NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are adding to their records on Monday as Wall Street nears the finish of a second straight winning month.
The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading, its first trading after completing its stunning rebound from a springtime sell-off of roughly 20%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 142 points, or 0.3%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.
Stocks got a boost after Canada said it’s rescinding a planned tax on U.S. technology firms and resuming talks on trade with the United States. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump had said he was suspending talks with Canada because of his anger with the tax, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our country.”
One of the main reasons U.S. stocks came back so quickly from its springtime swoon has been hope that Trump will reach deals with other countries to lower his stiff proposed tariffs. Otherwise, the fear is that the trade wars could stifle the economy and send inflation higher.
The United States is charging a 10% baseline tax on all imported goods, along with higher rates for Chinese goods and other import taxes on steel and autos. But many of Trump’s additional, announced tariffs are currently on pause. They’re scheduled to kick back into effect in a little more than a week.
In an interview with Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump said his administration will notify countries that the trade penalties will take effect unless there are deals with the United States. Letters will start going out “pretty soon” before the approaching deadline, he said.
On Wall Street, GMS’ stock jumped 11.3% after the supplier of specialty building products said it agreed to sell itself to a Home Depot subsidiary in a deal that would pay $110.00 per share in cash. That would give it a total value of roughly $5.5 billion, including debt.
Less than two weeks ago, another company, QXO, said it was offering to buy GMS for $95.20 per share in cash. After the announcement of the Home Depot bid, QXO’s stock rose 2%, and Home Depot’s stock was flat.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise rallied 12% and Juniper Networks climbed 8.4% after saying they had reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that could clear the way for their merger go through, subject to court approval. HPE is trying to buy Juniper in a $14 billion deal.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were easing a bit ahead of some major economic reports later in the week. The highlight will be Thursday’s jobs report. It’s often the most anticipated economic data of each month, and it will come a day earlier than usual this upcoming month because of the Fourth of July holiday.
The job market has remained relatively steady recently, even in the face of tariffs, but hiring has slowed. Economists expect Thursday’s data to show another slowdown in overall hiring, down to 115,000 jobs in June from 139,000 in May.
Such data has kept the Federal Reserve on hold this year when it comes to interest rates. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said repeatedly that it’s waiting for more data to show how tariffs will affect the economy and inflation before resuming its cuts to interest rates. That’s because lower rates can fan inflation higher, along with giving the economy a boost.
Trump, meanwhile, has been pushing for more cuts to rates and for them to happen soon. Two of his appointees to the Fed have said recently they could consider cutting rates as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in less than a month.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.26% from 4.29% late Friday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped modestly in Europe following a more mixed finish in Asia.
Stocks fell 0.9% in Hong Kong but rose 0.6% in Shanghai after China reported its factory activity improved slightly in June after Beijing and Washington agreed in May to postpone imposing higher tariffs on each others’ exports, though manufacturing remained in contraction.
Buc-ee’s opened its first Virginia location in Mount Crawford.
Fans arrived hours early, some in costume, for the 6 a.m. grand opening.
Two more Virginia locations are planned for New Kent and Stafford.
Some people seek out the biggest, baddest roller coasters. Some work overtime to afford front-row seats to Coldplay. Some spend their weekends ticking off visits to every winery in the state.
Then there are Buc-ee’s people.
“It’s like a cult,” says Crystal Limerick, a retired police captain from Augusta County’s Mount Sidney area. She got up at 3:30 a.m. to be among the first in line to enter the Mount Crawford Buc-ee’s, the first of the mega travel centers to open in Virginia, as it opened to the public for the first time at 6 a.m. Monday.
“I’ve heard so much about the brisket,” she says. “I love brisket. I thought, ‘What the heck, I’ll see what it’s about.’”
Mt. Crawford, VA. – Sherri and John Hill, of Ellicott City, Maryland, video themselves as they enter the Mount Crawford Buc-ee’s for its June 30, 2025, grand opening. (Photo by Norm Shafer)
Some people camped in their cars Sunday afternoon. Angela Ward and her parents, Darlene and Charlie Ward, who traveled from Livingston, Alabama, for the opening, opted to spend the night in a hotel in Harrisonburg. They arrived at the new 74,000-square-foot Buc-ee’s just before 3 a.m. to get a coveted spot at the front of the line Monday.
For their effort, they received a free Rockingham County Buc-ee’s T-shirt. The one they were tossed wasn’t the right size, but the roadway retailer let the Wards trade it for the right fit once they got inside the store.
“I love that I will always find good food, clean restrooms, and a safe place for a break when stopping at Buc-ee’s,” Angela Ward said. “The staff is wonderfully kind and welcoming, and there’s always unique and fun items to find.”
This was the 48th Buc-ee’s the Ward family has visited. Since the mega-travel chain with the friendly beaver mascot began opening stores outside its home state of Texas in 2019, it now operates 53 stores across Texas and the South.
Monday afternoon, the Wards are driving to Brunswick, Georgia, for the opening of another new Buc-ee’s in that city. Then they’ll head to Daytona Beach and St. Augustine in Florida to visit two more stores before heading home. “By Wednesday, our count will be up to 51 different locations,” Angela Ward said.
Located at Exit 240 off Interstate 81, the Mount Crawford Buc-ee’s offers 120 fueling positions and is creating about 200 local jobs, according to the company and state officials. It is the first of at least three stores planned for Virginia, including one in New Kent County, expected to open in 2027 at Exit 211 off Interstate 64, and another in Stafford County, near Exit 140 off Interstate 95 that is still moving through zoning approvals.
Mount Crawford, VA. – Jaralie Machado and Sebastian Madera, both from Roanoke, relax as they plan to spend the night in their cars waiting for Virginia’s first Buc-ee’s to open at 6 a.m. June 30, 2025. (Photo by Norm Shafer)
Multiple people in line at Mount Crawford Monday were dressed in Buc-ee’s Beaver Union Suits, even though it was already 68 degrees in Rockingham County at 5:30 a.m. Only one Buc-ee’s fan came dressed as a banana, though. Owen Freed of Waynesboro selected that costume because it allows him to move his arms, unlike his inflatable T. rex and chicken costumes.
Freed, who works for Applebee’s, grew to love Buc-ee’s while briefly living in Texas. He’s visited many other Buc-ee’s travel centers, but he said it feels special now to be able to visit one so close to home. “There’s never going to be a Buc-ee’s that’s more sentimental,” he said.
Freed brought along his girlfriend, Maria Leckey of Staunton. Her father doesn’t approve of Buc-ee’s.
“He thinks it’s the Death Star of gas stations,” Leckey says.
“It’s the Disneyland of gas stations,” Freed answered.
Like her dad, Leckey generally makes an effort to shop at locally owned stores, “but I also like to have a good time,” she says.
Lauren Olivola, of Pennsylvania, and Zach Nicely, from New York City, also got up early to experience the good Buc-ee’s vibes.
Mount Crawford, VA. – Buc-ee’s pitmaster Randy Pauly gets the crowd excited just before the grand opening of the first Virginia Buc-ee’s travel center on June 30, 2025. (Photo by Norm Shafer)
The pair were in Harrisonburg to attend the 57th International Horn Symposium, held June 24-28 at James Madison University, and hung around for a couple additional days to catch the Buc-ee’s opening. Instead of waiting in line, the pair entertained the crowd of Buc-ee’s fans in the pre-dawn darkness by playing tunes like Lowell E. Shaw’s “Bipperies for Two Horns” on their French horns. Despite the hour, the people in line applauded whenever the duo finished a number.
Both Olivola and Nicely have visited multiple Buc-ee’s. Today, Olivola hoped to be able to buy a 66-inch light-up Buc-ee’s inflatable of the mega-convenience store’s beloved mascot. “No one else in my neighborhood has one,” she said.
Buc-ee’s beaver mascot is a nod to the childhood nickname of Buc-ee’s owner and founder Arch “Beaver” Aplin III, who started the chain in Texas in 1982.
Before the Mount Crawford location opened Monday, Buc-ee’s had a cowboy-hat-wearing hype man to get the crowd pumped up — Randy Pauley is the travel center chain’s official pitmaster. “You’re almost there,” he said as he fist-bumped each person in line. “Thank you for being here. It means the world to us.”
Mount Crawford, VA – Titi Humed, of Harrisonburg, chops brisket for customers during the grand opening of the first Virginia Buc-ee’s store on Monday, June 30, 2025. (Photo by Norm Shafer)
There were lots of cheers when the doors opened promptly at 6 a.m. Inside, the store was pure mayhem. A line quickly formed for folks wanting to get a selfie with the Buc-ee’s mascot. Another line formed for brisket (available sliced for $26.99 per pound). Those who weren’t there for snacks could pick up a variety of souvenirs and tchotchkes, from a dancing Buc-ee’s beaver ($24.98) to a T-shirt with Garfield dressed up as the Statue of Liberty ($17.99) or a Buc-ee’s shot glass nestled in a miniature cowboy boot ($14.99).
Pauley was all smiles as he looked at the crowd. “It’s a true blessing,” he said.
By the 10 a.m. grand opening ceremony, there wasn’t a spot to be had in Buc-ee’s ample parking lot. State police officers directed traffic, while desperate fans parked at the McDonald’s across the highway and attempted to hoof it in order to score some 13-ounce Beaver Nuggets for $4.98.
Not be outdone by their new neighbors across the street, McDonald’s had workers dressed in Hamburglar and Grimace costumes waving to drivers. No one appeared to be waiting in line for a selfie with them, however.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin didn’t have to sleep in his car to be among the first visitors at Buc-ee’s — he spoke during a 10 a.m. ribbon-cutting event for the store, another nod to the outsized popularity and economic impact that Buc-ee’s is expected to make in the commonwealth.
Among the other officials who attended the ribbon cutting were Virginia Secretary of Transportation Shep Miller, Lt. Gov. (and 2025 GOP gubernatorial candidate) Winsome Earle-Sears and U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Harrisonburg, as well as several General Assembly members and local officials from Rockingham County.
Youngkin said he met Alpin three years ago in Texas and told him to bring Buc-ee’s to Virginia.
“Here in beautiful Rockingham County: There’s no place better to have the first Buc-ee’s. … Come and see what 74,000 square feet looks like,” Youngkin said. “By the way, it’s big. It’s really big.”
Alpin, wearing a cowboy hat, spoke after the governor on Wednesday, adding, “For us to make it to Virginia is a real milestone and an exciting thing.”
Tariffs under Trump renew reshoring talk but raise planning hurdles.
Virginia pharma cluster grows with companies like Phlow and Civica.
Chesterfield lands $1B Lego factory, but Southern rivals win more.
Labor shortages and high costs still challenge U.S. reshoring efforts.
Public perception, training and new tech seen as keys to revival.
“Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country,” the president promised in April as he announced a sweeping slate of global tariff hikes.
The real estate magnate isn’t the only one nostalgic for days when high school graduates got hired for factory jobs that paid well enough to support entire families. In a 2024 study commissioned by the Cato Institute, a nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based think tank, 80% of respondents believed the country would be better off if more Americans worked in manufacturing.
“There seems to be some emotion around wanting manufacturing jobs to come back,” says Doug Thomas, a business administration professor at the University of Virginia.
That may have something to do with the fact that some workers have struggled more in a post-globalization world than others, according to João-Pedro Ferreira, regional economist with the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
With fewer manufacturing jobs available, employees who previously would have worked in factories have instead taken jobs in retail or food service.
“These people are the ones that probably still remember that their parents used to work at a manufacturing factory, and they would be better paid,” says Ferreira.
Wistfulness alone may not be enough to turn the tide.
Manufacturing jobs continue to decline in the United States. After peaking in 1979 with 19.6 million Americans working in manufacturing, U.S. manufacturing jobs fell to 17.3 million by 2000. A quarter century later, about 12.8 million Americans are employed in manufacturing.
While it’s certainly true many companies moved factories overseas in recent decades to take advantage of cheaper overseas labor, offshoring alone isn’t to blame for America’s lost manufacturing jobs. Automation, Thomas stresses, took a heavier toll on labor.
“In real terms, manufacturing output, barring a COVID dip, has continued to rise in the United States,” he says. “It’s not like we’ve stopped manufacturing things. We’ve just done it with fewer people.”
Thomas also thinks it’s “extremely unlikely” that the United States will be able to bring back the number of manufacturing jobs it had in previous decades.
“That stuff has gone away, and it’s going to stay away unless things dramatically change,” agrees Brett Massimino, chair of the department of supply chain management and analytics at Virginia Commonwealth University.
That doesn’t mean policymakers and economic developers should throw in the towel, however. “You could slow the decline,” Thomas says.
No turning back
To talk reshoring, one must address the elephant in the room: Americans are used to paying relatively low prices for goods. And companies can afford to sell goods at lower prices when they pay less for labor.
“Even with things like tariffs that kind of artificially inflate the prices of offshore goods, with the U.S.’s labor rates, it’s going to be really, really tough for companies to bring manufacturing from offshore back to the U.S. and still maintain some level of profitability,” says Massimino.
For manufacturers able to dodge that roadblock, reshoring still isn’t as simple as signing a lease on a vacant facility and slapping a “Help Wanted” sign in the window.
“It takes a while to set it up,” explains Cheryl Druehl, a business professor at George Mason University. “There’s still a lot of effort that goes into making that all happen,”
For one thing, manufacturing operations moving to the United States from overseas must invest in and build machinery and tools to make their goods. Reshoring manufacturers also have to reevaluate their supply chain.
A shirt manufacturer with a factory in Vietnam, for example, likely buys from button or fabric suppliers that are also based in Asia. After reshoring to the United States, those relationships might need to reconsidered. “It is a whole orchestration of the entire supply chain that would have to be redone,” says Druehl.
At the end of the day, the biggest challenge for executives considering reshoring could be meeting workforce needs. In March, there were 449,000 manufacturing job openings in the United States.
“Labor shortages are already the biggest factor manufacturers point to as the key limit on their ability to do business,” says Renee Haltom, Richmond regional executive and vice president of research communications for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. “This is especially true in smaller rural communities where a lot of Virginia manufacturing takes place, and the labor pool just isn’t as deep.”
Part of this is training, but part of the workforce struggle may also be an image problem. Remember that Cato Institute poll? Only 25% of respondents said they’d personally be better off working in manufacturing than in their current jobs.
“People certainly think of manufacturing as heavy, dirty labor,” says Druehl.
Leaders at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville are working hard to change that misconception. Once a hotbed for textiles and furniture manufacturing, Danville and its Southern Virginia neighbors took a massive blow from globalization. When factories moved overseas, thousands across the region were left without work.
To help Southern Virginia fight its way back, the General Assembly created the IALR to serve as a catalyst for regional economic development. Among its missions: manufacturing advancement.
A small way IALR chips away at that goal is by giving a constant stream of tours of its manufacturing facilities. Visitors can try on virtual reality welding equipment, watch automated manufacturing equipment in action or observe students in the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing program, a training effort supported by the U.S. Department of Defense that prepares workers for jobs with defense contractors manufacturing parts and equipment for the U.S. military.
While checking out IALR’s manufacturing labs, visitors can see some of the latest technological advancements.
“These are not dark and dirty spaces,” says Telly Tucker, IALR’s president. “These are bright spaces with natural light, white epoxy floors, modern equipment … and that’s what the future of manufacturing looks like.”
Rick Gagliano, president and CEO of AccuTec, stands among coils of steel at the company’s Verona plant. The company produces about 800 million steel blades a year at its plants in Virginia and Mexico. Photo by Natalee Waters
Tariff talk
The bevy of tariffs Trump issued since beginning his second term in January could lead more manufacturers to develop factories in the United States, contends Brett Vassey, president and CEO of the Virginia Manufacturers Association.
“Tariffs are the one tool that the United States government, through the executive branch, has at their disposal to force conversations and negotiations around fair trade,” he says.
Robby Demeria, chief corporate affairs officer for Phlow, a Richmond-based company focused on strengthening domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing, also thinks the new tariffs could spur investment, but stresses the tactic should be used carefully. “There is a potential that if you are too aggressive, you could end up driving some manufacturers out of the market,” he says.
Talking to business leaders in recent weeks, Massimino has heard some companies are planning to move operations out of China because of tariffs issued by the Trump administration, but that also doesn’t mean they’re planning to reshore operations to the United States.
“They’re considering somewhere near China that has a significantly lower tariff rate than China,” he says. “So, they’re looking at Vietnam, they’re looking at Taiwan, they’re looking at India.”
Kuntal Bhattacharyya, director of the School of Supply Chain, Logistics and Maritime Operations at Old Dominion University, thinks tariffs could prompt nearshoring — with companies moving manufacturing closer to the United States.
“In Latin American nations, in a country like Mexico,” he says, “you still get a fraction of the labor costs that you have in the U.S., and yet they are close enough that you can get the product in hand within a legitimate time.”
A risk of the trade war, experts warn, is that it could wreck economic confidence.
Since returning to office, Trump has implemented tariffs and backtracked or paused repeatedly, which has led to some critics deploying the insult TACO (an abbreviation for “Trump always chickens out”).
“With all these changes from one week to the next,” says Massimino, “it just makes it really hard for businesses to plan what they want to do.”
AccuTec, a manufacturer of specialty, medical and professional blades in Augusta County, raised prices in response to Trump’s steel tariffs.
“One hundred percent of our material cost is steel, and if somebody increases the cost … we have no choice but to pass that on,” says Rick Gagliano, the company’s president and CEO.
Currently, AccuTec has about 200 employees in Virginia and another 200 in Mexico. Company leaders had discussed reshoring some of the jobs that are currently performed across the border, but that decision, like most of the company’s plans, have been put on ice amid political uncertainty, according to Gagliano.
“I don’t want to spend money reshoring different processes, and then the next administration does something different,” he says.
Factory pharma
When the pandemic hit, it gave America’s leaders a crystal-clear picture of what can happen when a crisis hinders the global supply chain for critical goods, like ventilators or protective medical gear.
“The pandemic showed that supply chains are fragile, and we don’t make anything here at home anymore,” says Scott Maier, CEO of Blue Star NBR, a medical glove manufacturing operation under development in Wytheville that stalled after an expected federal loan didn’t materialize.
In Richmond and Petersburg, a regional effort has been underway since 2020 to establish an advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing cluster that will address the national need for domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers to have a secure supply chain for medical ingredients. Nearly 80% of the manufacturing facilities that produce active pharmaceutical ingredients are located outside the United States, according to a March 2023 staff report from the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Dr. Eric Edwards, who co-founded pharma company Kaléo, which produces autoinjectors for allergies and drug overdoses, partnered in 2020 with Frank Gupton, chair of the department of chemical and life science engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, to launch Phlow, a Richmond-based company that develops and domestically manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients and finished pharmaceutical products.
“During COVID, we saw a pandemic that truly underscored vulnerabilities of relying on foreign sources for our nation’s most critical medicines,” Edwards said during a June panel discussion about efforts to grow the pharma hub in Richmond and Petersburg.
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded Phlow a four-year, $354 million contract to create a domestic supply chain for essential drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients in short supply. Since then, the contract has been renewed in one-year phases. Phlow’s major partners in the regional pharmaceutical manufacturing effort include Civica and Novo Nordisk.
Phlow is part of the Alliance for Building Better Medicine — a group representing public sector and private pharmaceutical manufacturers and research organizations working to grow the regional advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing cluster and domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing. The alliance was key in getting the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration to designate the Richmond-Petersburg metropolitan statistical area an Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Tech Hub in 2023.
Today, Phlow has nearly 100 employees.
With two manufacturing plants in Petersburg and an R&D lab in Richmond, the company develops and manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients for the federal government and the biopharma industry.
“It is not an overnight process or even a quick process when expanding our industrial base here in the U.S.,” Demeria says. “It takes a couple of years to get these facilities up and running.”
Phlow managed to do that during a time when the pandemic upended construction supply chains, making it difficult to source basic goods like lumber.
“The fact that we were able to build these facilities during [what was] probably a generational struggle,” Demeria marvels, “we’re extremely proud of what we’ve been able to do.”
Not toying around
In 2024, businesses manufactured $54.7 billion worth of goods in Virginia, with manufacturing accounting for 7.2% of the state’s gross domestic product, according to the National Association of Manufacturers.
Should the commonwealth make manufacturing a bigger slice of its economic pie?
“A significant part of the job growth we’re competing for as a state is going to come from manufacturing,” says Virginia Economic Development Partnership President and CEO Jason El Koubi. “Manufacturing is also important to … ensuring that each region of the commonwealth participates in the progress of the commonwealth overall.”
Many parts of the state are rural or small metros, notes El Koubi, and, for that reason, “manufacturing is going to be their single largest job growth opportunity.”
These areas typically aren’t regions that are home to large corporate headquarters or have big numbers of workers in business services. “These tend to be communities that are focused on industrial activity,” El Koubi says. “They make things. They move things.”
Virginia has a lot to offer manufacturers, economic developers say.
As far as infrastructure, the commonwealth has the usual highways, airports and railways — but it sweetens the deal by having a major East Coast port with deep water access for larger container ships. The commonwealth’s central East Coast location also is a geographic advantage, providing quick shipping access to major markets.
Virginia is the northernmost right-to-work state where workers can’t be compelled to join a union. In recent years, the commonwealth has also invested heavily in site and workforce development.
Those strengths have motivated several companies to pick Virginia as a site for new factories in recent years.
One of the state’s biggest wins came in 2022 when the Lego Group announced plans to bring a $1 billion manufacturing plant to Chesterfield County, creating more than 1,760 jobs.
Even if it hadn’t scored Lego, though, Chesterfield County would still be one of the state’s manufacturing hotspots, with 241 manufacturers located within its borders.
The county’s success partially stems from the fact that DuPont has operated its Spruance plant there since 1929, according to Garrett Hart, Chesterfield’s economic development director.
“We have a workforce that understands that manufacturing jobs are good jobs because their parents had them and their grandparents had them,” Hart says. Because of that, local leaders and the community as a whole support manufacturing, which has helped the county build a reputation.
“Everybody understands what it takes to take care of manufacturers and to be a good partner for them,” he says. “The word gets out.”
Despite Chesterfield’s good fortunes, Virginia has still been less successful at attracting manufacturers than some of its Southern neighbors. From January 2015 through September 2022, 121 industrial megaprojects were announced in the Southeast. And Virginia won just one: Lego.
States like North Carolina, Georgia and Florida have aggressively wooed these operations.
“They are competitive juggernauts when it comes to manufacturing,” Vassey says. “So, Virginia is going to have to work a lot harder in the future to get those projects.”
For one thing, according to Vassey, other Southern states have kept tight watches on their electricity prices and other business expenses. And Virginia’s corporate income tax rate is 6%, while it’s far less in states like North Carolina, which has a 2.25% rate.
“In a competitive environment, you can’t stand still, or you’re falling behind,” Vassey says.
Moving forward, Virginia and the nation will need to focus on building skilled labor and investing in technological improvements to make up for deficits like labor costs. Labor is often cheaper overseas than in the United States, and some parts of America offer lower costs of living than Virginia does, allowing companies to pay workers less. No getting around that.
“So now the question becomes, ‘How does a community or a state become competitive, or a nation even become competitive, when other countries, states, communities can offer lower wages?’” Tucker asks.
His answer: technology.
“If we can help companies stay more efficient, more effective, more profitable by using new and emerging technologies, then it reduces the likelihood that they will need to cut costs and just run to the next lower-cost labor market,” Tucker says.
Some law firms have settled after federal DEI inquiries; more scrutiny likely
HR professionals urged to review practices, partner with legal counsel
Experts recommend reframing DEI language and focusing on “belonging”
Adam Calli, owner of a Vienna-based human resources consulting firm, offers this advice to his fellow HR professionals: Keep on top of the goings-on in Washington, D.C.
“One of the things that a good HR person should be doing at all times — because it’s your freaking job, man — but especially given the current administration in the White House, is to stay aware,” says Calli, who founded Arc Human Capital in 2015.
When counseling clients about the president’s executive orders regarding employment discrimination, Mike Gardner, an attorney at Woods Rogers who focuses on labor and employment issues, talks about what the orders can and cannot do. They can’t, for instance, change the law. Photo courtesy Woods Rogers
For those who don’t religiously skim national headlines before getting out of bed in the mornings, here’s a primer: Following his inauguration, President Donald Trump unleashed a series of executive orders involving workplace discrimination. These EOs address subjects ranging from “defending women from gender ideology discrimination” to disparate impact, a term for when an action has a disproportionate negative effect on a protected class of people.
The overarching goal of these directives seems to be, as one executive order phrases it, to encourage meritocracy and a color-blind society.
Additionally, Trump appointed Andrea Lucas as acting chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against job candidates or employees because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information.
A graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, Lucas has spoken publicly about her view that policies and initiatives to increase racial and gender diversity at workplaces can lead to discriminatory employment practices. Since being named acting chair, Lucas has said keeping employees who were not born female out of women’s restrooms at the office is an agency priority.
So, that’s the broad strokes. The majority of HR managers, however, need to know more than that. They need to understand the ins and outs of workplace-related EOs and analyses coming out of the EEOC.
Staying abreast of those many changes can be overwhelming. Sheri Bender, director of diversity and inclusion for the HR Virginia Society for Human Resource Management State Council, has observed a collective anxiety among Virginia HR professionals related to the EOs on workplace discrimination when leading monthly diversity-related video chat sessions for employers and HR managers around the commonwealth.
“A lot of employers throughout the state are dealing with just the uncertainty,” says Bender, who owns Pulse HR Solutions, a Harrisonburg consulting firm.
Unlawful DEI
In 2020, thousands across America took to the streets to protest a police officer killing George Floyd, an unarmed Black man.
Conversations about racial equality spread to boardrooms, leading executives to set goals to increase the diversity of their leaders and staff members and generally embrace principles of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.
Backlash followed. Critics charge that DEI divides Americans and leads to discrimination against white, heterosexual men. Then-former-President Trump echoed those sentiments on the campaign trail, pledging to “eradicate any attempt to weaken America’s institutions through these harmful and discriminatory ‘equity’ programs.”
It was a promise kept. On his first day back in office, Trump issued an EO titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” Among other things, that order instructs federal officials to author a report “containing recommendations for enforcing federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”
Mike Gardner, a Roanoke employment attorney, advises the employers and executives he counsels to take a deep breath about that EO.
A principal at Woods Rogers, Gardner points out that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
“Unlawful DEI has been unlawful since Title VII was passed,” says Gardner. “Unlawful DEI was unlawful in 2019. It’s unlawful in 2025, and it’s going to be unlawful in 2030 because unlawful DEI involves making decisions in employment on the basis of race.”
When counseling clients, Gardner likes to point out what presidential executive orders can and cannot do.
“Title VII was passed by Congress, signed into law by [President Lyndon B. Johnson] and interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States over decades,” he says. “An executive order can’t change that, but it can focus enforcement priorities.”
Specifically, EOs can focus enforcement priorities by the EEOC. That’s been made plain in Gardner’s profession. In March, the EEOC sent letters to 20 major law firms requesting information about their DEI-related employment practices. An EEOC press release about that action emphasized “there is no ‘diversity’ exception” to Title VII protections.
By April, the EEOC announced four large law firms had entered into settlement agreements and curtailed DEI efforts.
From following the moves of the EEOC in recent months, Gardner’s impression is that “they are aggressively looking for claims … where traditional non-minorities — white males — are saying that they suffered some form of adverse employment action on the basis of their race or gender in the context of a company pursuing a more diverse workforce.”
Puzzle pieces
In addition to ensuring that companies base hiring decisions on merit, Lucas has announced plans to boost the EEOC’s scrutiny of other types of discrimination, which she considers to be underenforced. That includes protecting workers from religious bias and from discrimination for being born in America — by employers showing preferences for immigrant workers.
She seems particularly focused on ensuring women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work, an interest that’s supported by the Trump-issued EO 14168, which states that sex refers to “an individual’s immutable biological classification” and that the federal government recognizes two sexes — male and female.
The writing is on the bathroom wall as far as EEOC enforcement, says Calli: “They are very much going to say, ‘Men go here. Women go here. You were assigned a sex at birth.’”
Ultimately, the judicial branch might have to weigh in.
“An executive order can say that the federal government only recognizes two sexes … but the federal courts are still going to enforce and interpret Title VII, subject to … all the decisions that have come before,” Gardner says.
Employers and people managers looking to stay out of the courtroom, Gardner adds, could be well-served by looking out for workplace issues where the rights of different people conflict. The EEOC, he says, might be on the hunt for incidents where, say, employees refuse to use co-workers’ preferred pronouns because of their faith.
“You want to try and find a way to navigate it without becoming the proverbial test case,” he says.
While getting their heads around all the new federal orders about employment discrimination, HR professionals must also keep state laws in mind. In the commonwealth, there’s the Virginia Human Rights Act, which safeguards citizens from unlawful discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion and a whole host of other factors.
“So even though the EEOC is doing certain things or not doing certain things, they are only one piece of the puzzle,” Calli says.
While HR professionals need to get up to speed on new developments, Calli recommends they take a breath before revamping major policies or slashing programs. Lawsuits, he points out, could be filed, challenging the executive orders.
Jamica Love, a Roanoke-based DEI consultant who works with higher education and nonprofit clients, agreed that there will probably be more guidance on workplace discrimination coming out of Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks. At the same time, she has clients who are wary of waiting too long. They don’t want to be accused of not working to ensure compliance.
“It’s a catch-22,” she says. “It’s not an easy place for folks to be right now.”
Driving forward
SHRM offers several recommendations for HR professionals looking to follow the requirements of the EOs. One is: Don’t hesitate to collaborate with legal counsel as needed.
“HR isn’t on an island to themselves,” Love agrees.
SHRM also recommends that HR executives take time to review diversity and discrimination initiatives and policies “to ensure compliance with executive orders, focusing on merit-based practices and equal access to opportunities.”
It could be a good time, Calli suggests, for HR leaders to look at materials shown to potential employees and those used with current workers to ensure messaging reinforces that effort and ability lead to career success.
“The employers who are going to remain ahead are the ones who are going to have hiring practices that focus on skill,” adds HR Virginia’s Bender.
While the term “DEI” may be in the White House’s crosshairs, Bender says, that doesn’t mean HR leaders can take a break from ensuring employees from different walks of life feel welcomed.
There’s nothing in the EOs saying human resource leaders can’t foster supportive cultures at their companies, says Bender. They are not prohibited from working “toward creating positive workplace environments where it’s living, breathing and respecting people for the true value that they bring to the roles and to the organization,” she says.
This could be a good time, according to Love, for executives to take a step back and think objectively about programs offered by the organization that are designed to build a level playing field.
One question they can ask, Love says, is “How can we revamp this so that it still feels authentic to us, but yet it doesn’t put us in a position where we might become a focal point?”
A policy or initiative might feel less risky to organizations simply by changing its name. Maybe, Love says, the term “belonging” is perfectly apt to sum up what an organization hopes to achieve.
“Takes out the ‘D,’ takes out the ‘E,’ takes out the ‘I,’” she says. “It still has that sense of ‘OK, we’ve got to talk about where people fit into organizations and spaces.’”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin sets Virginia veto record with more than 400 over his term
158 bills vetoed in 2025 session, including cannabis sales and wage hikes
Growing AI and data center power demands spark energy policy fights
Tariffs and Trump budget cuts shape state spending priorities
2025 elections could shift balance on energy, business and DEI policy
Few observers of the Virginia General Assembly expected any groundbreaking legislation to emerge from this election year session, and for the most part, they were right.
And Gov. Glenn Youngkin certainly did his part to keep that from happening as well. In the last full year of his term, the Republican firmly cemented his record as the Virginia governor with the most vetoes during his term — more than 400 total. This session alone, he killed 158 bills and amended 159 others. He made 205 amendments and eight line-item vetoes to the state’s budget in 2025, although the Democratic-controlled legislature rejected most of those budget revisions.
Among the major headlines this session was Youngkin’s $900 million in spending cuts to maintain a cushion in case of financial repercussions related to President Donald Trump’s federal spending slashes and tariffs. Most of the expenditures cut from the biennial state budget were for one-time capital projects at universities, Youngkin said. Meanwhile, he approved a Democrat-backed plan to issue $1 billion in income tax rebates to eligible Virginians.
Bills Youngkin signed into law this year include the creation of a Virginia sports tourism grant program that will be administered by the Virginia Tourism Authority and a bill requiring Dominion Energy to petition the Virginia State Corporation Commission by Dec. 1 for approval of a pilot program to test “virtual power plants,” a voluntary network of small-scale energy resources like residential solar panels that could supply energy during times of peak demand.
Many of the governor’s vetoes were expected, with Democrat-backed measures like recreational marijuana sales, minimum wage increases and gun control measures dying at the Republican governor’s desk. Less predictably, though, Youngkin vetoed a measure to create a regulatory framework for blockchain-based businesses and instead advocated for a state study of the issue.
He also vetoed a bill that would have let local governments considering data center proposals require developers to conduct site assessments that take into account water sources, parks, historic sites and forest land. He also cut $2.7 million in funding to market Virginia to business developers, saying it isn’t the time to increase discretionary spending.
Explaining his data center veto, Youngkin wrote that the bill “limits local discretion and creates unnecessary red tape. While well-intentioned, the legislation imposes a one-size-fits-all approach on communities that are best positioned to make their own decisions.”
And with a quiet fizzle, so died the final piece of surviving data center legislation in this year’s short GA session, even though data center growth and its impacts are hot topics in localities across the state, no longer just in Northern Virginia. Many proposed data centers face intense public opposition, although county and city governments are often open to courting the projects because they bring in much-needed tax revenue. Some state legislators, meanwhile, have been pushing for more statewide regulations around data centers.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed more than 400 bills during his gubernatorial term, setting a new state record. Photo by AP Photo/Steve Helber
Power gridlock
“Data centers have become the whipping boy for a lot of people, as if every single one of us with our cell phones and our cars and everything else aren’t benefiting from those data centers,” says Greg Habeeb, chair of Gentry Locke’s Government and Regulatory Affairs Practice Group and president of Gentry Locke Consulting. A former Republican state delegate, Habeeb is involved in lobbying for renewable energy interests.
A nationwide discussion about data centers and their potential harms developed after the pandemic shutdown increased reliance on residential broadband access. With the 2022 introduction of ChatGPT opening the floodgates to widespread artificial intelligence use, which consumes massive amounts of energy from data centers, communities in Northern Virginia — already home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers — began to push back against building more.
Although some controversial projects have received approval, including the massive Prince William Digital Gateway, local officials have begun to enact limits on future data center projects, even in Loudoun County’s “Data Center Alley” in Ashburn, which has more than 30 million square feet of data centers in operation.
Data centers provided nearly $900 million in local tax revenue for Loudoun last year, covering nearly the entire operating budget for the county. Nonetheless, in March county supervisors approved new restrictions on building data centers on land close to residential neighborhoods.
“The question really is, ‘Where do those data centers go?’” Habeeb says. “Where are they best suited? What should the tax policy [and] energy policy be around them? I think that will be a massive conversation next session. It’s really become an energy conversation. We’ve got new projections on load growth, and it’s just a reality: We are going to hit a crisis point if demand, if load growth continues at the projected rates.”
PJM, the regional power grid operator serving 65 million customers in 13 states, including Virginia, anticipates “significant growth” in demand for electricity in the next 20 years, according to its 20-year forecast report released in January. It anticipates summer peak demand to increase by 70,000 megawatts to 220,000 megawatts by 2039. Currently, PJM generates about 183,000 megawatts, the study says.
That means if energy use continues to climb, “and we don’t have significant new generation” of electrical power, “that crisis may be in the form of higher electric rates,” Habeeb says. “It might be in the form of blackouts. It might be in the form of a bunch of new generation [facilities] that people don’t want to look at. But the status quo is not going to exist. You can’t keep load growth going the way it is without energy policy being affected substantially.”
Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, says that candidates running for seats this year in the House of Delegates are hearing from voters about the issue of data centers, AI and energy generation.
“Candidates will go to the voters, and the voters have to weigh in … and then we’ll see after the dust settles in November,” Farnsworth says. “I don’t know that you can really see a clear plan on the data center question, right? Different localities are going to feel very differently. In Northern Virginia, there’s enough economic activity that there may not be a lot of pressure to expand data centers, but in other parts of the state, the economy is much more stagnant. There’s going to be a great deal of interest in figuring out a way to bring about economic activity.”
Another energy bill that would have given the state more power over localities in approving solar projects died in session. Solar farms and rural land use is a hot-button issue in parts of Virginia, and many localities have placed caps on utility-grade solar that effectively block many new solar projects.
Meanwhile in Richmond, Democratic lawmakers are concerned that this trend will keep the state from achieving its goal of producing two-thirds of all electricity from solar or wind by 2035, as mandated by the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act. They aimed to gain some power over the process via the failed bill.
Supervisors in rural counties and environmental activists banded together to oppose the bill, saying it would undermine localities’ voices in determining land use. Republican legislators, especially those in rural districts, also lined up against the measure.
Despite the controversy, the issue is bound to return in 2026, says Chris Saxman, executive director of Virginia FREE, a nonprofit that provides nonpartisan political information to the state’s business community. A Republican former state delegate, Saxman says interest groups are “looking into if we operate under the notion of local control and local decision-making authority. That’s something that’s still sort of a bedrock principle of Virginia.”
Saxman adds that the VCEA, which was passed before the pandemic and the advent of generative AI, “was written without the knowledge of how expansive data centers were going to be and how much energy they were going to require. And because that changed, it defies sanity that they wouldn’t go back and redo the math on VCEA. But in a political context, you can’t ‘because it’s weakening the laws.’ No, it’s just updating to reality. No one wants to do that in this country anymore.”
Up in the air
Habeeb, Saxman and Farnsworth agree that most questions about 2026 legislation will come down to this fall’s elections, which will determine political control of the House of Delegates and who will be the next governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
As of June, polling placed former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee, ahead of GOP candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, but Habeeb cautions that it’s still early days and that at this point in the 2021 gubernatorial campaign, “very few [people] had heard of Glenn Youngkin.”
If Democrats maintain control of the House and Spanberger wins, expect to see many of the bills vetoed by Youngkin to return in 2026, Farnsworth says, along with others that died in the legislature. And if Earle-Sears prevails, expect to see a continuation of many of Youngkin’s priorities, although she would still face opposition from the Democratic-controlled state Senate, Habeeb says.
Regulation of retail sales of cannabis, changes to Virginia’s right-to-work laws and a minimum wage bump to $15 an hour are all Democratic priorities that would likely come up if the party sweeps this fall’s elections.
A Fairfax County casino bill that failed in 2024 and 2025 may make a return to the legislature as well, even with major local opposition to a casino. Previous bills have received some bipartisan support because the legislation gives Fairfax residents the opportunity to vote on a referendum and settle the issue for themselves. Sen. David Marsden, the 2024 bill’s chief patron, said on a radio show in May that he thinks a casino bill could pass the legislature in 2026.
In a few cases, the outcome of the lieutenant governor race could be significant, as the Virginia State Senate is narrowly controlled by Democrats with a 21-19 majority, and the LG’s tiebreaker vote occasionally determines a bill’s fate.
In a bit of political theater this session, Democrats forced Earle-Sears to take a tiebreaking vote on a bill guaranteeing a woman’s right to access contraceptives, and the lieutenant governor voted to kill the measure — a decision Virginia Democrats have brought up multiple times this campaign season to highlight her conservative social views.
Partisan games are par for the course, Saxman says, and as a result, the commonwealth suffers, he thinks. “Things have gotten so hyperpartisan politically over the years that the nuts and bolts … of business, what attracts investment, what maintains investment … is not second nature anymore,” he says. “We’re not attracting businesspeople to the legislature. People are graduating from college and going into politics and working on campaigns and have no working knowledge of the economy or business.”
In the end, he says, there is a “fundamental lack” of knowledge among state legislators needed to pass effective bills, especially from a business standpoint.
“There are bills that are put in that are just stupid and political in nature and are harmful to business,” Saxman adds, “and they’re very difficult to combat once you get into that partisan lane.”
ODU aims for every student to complete at least one internship by 2027
Internships office launched in 2023 to streamline work-based learning
Partnerships with 700+ employers build career pipelines in key sectors
Students benefit from paid placements and career-aligned experiences
As a creative writing major at Old Dominion University, Kayla Boney says she knows jobs in her field after graduation may be “one in a million.”
An internship with Teens with a Purpose, a Norfolk-based youth creative arts nonprofit, showed Boney, a 20-year-old rising junior, that her pursuits in the humanities, while challenging, can result in meaningful — and paid — work.
Boney, a Norfolk native and an aspiring screenwriter, volunteered with the organization while attending high school. But it was through an on-campus encounter with representatives from ODU’s Monarch Humanities Internship Academy, part of the university’s Monarch Internships and Co-Op Office founded in 2023, that she learned she could be paid and also earn academic credits to intern there.
President Brian Hemphill, who has led ODU since 2021, says the idea to launch an office solely dedicated to connecting students to internships or other work-based learning opportunities came from conversations with business leaders in the community during his first year on the job.
“I would come back to campus and have that realization … [that] we don’t have the infrastructure right now as it stands,” he says. “We didn’t have the infrastructure to spin up quickly and address some of those concerns and needs that they have, and that’s why we launched this particular operation and made the investment.”
Boney spent two semesters interning with Teens with a Purpose, helping with school-based workshops and using her creative writing skills to help write and edit the organization’s annual anthology.
She also helped prepare local teens with their submissions to the Hampton Roads Youth Poet Laureate program, which the nonprofit helps run. In return, Boney says she felt the positive impacts the program makes in her community and also learned that writing and editing can be in-demand skills.
“There’s not one place, one big place, that doesn’t have some type of editor or writer,” says Boney, who is again working with the organization this summer. “Always writing and editing and helping young people kind of make their pieces better, it has taught me a lot of fundamental skills I never would have thought I would have learned anywhere else, and it just made it more fun.”
Boney is one of about 2,500 students that ODU has tracked through its Monarch Internships and Co-op Office. Launched in 2023, the office is building on an ODU goal to have each of its approximate 24,000 students, including more than 17,000 undergraduates, complete one internship, work-based learning program or co-op experience by 2027.
A rendering of ODU’s future biological sciences building, set to be completed by 2028 Rendering and photo courtesy Old Dominion University
Nearly 70% of graduating seniors in 2024 reported having an internship, up from 61% the year prior, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Of those interns, 59% reported being paid for their work. Those who are compensated fare better than those who are unpaid. According to NACE, paid interns received a starting salary of more than $68,000, up from a little more than $53,000 for those that were unpaid.
Further, one out of every two interns in the 2022-23 academic year accepted full-time employment from their placement, according to NACE.
“Employers, students, faculty, they realize that when you host an intern during their degree program, then you’ve got first shot at great talent,” says Barbara Blake, who has led ODU’s internships office since its inception.
Duty and responsibility
Hemphill says ODU’s internships office is the first of its kind in the state, and the university has convened two meetings with business and industry leaders and faculty stakeholders, including one that drew Gov. Glenn Youngkin as a speaker, as it looks to address gaps in industries including health care, engineering, data sciences and more.
“There’s so many different gaps that we have that we want to look at how we are helping to meet that need and fill that void,” Hemphill says. “We have a duty. We have a responsibility to look at how we are working with our partners in business and industry to help them be successful, and they cannot do that without a strong workforce and we have a duty to help them address those challenges.”
To address regional employer needs and keep ODU moving forward in the digital age, the university launched the School of Data Science and the School of Supply Chain, Logistics and Maritime Operations in 2023. The university has also added certificates centered around the growing field of artificial intelligence, including in cyber defense, supply chain and logistics, and health care. It’s also seeking to expand research across the institution, including in AI, health care, maritime, cybersecurity, data science and coastal resiliency, each of which are ODU strongholds. The university recently provided $500,000 in seed funding for seven AI-related research projects, Hemphill adds.
“A lot of our focus has been around applied research, because we know applied research can truly impact our region and the nation and so we’re excited about the opportunity that we have in that space,” he says.
ODU received R1 research designation for the first time in 2022, placing it among the nation’s elite research universities, and reaffirmed that classification this year.
The university, which has an operating budget of about $980 million, spends about $100 million on research annually, Hemphill says. And like every other university, it is watching closely the impact of the Trump administration‘s cuts to federal research grants, including those previously approved.
Old Dominion has seen about $10.7 million in lost federal funding, including $6.5 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was targeted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. “We have to be intentional about making sure that we’re positioning ourselves to move forward and continue to focus in on the areas that we have the ability to grow our research,” Hemphill says.
Meanwhile, the president has been busy integrating the formerly independent Eastern Virginia Medical School under the university’s new Macon and Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences umbrella.
Following the 2024 merger, the Brock hub includes five schools and colleges, comprising more than 50 academic majors, to form the largest health sciences program in the state. It also includes ODU’s partnership with Norfolk State University to form the Joint School of Public Health, which Hemphill says will better position the region to address health disparities among residents.
“We’re comfortable being the largest health sciences operation in the commonwealth, but we aren’t going to just stand there in that comfort. We’re going to look at how we grow to meet some of the nursing shortages and look at some of the physician assistants’ shortages and so on that we have,” he says. “That was a key area of focus for us.”
In April, ODU broke ground on a $184 million biological sciences building, which includes labs, a 120-seat lecture hall, an orchid conservatory, classrooms and other facilities and represents the university’s largest capital construction project to date. It’s expected to be completed in spring 2028.
Also this summer, ODU is launching a $30 million, three-year initiative to upgrade about 180 classrooms with new technologies, including augmented and virtual reality, to bring immersive learning opportunities to campus. Hemphill sees digital transformation, not only for students learning in person but for the university’s approximate 8,000 online learners, as necessary for ODU and its students’ success. Currently, students can’t register for classes and see advisers via their cell phones, he adds.
“When you think about this new digital age and the impact that AI is having on the world,” Hemphill says, “we have a duty and a responsibility to position students to be successful, and we’re doing that.”
Positioned for success
Since launching the internships office, Blake has led a team of faculty to build a central database through which ODU will track internships and other work-based learning opportunities. This means moving from a siloed system for students in certain majors to centralized tracking. Blake says she expects that infrastructure to roll out in time for the fall 2025 semester.
While the goal of the office is to help students land an internship or experience that can lead to valuable full-time employment after graduation, it is also emerging as an important economic development tool for Hampton Roads, a region that is already working hard to attract and retain top talent. Blake says her office has worked with at least 700 businesses — from Fortune 500 corporations to mom-and-pop operations — to build a “one-stop shop” to link interns with employers, including helping some employers that don’t have money to pay an intern to find grants to do so.
In the old days, interns often worked for free, and that served as a gatekeeper for less affluent students who needed summer and after-school jobs to make ends meet. To help students get experience in their fields, no matter their financial background, ODU and many other universities have applied for and won funding to subsidize paid internships with participating workplaces.
In 2024, The Mellon Foundation announced a $5 million grant for ODU to develop the Monarch Humanities Internship Academy, which will place 750 humanities students in internships over five years, including providing stipends for interns.
The office also has also partnered with the Hampton Roads Workforce Council, which in 2024 received a $6 million U.S. Department of Labor grant to develop an apprenticeship hub. ODU, which has received about $500,000 of that money, is focusing on building an apprenticeship pipeline around maritime logistics and supply chain, cybersecurity and in K-12 education, Blake says. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia also awarded ODU a two-year $100,000 grant to pilot the Federal Work-Study Internship Program, which started last fall.
Paid internships in Hampton Roads range from about $14 to $24 an hour, with some interns with engineering backgrounds making up to $28 an hour, Blake says, and some employers may have simultaneous needs, including for interns with engineering, accounting and technical writing backgrounds.
“How do I have those needs met?” Blake asks. “They can come to us. We write up the prospectus. We draw in the faculty. We work on the student placement end, and that has been the most exciting work, because the employers absolutely love it.”
Building on that success, ODU has partnered with Boyd Gaming, which is building Norfolk’s casino resort, as well as freight forwarding company CV International, the Hermitage Museums and Gardens, Chesapeake Care Clinic, the Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce and other workplaces. At one defense sector employer that Blake declines to name, ODU provided 47 student workers in 2024, far outpacing the five students it originally agreed to.
In addition to helping students gain experience, this helps employers, says Shawn Avery, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Workforce Council. From the maritime, cyber, IT, health care and hospitality industries, local businesses have been “clamoring” for talent, he says, and that includes interns. That also helps keep talented young professionals in Hampton Roads, he notes.
“If an individual has a job before they graduate, they’re more than likely to remain in the region, and a lot of people do transition from internships directly into the job,” Avery says. “This partnership with ODU has really been game-changing.”
ODU at a glance
Founded
Old Dominion University was founded in 1930 as a two-year college to train teachers and engineers as an extension of William & Mary and Virginia Tech. It gained independence in 1962 as Old Dominion College and began offering master’s degrees in 1964 and doctoral degrees in 1971. It was renamed Old Dominion University in 1969.
Campus
ODU has seven academic colleges, plus Eastern Virginia Medical School, the Joint School of Public Health and three schools focused on cybersecurity, data science and logistics. Its 337-acre Norfolk campus is bordered on two sides by the Elizabeth and Lafayette rivers. The school also operates regional higher education centers in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth and Hampton. ODU is designated an R1 Research Institution.
Amid all the recent protests, debates and debacles regarding illegal immigration and the second Trump administration‘s heavy-handed response to it, one truth seems to be getting lost: America is reliant on undocumented workers.
In its October 2024 study, “Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy,” the left-leaning American Immigration Council found that undocumented laborers made up 4.6% of the country’s labor force in 2022, exceeding the nation’s roughly 4% unemployment rate.
That same year, households with undocumented workers paid $46.8 billion and $29.3 billion in federal and state taxes, respectively.
The study further noted that “U.S.-born workers could not fill all the jobs of undocumented workers even if they tried to. The country is heavily reliant on an undocumented workforce in industries like construction, agriculture, and hospitality.”
Some 1.5 million U.S. construction workers, or about 13.7%, are undocumented laborers, according to the study. Similarly, nearly 13% of agricultural workers and more than 7% of the nation’s hospitality workers are also undocumented.
Most of us have probably heard accounts of undocumented laborers working in meat plants and fruit orchards, or as construction workers or janitorial staffers, sometimes hired through third-party services.
And that doesn’t even take into account immigrants who have been legally filling workforce gaps through visa programs for migrant farm workers and seasonal nonagricultural workers at places like golf courses, hotels and amusement parks.
But it’s not just the business community that’s got a jones for foreign labor. Go into any suburban neighborhood and you’re likely to find Hispanic people doing landscaping, housecleaning and day labor projects. It’s pretty much a given that no one is inquiring about their immigration status.
And this is hardly a new situation.
Going back to 1993, there have been at least five Cabinet secretary nominees who withdrew their names from consideration after it was revealed they paid undocumented people for domestic work. These range from the “nannygate” scandal that torpedoed two of President Bill Clinton’s attorney general nominees to incidents involving two of President George W. Bush’s nominees for the secretaries of labor and homeland security to President Donald Trump’s first labor secretary nominee in 2017.
My point isn’t to shame anyone who already paid a price for a mistake or to slam hardworking people who likely fled gang violence, political persecution and extreme poverty, risking dangerous border crossings to pursue the dream of a better life.
I’m simply saying there’s a reason this keeps happening.
And now’s the time to say the quiet part out loud: These undocumented immigrants are largely performing hard jobs that American citizens aren’t as interested in doing, and we as Americans don’t want to pay higher prices for those services.
This time around, the second Trump administration has led its messaging around deportations by emphasizing arrests of the worst of the worst — gang members, murderers and human smugglers.
But the fact is, immigration officers have targeted people across the spectrum of the undocumented people in the U.S., a group totaling more than 13.7 million, or about 4% of the nation’s total population. And that’s led to stories of armed and masked ICE agents snatching people off city streets and from courthouses, sparking uproars like the one in a Missouri small town over the April arrest of a popular local waitress and mom of three who came there 20 years ago from Hong Kong and had been living here through temporary status renewals. She was later released.
In mid-June, after Trump called in the Marines to help quell anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles and more than 5 million protesters gathered for nationwide “No Kings” protests, federal officials announced ICE would pull back from worksite raids on hotels, restaurants and agricultural operations. That move was apparently sought by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on behalf of farmers and hospitality businesses facing labor shortages.
But following backlash from MAGA purists, and after ordering ICE to step up enforcement in Democratic-run cities like New York and Chicago, Trump swiftly reversed the policy.
That’s his prerogative as chief executive, but we need to acknowledge that the nation’s dependence on undocumented labor isn’t fake news.
$12.4M in water/sewer upgrades planned as part of capital project.
Site aims to attract industries beyond data centers.
Microsoft operates or builds 11 data centers in the county
South Hill and Mecklenburg County officials want to ensure the region’s economic future doesn’t hinge entirely on data centers.
This spring, county supervisors and town council members agreed to form the Route 58 Activation Corridor Regional Industrial Facility Authority.
Regional authorities allow local governments to share costs and revenue from industrial commerce sites. Mecklenburg County already partners with Greensville County and Emporia on the Mid-Atlantic Advanced Manufacturing Center and with Brunswick County on the Roanoke River Regional Business Park.
The goal of launching the Route 58 Activation Corridor RIFA is to develop a new industrial park on the edge of South Hill, the largest of six towns located in Mecklenburg.
The facility will sit on 67 acres purchased April 1 by the Mecklenburg County Industrial Development Authority for $1,000 per acre, according to Angie Kellett, the county’s director of economic development.
It will take at least a couple of years before the park is ready for tenants, says Kellett. A five-year capital project plan adopted in April as part of South Hill’s budget process includes $12.4 million for extending water and sewer lines to the new industrial park, according to Town Manager Keli Reekes. The utilities will also serve redevelopment around the former Park View High School, which closed in 2022.
The town and county will share the utilities’ cost, though grants are expected to cover some of the expense, Reekes says.
After the state approves the RIFA’s creation, leaders of the member localities will have decisions to make, including whether to build a shell building on the site and how to market the new industrial park.
County and town officials hope the new industrial park will attract opportunities beyond data centers, which currently dominate the region’s business landscape, Reekes and Kellett say.
As of last fall, Mecklenburg County had a dozen data center sites either operating or under construction — including 11 owned by Microsoft, according to reporting by The Mecklenburg Sun.
Microsoft is Mecklenburg County’s second largest employer, according to a state community profile updated in 2025.
“Microsoft — we’re very glad to have them here,” Reekes stresses.
That said, the region’s leaders want to attract new industries to the industrial park. “We are looking to diversify,” she says.
Three Dog Night ushered in a new era for The Dome in Virginia Beach in May, belting hits like “Joy to the World” to excited fans and driving the summer entertainment season on the Oceanfront.
Next on tap is the launch of the Wavegarden surf lagoon, which is expected to open this summer, according to city officials. Both The Dome and Wavegarden are major pieces of the $350 million Atlantic Park, the long-awaited entertainment complex led by Virginia Beach-raised music and fashion superstar Pharrell Williams and Virginia Beach’s Venture Realty Group, his frequent development collaborator.
The two new venues are also bright spots for the resort city even as tariffs buffet other key economic engines in Virginia Beach.
“The beach is busy,” says Amanda Jarratt, the deputy city manager who was tapped as interim economic development director after Christian Green resigned in June due to family issues. “We started our busy season much earlier this year than in previous years.”
In February and March, more than 10,000 athletes hit town on back-to-back weekends for three NCAA Division I conferences’ track championships at the Virginia Beach Sports Center. That venue and others are making Virginia Beach more of a year-round destination than before, Jarratt notes.
Also, responding to the cancellation of Something in the Water’s late April music festival, the city quickly staged Vibe Check, a replacement festival that drew a crowd of 1,000 to see rapper Waka Flocka Flame, and the third annual Jackalope Festival followed up with a strong showing in late May.
The extreme sports showcase will return to the beach for the next three years, planners say.
Jarratt says she expects the city to attract about 14 million visitors this summer, the same as last year.
The deep blue sea
The forthcoming Wavegarden lagoon has drawn headlines since it first was mentioned in 2018 as a project spearheaded by Pharrell Williams and using Spanish wave-making technology that then had not been used in the United States, although a California surf park has since opened. As of mid-June, developers said the surf lagoon has been filled with water, and it is expected to open mid-summer, although they would not give a specific opening date.
Plans to open Virginia Beach’s Wavegarden were delayed due to financing obstacles and a delay in construction in 2023 caused by elevated levels of arsenic and iron, an issue that has since been fixed. Known as Atlantic Park, the $350 million project sits on the 10-acre site that formerly housed an earlier version of The Dome, between 18th and 20th streets.
The public-private partnership is supported by $125 million in city funding for two parking decks and infrastructure improvements, and the city owns the venue. Ultimately, Atlantic Park is expected to include 100,000 square feet of restaurants and retail, 10,000 square feet of office space, 20 surf bungalows and 300 apartments on its 11 acres.
Meanwhile, two outdoor cafes — Mi Vida and The Grill — have opened, and Jarratt says there are talks ongoing with an ice cream shop and a men’s retailer to come in.
“The retail and restaurants will come online throughout the summer into the early fall, and then we anticipate the multifamily units being available in the fall of this year,” Jarratt says. “This is Virginia Beach’s largest public-private partnership in history. Because it’s opening in phases, we won’t see the full economic impact until after 2026.”
In 1994, the old Dome was torn down after Three Dog Night performed the final show at the geodesic concert hall in 1993.
The new Dome, which employs 209 people, has a capacity of about 3,500 attendees, similar to Chrysler Hall, and room for another 1,500 people when the doors are open to an outside viewing area. Live Nation is in charge of scheduling events and promised to stage 100 shows this year at The Dome, and Jarratt says the city is anticipating closer to 200 events next year.
Vincent Magnini, a professor of management at Longwood University, is contracted to perform an economic analysis after the 2025 season to ensure The Dome is on track, she says.
“We’re really excited about not only The Dome, but the entire project,” Jarratt adds. “It’s truly going to be transformational for the Oceanfront.”
Beyond the beach
While the city’s biggest attraction is the beach, Jarratt says sports tourism offers a new focus and opportunity. “We’re really working to be a 12-month destination.”
Central to that is the Virginia Beach Sports Center, a $68 million project opened in October 2020 near the Virginia Beach Convention Center. The 285,000-square-foot indoor facility is one of the largest of its type on the East Coast, with 12 basketball courts that can be converted into 24 volleyball courts and a 200-meter hydraulically banked indoor track, all with enough seats for more than 5,000 spectators.
After a 2023 audit revealed the original operator of the venue, Eastern Sports Management, was millions of dollars in debt and had failed to pay promoters, the city purchased ESM’s contract and installed Sports Facilities Cos., a Florida firm that manages similar venues in other tourist destinations.
Volleyball tournaments, softball tournaments, cheerleading competitions, dance competitions and wrestling tournaments have filled the center in recent years.
“Focusing on events like that really does weatherproof our weekends,” Jarratt says, adding that the city was also looking not only at recruiting tournaments, but providing other activities for athletes’ family members with downtime.
Focusing on drawing more domestic visitors is even more important today since Virginia Beach traditionally draws a significant tourism dollar from Canadian visitors. With President Donald Trump’s provocations against the nation’s neighbor to the north, including threatening tariffs and proposing making Canada the “51st state,” some Canadians are declining to visit the U.S. as tourists.
In 2023, Canadians spent $38 million in Virginia Beach, according to a city study. As stated in a May New York Times story, the number of Canadian travelers to the U.S. by plane dropped 19.9% in April, and car travelers declined by 35.2% compared with April 2024.
“We’ve seen a slight decline in our Canadian booking,” says John Zirkle, president of the Virginia Beach Hotel Association and corporate director of operations for Harmony Hospitality. “We’re a drive-to destination for a lot of the people in Canada, so we’re hoping that they don’t take politics out on us. We’re just here to provide a great experience.”
So far, the city’s labor force has not suffered from federal policy, though, Jarratt and Zirkle say. Most foreign students who work at the Oceanfront in the summer already had obtained their J-1 visas before Trump took office. As of May, there were no major labor shortages in Virginia Beach’s hospitality industry.
As for tourists from Virginia, federal worker layoffs and cutbacks affecting government contractors may put a crimp in visitor numbers, Zirkle says, but upscale, branded properties are performing better than lower-end hotels.
“We’ve got something for everyone,” Zirkle says. “But not everyone can afford to go all the time.”
The city’s leadership troubles have continued, though, with economic development director Christian Green’s resignation after less than four months on the job in June due to “pressing family matters,” according to the city. He joined Virginia Beach in February, succeeding Chuck Rigney, who resigned abruptly last July following scrutiny of his travel expenses. Jarratt, who was interim director after Rigney’s departure, is back in the role a second time.
The energy sector
Tariffs are a challenge for Dominion Energy‘s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, potentially increasing the cost of the $10.7 billion project by $500 million if levies remain in effect through 2026, according to Bob Blue, the Fortune 500 utility’s chair, president and CEO, speaking during a May earnings call. He said that as of early May, Dominion had incurred about $4 million in tariff costs, and that would likely grow to about $120 million if tariffs extend through the end of the second quarter.
Residential customers, however, would see a relatively small increase of about four cents on their monthly bills, Blue anticipates. “It’s difficult to fully assess the impact tariffs may [add to] the project’s final cost. … Let me be clear, CVOW remains one of the most affordable sources of energy for our customers.”
Costs aside, CVOW is moving along on schedule and is set to be complete in late 2026, says Dominion spokesman Jeremy Slayton. As of May, 96 of the 176 monopile foundations had been installed, and construction of the 2.6-gigawatt wind farm was 55% complete.
Wind energy projects, especially offshore, have hit headwinds under Trump, who is opposed to efforts to shift electricity production to renewable methods. But as Dominion said earlier this year, it received all of its federal permits for CVOW before Trump took office.
Closer to shore, Globalinx completed construction this spring on four marine bore pipes that extend into the Atlantic Ocean from a Sandbridge parking lot, part of a project to increase the number of subsea fiber cables entering the state.
With tech experts predicting higher demand for data centers due in part to the AI boom and related internet use, these cables will bring more data flow to Virginia.
Currently, three ultra-high-speed transatlantic cables connect Virginia Beach to Brazil, France and Spain and come to Virginia Beach’s Corporate Landing Business Park. The addition of other subsea cables is expected to increase subsea data flow into the state by more than 400%, says Greg Twitt, founder and president of Globalinx.
“We need to be ahead of the AI race and subsea cables are creating the capacity. We need to put that infrastructure in now,” Twitt says. He notes that 97% of internet traffic moves through oceanic cables, and 70% of the world’s traffic moves through Loudoun County’s data centers.
Meanwhile, other data centers across the state have been approved and are under construction. Proposed data center campuses also face opposition, including in nearby Chesapeake, where hundreds of residents spoke against a planned data center in Great Bridge. Some Sandbridge residents voiced opposition against Globalinx’s project as well, but Twitt says there aren’t many options for alternate subsea landing locations.
“The only place to date that’s been good for subsea cables to come into Virginia is Virginia Beach,” he says. “So, it’s a great Hampton Roads initiative, but it really is a Virginia initiative more than anything, and the need to have that traffic go all the way up to Ashburn is incredibly important.”
Subsea cables also will deliver ultrafast internet access to Hampton Roads, a capacity attractive to businesses, Twitt notes. Two of the incoming conduits already have committed tenants, but Twitt says he is not ready to disclose them. The cables will also attract more terrestrial telecom carriers, increasing competition in the area, a benefit to local consumers, he adds.
But the biggest benefit is building for the future, creating reliability and resilience to attract tech companies that see opportunities where cables land, Twitt notes. “What we’re doing is building infrastructure for the big guys.”
Virginia Beach at a glance
The annual Neptune Festival takes place at the end of the summer on the Oceanfront. Photo by Joey Wharton, courtesy Virginia Tourism Corp.
Virginia’s most populous city and the 43rd largest in the United States, Virginia Beach encompasses 310 square miles, with 38 miles of beaches along the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay. A major East Coast tourism destination, Virginia Beach features a vibrant resort area on its Oceanfront. Along with tourism, major industries include defense, bio and life sciences, advanced manufacturing, maritime and logistics, IT and offshore wind energy. It’s also home to Naval Air Station Oceana, the East Coast base for the Navy’s strike fighter jet squadrons. Regent University and Virginia Wesleyan University are based in Virginia Beach, along with campuses for Tidewater Community College, Old Dominion University and Norfolk State University.
Population
455,000
Top employers
Naval Air Station
Oceana-Dam Neck Annex
Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story
Sentara Health
GEICO
Stihl
Major convention hotels
The Founders Inn and Spa
40,127 square feet of meeting space
245 rooms
The Cavalier Resort*
70,875 square feet of meeting space,
547 rooms
Holiday Inn Virginia Beach – Norfolk
22,000 square feet of meeting space,
307 rooms
Wyndham Virginia Beach/Oceanfront
16,247 square feet of meeting space,
244 rooms
The Westin Virginia Beach Town Center
11,266 square feet of event space,
236 rooms
Major attractions
Virginia Beach’s 3-mile Boardwalk in the city’s Oceanfront area attracts tourists from around the world. Virginia Beach Town Center is a centrally located, major mixed-use development with hotels, restaurants, shopping and offices. Visitors also enjoy the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, which features live animal habitats and the six-story 3D National Geographic Theater. Other attractions include First Landing State Park, Cape Henry Lighthouse and the Military Aviation Museum.
Notable restaurants
Becca Restaurant & Garden
American, contemporary, beccavb.com
Heirloom
Farm-to-table. heirloomvb.com
Orion’s Roof
Asian-fusion, orionsroofvb.com
Steinhilber’s
American, steinys.com
Tides Coastal Kitchen
Seafood, tidescoastalkitchen.com
Waterman’s Surfside Grille
American, watermans.com
Yiannis Wine & Food
Seafood, steaks, yianniswineandfood.com
*The Cavalier Resort includes three hotels: The Historic Cavalier Hotel, Marriott Resort Virginia Beach Oceanfront and Embassy Suites by Hilton.
Impact studies and ongoing noise monitoring are required.
County aims to prepare for larger data center developments.
Increasingly, data center developers are eyeing sites in parts of the commonwealth outside Northern Virginia, the largest data center market in the world.
Members of the Frederick County Board of Supervisors decided to put a game plan in place before those developers come to call.
“We wanted to be ready,” says Wyatt Pearson, planning and development director for Frederick County, which sits about 80 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., in Virginia’s Shenandoah region outside Winchester.
At an April 9 meeting, board members unanimously approved amending the county code to provide specific regulations for data centers. Previously, data centers were permitted in most county zoning districts as a by-right use, meaning board members didn’t get a vote.
Currently, Frederick has a single data center, called the Middletown Data Center. It’s a 43,400-square-foot operation.
“Because they’re so small, and because of where they’re located, we’ve never heard anything as far as concerns or issues with them,” Pearson says.
Last year, board members asked county staff to draft regulations for data centers in case bigger, louder operations set their sights on Frederick.
In preparation, county staff studied ordinances around the state, looking particularly closely at Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William counties. Additionally, Frederick County consulted with Alexis Kurtz, a noise control engineer who is a principal at Washington, D.C.-based Trinity Consultants.
Under the amended ordinance, most zoning districts in Frederick require data center developers to seek conditional use permits, which requires going before the board. The county does have a technology manufacturing district where data centers could be built as a by-right use, but no land currently has that zoning, so developers would still need board approval.
Before getting that OK, a data center developer must now conduct site assessments evaluating the operation’s impact on water, agriculture, noise and other matters.
Once in business, data centers can test and operate generators only during weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A noise study will also be required one year after a certificate of occupancy is granted and every five years after that.
Before voting in April, Frederick County Board Chair Josh Ludwig said the amendment to the ordinance may not cover everything to ensure data centers coexist peacefully with neighbors, but it’s a start.
“That way we have some protections established,” he said.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Sign In
Free Newsletter
