia.

 

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VMI alums and cadets report racial slurs used on ‘regular basis’

In an interim report, investigators looking into reported racist incidents at Virginia Military Institute say some alumni and current cadets have reported hearing racial slurs “on a regular basis” at the state-funded military college in Lexington.

The Washington, D.C.-based law firm Barnes & Thornburg LLP, which submitted the report Monday to Peter A. Blake, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, continues its audit of VMI, which it started Jan. 7, interviewing cadets, alumni, faculty and staff.

The report details several uses of racial slurs, including an account from one Black alumnus who reported being called the n-word “many times” between 2018 and 2021, and a white graduate who attended the school in the late 1990s saying that racial slurs were “common” and “absolutely a part of life in the barracks.” An Asian graduate who attended the school in the mid-1990s said he was “routinely” called “sand n-word” by an upperclassman. Also, according to internal reports at VMI provided to the investigators, there were 13 substantiated allegations of use of racial slurs between 2015 and 2021.

Gov. Ralph Northam, a 1981 VMI alumnus, announced in October that the state would launch a third-party investigation of the Lexington military college’s culture after The Washington Post published a story about a Black student who said he had been threatened with lynching by another student in 2018, among other incidents. The state allocated $1 million for the VMI equity audit, which was set to begin in mid-December but was delayed until after the holidays.

In a progress report issued last month, Barnes & Thornburg complained that the state’s postponement of signing the $1 million contract delayed its work, and also said that VMI insisted its legal counsel participate in all interviews conducted by the auditors. In the report issued Monday, the investigation team says it has more interaction with alumni than current cadets, who have been “the most reluctant to speak with the team thus far.”

Noting that the results in the 100-page report are “only preliminary,” the audit team says that tension between races and genders appears to be related to hostility among cadets and NCAA athletes at VMI, whom many cadets see as having an easier time because they miss some military training due to athletics practices. “Because minority cadets make up a much higher percentage of the athletic teams than they do of the corps of cadets, the tension between athletes and cadets is intertwined with diversity issues at VMI,” the report says. Also, some people interviewed have said that discrimination against female cadets “may be more concerning than conditions for racial minorities.”

VMI enrolled its first female cadets in 1997 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it could not remain an all-male, public institution. VMI was the last public college in Virginia to integrate, first admitting Black cadets in 1968. Following reports in The Washington Post and The Roanoke Times last year, VMI’s superintendent, retired Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, resigned from the post. His interim replacement, retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, a 1985 alumnus, has participated in extensive conversations with state officials and the VMI Board of Visitors, which voted to remove the university’s statue of Confederate Gen. Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, who taught at the institute, in December.

So far, the investigation team has interviewed 46 alumni, most of whom graduated during the past 30 years, including nine Black alumni and two of mixed races, according to the report. The team also have made 71 requests to VMI for documents, some of which were delayed as the university refused to produce them due to privacy concerns. Other documents still have not been handed over, the report states. “For over a month, the team has worked with VMI to reassure it that the necessary protocols had been put in place to ensure that VMI was not inadvertently violating any federal or state laws, but the team is still missing large batches of documents that are essential to its equity audit and investigation.”

Along with the complaints voiced by some interviewees, there also is a lot of pride and loyalty among alumni, the report says. “Even those alumni who criticized certain elements of the VMI experience often expressed their love of and appreciation for VMI and its traditions.”

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State reaches $39.3M settlement with defunct Keysville tobacco company

Twenty-three years after the landmark Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement was reached, defunct Keysville tobacco company S&M Brands Inc. has settled with Virginia for nearly $40 million, the attorney general’s office announced Wednesday.

S&M Brands, the makers of Bailey cigarettes and other products, closed in 2019. It was started in 1995 by father and son Mac and Steven Bailey, part of a longtime family business growing and brokering tobacco in Charlotte County dating back to 1860. In November 1998, the four largest U.S. tobacco product manufacturers — Virginia’s Philip Morris Inc., R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard — entered into the master settlement agreement with 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and four U.S. territories.

Under the agreement, the states settled their Medicaid lawsuits against tobacco manufacturers in exchange for the companies stopping certain marketing practices and paying annual compensation to the states for medical costs stemming from smoking-related illnesses. In subsequent years, other tobacco companies entered the agreement, but S&M Brands did not do so, leading to this year’s settlement.

The defunct company’s recent deal with the state (along with other states, including North Carolina and Kentucky) required it to pay $39.38 million into the Virginia Health Care Fund, according to the attorney general’s office. Under state law, the company had been required to make regular deposits based on statewide sales into an escrow account, funds that usually can be returned to companies after 25 years, except for any money awarded in suits against them. However, the 2021 settlement assigned the rights of S&M’s escrow funds to the state and prevents the company from suing later over the return of the money, the attorney general’s statement says.

Although 40% of Virginia’s $4 billion in original tobacco settlement funding went into the health care fund, part of the money has gone toward economic development efforts in Southern and Southwest Virginia communities that were the heart of the state’s tobacco-growing region. The Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission was founded after the 1998 settlement and has allocated nearly $1.2 billion in grants for businesses in the region, as well as $309 million in indemnification payments for tobacco growers and quota holders. A smaller percentage of Virginia’s MSA funds is earmarked for youth tobacco-use prevention initiatives carried out by the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth.

“With this settlement, almost $40 million has been transferred into the Virginia Health Care Fund where it will be used to help the people of the commonwealth who truly need it,” Attorney General Mark Herring said in a statement. “I want to thank my team for all of the hard work that they put into reaching this substantial settlement with S&M Brands.”

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Large-scale vaccination clinics starting next week in Va.

Updated 7 p.m. 

The state will launch large-scale COVID-19 vaccination clinics beginning next week in Petersburg, Portsmouth and Danville, Gov. Ralph Northam said Tuesday.

Curtis Brown, the state coordinator of emergency management, said he expects large clinic events will be held at 13 locations within the next three months, determined by need and funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Brown said more details will be coming and that people must preregister with the state’s vaccination website and get an appointment for the clinic. Northam urged Virginians to answer their phones when they get a call, even if it’s from an unknown number, because it could be the health department calling to set up a vaccine appointment.

Marking one year since the first COVID cases and deaths were reported in Virginia, Northam said, “It has been a hard year for everyone, but I have been so encouraged by your resilience and your generosity.” The governor also thanked medical responders and frontline workers for their efforts over the past year and added, “Hang in there. We’re going to put this pandemic in the rearview mirror.”

Northam added that vaccination numbers are up across the state, and more than 1.5 million people — 18% of the state’s population — have received at least one shot, as of Virginia Department of Health reporting Tuesday. Also, the number of positive cases has declined in recent weeks after a spike following Christmas and New Year’s.

The governor also faced questions about matters outside the coronavirus.

Addressing an ongoing controversy regarding the Office of the State Inspector General and the Virginia Parole Board over the parole granted last year to convicted murderer Vincent Martin, Northam Chief of Staff Clark Mercer blasted an OSIG report last summer that characterized Martin’s parole process as “highly biased.” Without using the name of Jennifer A. Moschetti, the main state investigator who filed a whistleblower suit Monday against the Northam administration, alleging that his staff had intimidated her staff, Mercer indicated that the plaintiff was one of the authors of the disputed report.

Last month, Virginia news media outlets obtained a longer version of the six-page draft OSIG report from summer 2020 that included allegations against current and former members of the parole board.

Northam reiterated his earlier statement that he encourages an independent investigation into allegations that the parole board committed wrongdoing in releasing Martin last year, as the governor and others in his administration pushed for faster paroles to limit spread of the coronavirus in prisons.

Mercer said that some members of the state’s Republican Party, including lawmakers in the General Assembly, had used the issue as a political football to criticize the governor, which Mercer called “very irresponsible.” He also alleged that the longer draft had “unsubstantiated claims” not included in the final version.

He also noted that Moschetti, who is suing State Inspector General Michael Westfall in Richmond Circuit Court, is represented by Virginia Beach attorney and House of Delegates GOP candidate Tim Anderson, who has been involved in several suits brought by Republicans in Virginia, including state Sen. Amanda Chase’s suit against the Virginia State Senate and the Republican Party of Virginia.

While not naming Anderson, Mercer said, “I was disappointed, and I think it does not take much work to connect the dots here, that the counsel retained in this lawsuit is on the ballot himself this year, in November, running for office. He has sued the governor several times this year alone, over elections and over COVID. … We need serious people to look into this.”

Anderson said in a statement Tuesday night that “Clark Mercer uses the governor’s platform to attack my character as a lawyer, stating I am not a serious lawyer because I am also a candidate for office.” He defended the suits he has filed on behalf of clients, including Chase and Sen. Bill DeSteph, who sued Sen. Mamie Locke and House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn before the regular session of the General Assembly, seeking in-person meeting space for legislators and constituents.

“To be condemned by Clark Mercer at the governor’s COVID briefing must mean we are doing something right,” he added.

Northam said that he supports parole as “a very important part of criminal justice reform,” but said he does not plan to make further statements on the controversy as it moves into the legal system and a possible independent probe. “The last thing I’m going to do is allow this to be politicized.”

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COVID roundup: 1 year into pandemic, Va. makes headway with vaccinations

A year after the first COVID-19 cases in Virginia were recorded, the state is making significant headway in vaccinating residents. As of Monday, March 8, 1.49 million Virginians — or 17.5% of the state’s population — have received at least one shot.

Meanwhile, the number of COVID-related deaths in Virginia was still higher than average last week due to delayed reporting of death certificates following the spike in cases during the holidays. The Virginia Department of Health reported 900 deaths last week, down from the previous week’s report of 1,297 fatalities. The state also confirmed its first virus-related fatality in a child under age 10, which occurred last week in the Central Virginia region. VDH did not share other details but noted that the child also had a chronic health condition.

According to a report Sunday in The Virginian-Pilot, the state chief medical examiner’s office decided not to conduct an autopsy on a woman from Gloucester County who died shortly after receiving a Pfizer Inc. vaccine shot in January. Drene Keyes, 58, died Jan. 30 and had difficulty breathing about 20 minutes after getting the shot, according to the article. In an email provided to the Pilot following a Freedom of Information Act request, State Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver wrote to VDH public information officers Feb. 5 that “a full autopsy was not needed in order to ascertain whether the death was related to the vaccination.” Oliver said later in an interview with the newspaper that he meant that preliminary results did not indicate Keyes died from an allergic reaction to the vaccine.

VDH recorded 9,418 new COVID cases over the past week, falling below 10,000 for the first time in months. As of Monday, the state has recorded 586,592 total cases and 9,683 deaths attributed to the pandemic, and the state’s seven-day positivity rate was at 6.2%. According to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association, 1,142 people are currently hospitalized with COVID or have test results pending, including 244 in intensive care units.

Last week, the state received its first allocation of Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses, 69,000 of which went to local health districts for distribution, along with 22,000 more sent to pharmacies. Over the past week, the state received 322,290 total vaccine doses, not including the approximately 74,000 doses sent by the federal government to pharmacies throughout Virginia. State vaccine coordinator Dr. Danny Avula said last week he anticipates the total weekly number to reach 500,000 doses later this month and 650,000 per week by April. He also expects that everyone in group 1b — including people ages 65 and older, essential workers and people under 65 with underlying health conditions — will be able to receive vaccinations by the end of April.

Some regions are now able to vaccinate more people, although the entire state is still in Phase 1b. Richmond and Henrico County’s health departments announced Monday that their region will start vaccinating restaurant workers, younger people with disabilities and people who live in areas that have higher risk of disease this week. More information about who is qualified is available here.

The state now ranks sixth-best in the nation for its percentage of vaccine doses administered, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by Becker’s Hospital Review.

Last month, VDH launched a statewide vaccine registration website for all Virginia residents who want a vaccine, as well as a phone hotline staffed by 750 employees from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. All adult residents of Virginia can now register at vaccinate.virginia.gov or call (877) VAX-IN-VA, or (877) 829-4682.

With race and ethnicity information available for only 67.2% of people who have received shots in the state, the majority of shots have been received by white, non-Hispanic people — 71.0% as of Monday, according to VDH. Black Virginians have received 13.3% of shots, although they make up 19.9% of the state’s population, according to 2019 estimates by the U.S. Census; 5.5% of vaccines were given to Latino residents, who comprise about 9.8% of Virginians.

State health officials have focused attention on equitable vaccination, especially as Latino and Black residents are heavily represented among people who have been infected, hospitalized and died from the coronavirus. Among Virginia’s COVID deaths in which ethnicity and race are recorded, 24% were Black, and 6.8% were Latino.

As of March 4, the following health districts have positivity rates of 10% or higher:

  • Hampton — 12.5%, down from 15% on Feb. 25
  • Portsmouth — 11.7%, down from 12.4%
  • Chesapeake — 11.5%, down from 13.1%

Globally, there are 116.9 million reported COVID-19 cases and 2,595,573 confirmed deaths, as of March 8. The United States, which has the most confirmed cases and deaths worldwide, has seen 29 million confirmed cases so far, with 525,136 deaths attributed to the coronavirus since February 2020.

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Report: Washington Football Team probe recommends Snyder divest ownership

“The Sports Junkies,” a Washington, D.C.-based sports radio show, reported Friday that an attorney investigating the Washington Football Team has recommended majority owner Daniel Snyder divest his ownership of the NFL team.

The show’s hosts at WJFK 106.7 FM The Fan said they received parts of a report written by Beth Wilkinson, the lawyer conducting the NFL’s investigation into the Ashburn-based team, which came under fire last year over reports in The Washington Post of lewd videos taken of the team’s cheerleaders without their knowledge, which were later screened for team executives.

In December, The Washington Post reported that the team paid a female former employee $1.6 million in a confidential settlement in 2009 after she accused Snyder of sexual misconduct. According to the leaked report, the alleged incident occurred on Snyder’s private plane. December’s news came after bombshell allegations by 15 women who said they were sexually harassed when they worked for the team during Snyder’s tenure as majority owner since 1999. Several Washington Football executives were fired in the wake of the August report.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell decided a few days later, at the end of August, that the league would take over the investigation into the team, which had launched its own third-party probe.

“Sports Junkies” host Eric Bickel said on the show that Wilkinson presented multiple options to punish Snyder, who is also accused of trying to cover up details of the suit. In November, the team’s former general counsel sued Wilkinson to stop her from revealing information from the settlement.

If Snyder’s not forced to sell his part of the team, Wilkinson recommends Snyder’s suspension for several months, Bickel said. Separate from the NFL probe, Snyder has been battling his team’s three co-owners in court over their desire to sell their minority shares of the team to investors in California who offered $900 million. However, Snyder blocked the sale and is trying to buy 25% of the minority shares. The case is in arbitration.

Snyder purchased the team in 1999 from Jack Kent Cooke’s estate for $800 million. Although the team’s record has been mostly undistinguished during that time, the former Washington Redskins were a consistently popular draw until very recently, and in 2019, the team had the seventh-highest NFL team valuation at $3.4 billion, according to Forbes. In July, the team bowed to corporate sponsors’ pressure and announced it would drop its former name, which was broadly seen as discriminatory and derogatory against Native Americans, and said it would choose a new name after months of discussion and public input.

In early February, Goodell said that Wilkinson was closing in on completion of her investigation of the team and said that her findings will be shared with the team and others, while not saying whether they would be made public.

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