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Richmond Northside apartments sell for $45M

A 224-unit complex in ‘s Northside neighborhood sold for $45.02 million in late October.

Located on 2005 Brook Road near Virginia Union University, the 4.45-acre property has four buildings constructed in 2022.

In a joint venture with New York-based Calibogue Capital, Conserve Holdings of New Jersey bought the Sphere property from MVP Sphere, affiliated with McLean’s MVP Equities, on Oct. 30 through limited liabilities companies. Conserve Sphere Holdings purchased the property and transferred it to Conserve Sphere LLC.

Conserve Holdings also owns the adjacent property. In November 2024, the company bought the 103-unit Spectrum Apartments building at 2017 Brook Road for $19.5 million.

“We look forward to executing our business plan and continuing to build our presence in Richmond,” David Walkin, founding partner of Conserve Holdings and Conserve Management, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Garrison Gore, a senior managing director with Newmark, handled raising equity for the Sphere property sale.

Northrop Grumman taps new CFO

Falls Church-based aerospace and defense company announced Thursday that its board of directors has chosen former Discover Financial executive John Greene as its corporate vice president and , effective Jan. 7, 2026.

In this role, he will report to Kathy Warden, the ‘s president and . He will succeed Ken Crews, who previously announced his intent to leave the company to pursue other interests.

Once Greene joins the company, Crews will step down from the position and temporarily serve in an advisory capacity to ensure a smooth transition before leaving the company on Feb. 20, 2026.

“John is a seasoned finance executive with a distinguished record of global leadership and deep experience across complex, highly regulated industries,” said Warden in a statement. “He has consistently managed strategic capital deployment, operational discipline and shareholder value creation.”

Greene most recently served as CFO for Discover Financial Services, a role he held for six years before the company was acquired by Capital One in May. Before that, he was CFO of the global pharmaceutical company Bioverativ, as well as Willis Group Holdings and multiple business units within HSBC Holdings, including bank and wealth management. Greene started his career at Ernst & Young and later worked for 12 years at General Electric.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Ranked No. 380 on the Fortune Global 500 this year, Northrop Grumman reported $41 billion in fiscal 2024 revenue, up 4% from 2023. Northrop Grumman employs about 100,000 workers and is building a $200 million-plus plant in Waynesboro that’s expected to open in 2026.

Newport News Shipbuilding lays off 167 workers

Newport News Shipbuilding laid off 167 employees on Wednesday who had been previously this year, a company spokesperson confirmed.

Spokesperson Todd Corillo said in an email the decision came “after careful review of our salaried workforce and business needs.”

“This decision was not made lightly given its impact on affected team members,” he said. “We take this step, however, to increase accountability and efficiency, and to improve overall performance in meeting our current and future commitments to the U.S. Navy.”

The mark the latest step in a workforce realignment that began in May, when the company announced plans to furlough 471 salaried shipbuilders for up to five months starting June 2. The company previously said during that timeframe, it would continuously evaluate business needs and its salaried workforce to determine whether continued furlough is warranted. Furloughs place an employee in a temporary non-work, non-pay status, but that it does not terminate the employee.

The company previously said that it is furloughing employees because “shipbuilding is in a period of transition, and Shipbuilding is aligning its workforce to meet the challenges it faces to improve its performance. Accordingly, existing work is being reallocated.”

Decisions on who was furloughed were based on “several factors, including an analysis of current and future work, as well as performance.”

Corillo confirmed Friday that about a third of the previously furloughed employees had been laid off. Other furloughed shipbuilders returned to NNS during the furlough period, while 99 left the company voluntarily, either through resignations or retirements.

He did not elaborate whether the layoffs were due to economic challenges or jobs being made redundant by AI or automation. But he said the decision involved “careful consideration and analysis.”

“While this is a very difficult decision, it is critical and a necessary step as we look at our productivity, performance and requirement to improve efficiencies to secure the future of our shipyard and the affordability of the ships we build and overhaul for the U.S. Navy,” he said.

A subsidiary of contractor , NNS is the state’s largest industrial employer, employing about 26,000 people, and in 2024, the division hired about 3,000 more workers, part of an overall goal of hiring 16,000 more in the next decade to fulfill Navy shipbuilding needs.

GOP House Judiciary report accuses GMU president of lying to Congress

SUMMARY: 

  • A House Judiciary report says GMU president made two false statements in congressional testimony
  • Testimony was part of GOP-controlled committee probe into at universities
  • GMU law dean alleges in testimony that his school was punished by Washington
  • Washington’s attorney calls report “political lynching”

Updated 5:30 p.m. Nov. 7

A staff report produced by Republicans on the accuses President of lying to in his testimony about alleged racial discrimination in the university’s hiring practices.

On July 29, amid four federal probes into George Mason, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee’s chairman, and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, chair of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, called for Washington to testify before the GOP-controlled committee.

The report, citing testimony by Washington and two university administrators, was released late Thursday afternoon by the committee but did not state what its next steps will be. According to an article earlier Thursday in The Washington Post, the committee could recommend a criminal investigation to the U.S. , but the DOJ can make its own decision on whether to pursue it.

In addition to accusing Washington of false testimony, the report cites accusations by Scalia Law School Dean Ken Randall that the president retaliated against the law school for Randall’s decision not to appoint an equity adviser.

Thursday’s report says that Washington “appeared to violate” federal law “by making multiple material false statements to Congress” and that “documents and testimony obtained to date show that GMU likely violated federal civil rights law by discriminating based on race in its hiring practices to advance Dr. Washington’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiative.” It alleges that “the available evidence suggests that Dr. Washington was ultimately responsible for the initiation and implementation of these discriminatory practices at GMU, likely in violation of Titles VI and VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964.”

In essence, the report accuses Washington, George Mason’s first Black president, of discriminating against white, Middle Eastern and Asian job candidates in favor of Black and Latino candidates. In August, the U.S. Department of Education found that the university had violated federal civil rights law “by illegally using race and other immutable characteristics in university practices and policies, including hiring and promotion.”

Douglas Gansler, Washington’s attorney and former Maryland attorney general, called the report “a political lynching” in an interview Thursday. “[Washington] never discriminated against one human being over his five years at George Mason.” He also said that Washington “did not utter one syllable that was not true to Congress.”

The George Mason Board of Visitors released a statement Thursday night noting that it received the staff report from the committee. “We are reviewing the report and consulting with university counsel and counsel for Dr. Washington,” the board said. “The board remains focused on serving our students, faculty and the commonwealth, ensuring full compliance with federal law and positioning GMU for continued excellence.”

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee, issued a statement about the report: “In Donald Trump’s gangster state, they pick the target first and figure out the charges later. Today’s target: GMU President Gregory Washington. The Trump Education Department failed to find evidence of employment discrimination at GMU. So Chairman Jordan opened his own investigation. When that one only confirmed Dr. Washington followed Virginia law, Jordan pivoted and conjured up an absurd and convoluted criminal referral based on an alleged lie that takes eight pages to explain.

“If Chairman Jordan cared about perjury, he’d investigate the dozens of administration officials who have lied to and misled federal judges.”

Jordan and Roy, Republican congressmen from Ohio and Texas, claimed in their July 29 letter to Washington that “there is a pervasive culture of intolerance at George Mason that violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Civil Rights Act. During your tenure, George Mason seems to have engaged in racial discrimination in the hiring and promotion of faculty and staff contrary to both federal statutes and executive order.”

Accusations of lying, sabotage

The committee report accuses Washington of making at least two “material false statements” about allegedly using racial quotas in hiring. Asked about the university’s Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative, which was instituted shortly after Washington’s arrival at George Mason in July 2020, Washington said that the hiring plans came from faculty members of each school at the university.

“If units did not want to develop a plan, they did not have to,” Washington is quoted as saying to the committee, according to the report. “There was no, for lack of a better way of putting it, there was no punishment … that we could do to a unit that did not do a plan.”

The report states that the committee obtained documents and testimony that “Dr. Washington and his deputies actively sought to punish schools that did not comply with his racial discrimination mandates,” including stripping 6% of such schools’ budgets to be reallocated to other schools using DEI hiring plans.

According to the report, Randall testified, “You’d get fired if you didn’t have a plan.” Randall allegedly told the committee that he “developed a less ‘metric-driven’ racial discrimination plan because he was concerned that specific numerical hiring targets would violate the law,” and declined to hire an equity adviser for the law school.

After that, Randall testified that Washington “appeared to sabotage a regular American Bar Association accreditation ‘inspection’ of Scalia Law School, telling ABA inspectors that George Mason may be unable to continue to financially support the law school. This jeopardized the law school’s accreditation and resulted in the ABA putting Scalia Law School on probation.”

According to the transcript, Randall said the law school had an ABA inspection in 2022 and received an action letter saying that “they didn’t think that the institution had demonstrated financial soundness.” He testified that the ABA said “it had to do with the exit interview that they had had with the president,” and that Washington “volunteered that he didn’t know whether the university was going to be able to support the law school in the same manner it had previously supported the law school.”

Randall further testified that the president told him “he didn’t remember saying that to the ABA,” and that in a later meeting with Washington and GMU’s former provost, along with other university officials, “the president just started yelling at me and telling me that the ABA would never put us on probation, and that I basically didn’t know what I was doing.”

Later in his testimony, Randall said that Washington “was not a fan of our faculty, to my knowledge. You know, we’re viewed to be the most ideologically conservative unit on campus. I don’t want to guess that’s why he said that.”

Randall, who joined the law school in December 2020 from the University of Alabama, was not available to speak Thursday afternoon, according to his office.

The report also accuses Washington of falsely saying that there was no formal review process of hiring plans by university administration.

Gansler, who attended Washington’s testimony before the committee, added that Washington is not involved in hiring decisions on the faculty level, other than signing off on all new hires, as do the university provost and the Board of Visitors. “Dr. Washington does not oversee the equity advisers [to the university’s schools]. There were never any mandatory dictates.”

Errors cited in report

In addition to the committee’s accusations of false testimony, the Judiciary report says Washington made “numerous incendiary and offensive racial comments intended to influence hiring decisions.” However, the report appears to incorrectly attribute at least one section of testimony to the wrong person, based on transcripts of interviews released by the committee Thursday afternoon.

The report says in a footnote that Naoru Koizumi, associate dean of research at GMU’s Schar School of Policy and Government, testified in October that Washington allegedly told members of a faculty search committee that they should “give the brother a chance,” regarding a Black candidate for the university’s vice president for research hiring process. Koizumi, however, is not cited as saying this in her testimony.

Instead, law dean Randall made the statement in his testimony, according to the transcript.

“This is hearsay,” Randall testified. “I did not hear President Washington say this. But … he wanted a candidate [for vice president for research] who did not make it to the short list, and that the comment that gets attributed to the president is he said just — ‘Oh, come on. Just give the brother a chance.’ And then ultimately this person was hired as the VP.”

Koizumi’s legal counsel, Lloyd Liu of Bennett LoCicero & Liu (BLL), said Thursday that he has requested that the committee correct two errors in the report:

“On page 11, [note] 58, the committee’s report alleges that President Washington told others to ‘give the brother a chance.’ It incorrectly cites Dr. Koizumi’s testimony. Dr. Koizumi never testified that she heard President Washington make that statement or anything like it,” Liu said in a statement. “Also, on [page] 12 [footnote] 73 of the report, the committee cites Dr. Koizumi’s testimony for the notion that the hiring practices may have been ‘unconstitutional and illegal.’ However, Dr. Koizumi never testified about the legality of the practice and has no opinion of it.”

Russell M. Dye, communications director and senior counsel for the Judiciary Committee, said in an email Friday that the report did not have errors.

Regarding footnote 58, he wrote, “The committee report alleges that Dr. Washington hired ‘an African American candidate, who was added to a faculty search committee shortlist because of the candidate’s race, as GMU’s Vice President for Research, telling others that they should ‘give the brother a chance.’

“To support this assertion, the report correctly cites GMU Law Dean Ken Randall’s testimony to the committee. The report also cites Dr. Koizumi’s testimony to the committee because during her deposition, Dr. Koizumi explained in detail how the African American candidate was only added to the faculty committee shortlist after the committee was encouraged to add underrepresented diversity.”

Regarding footnote 73, Dye wrote, “The committee’s report does not assert Dr. Koizumi testified that GMU’s hiring practices were unconstitutional and illegal. Dr. Koizumi’s testimony is cited in footnote 73 to support the earlier part of the sentence noting that Hispanics and African Americans are considered underrepresented minorities at GMU, which is what Dr. Koizumi explained during her deposition as noted on page 67 of the deposition transcript.”

According to George Mason’s website, Andre Marshall is vice president for research, innovation and economic impact and serves as the university’s chief research officer and president of the George Mason Research Foundation. He joined the university in March 2021, after serving as program director at the National Science Foundation and a faculty member at the University of Maryland’s Department of Fire Protection Engineering.

Marshall did not immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on the matter.

Boeing won’t face criminal charge over 737 Max crashes that killed hundreds of people

Summary

  • Judge drops criminal conspiracy case tied to crashes
  • Boeing to pay or invest $1.1B in fines, compensation, and safety reforms
  • Families of crash victims plan to appeal dismissal of the case
  • Crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 passengers and crew

DALLAS (AP) — Boeing will not face a criminal conspiracy charge over two 737 Max jetliner crashes that killed 346 people, after a federal judge in Texas on Thursday granted the government’s request to dismiss the case.

As part of a deal to drop the charge, the American aerospace company agreed to pay or invest an additional $1.1 billion in fines, compensation for the crash victims’ families, and internal safety and quality measures. The agreement lets Boeing choose its own compliance consultant instead of getting an independent monitor.

Prosecutors said Boeing deceived government regulators about a flight-control system that was later implicated in the fatal flights. The ruling comes after an emotional hearing in September in Fort Worth where relatives of some of the victims urged U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to reject the deal and instead appoint a special prosecutor.

O’Connor wrote Thursday that the deal “fails to secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public.”

Still, he said, the court can’t block the dismissal simply because it disagrees with the government’s view that the deal serves the public interest. The Justice Department has said a jury trial risks sparing Boeing from further punishment.

The judge also said the government hadn’t acted in bad faith, had explained their decision and had met their obligations under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

All passengers and crew died when two 737 Max jetliners went down less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019 — a flight that plunged into the sea off the coast of Indonesia and an  flight that crashed into a field after taking off from Addis Ababa.

Some of the victims’ families plan to appeal O’Connor’s decision.

“When a company’s failures cost so many lives, ending a criminal case behind closed doors erodes trust and weakens deterrence for every passenger who steps onto a plane,” Paul Njoroge, a Canadian man who lost his wife and three small children in the Ethiopia crash, said in a statement released by the families through their lawyers.

The long-running case has taken many twists and turns since the Justice Department first charged Boeing in January 2021 with defrauding the government. A proposed deal that would have required Boeing to plead guilty collapsed after O’Connor did not approve it.

In a statement after Thursday’s ruling, Boeing said it would honor the agreement and continue “the significant efforts we have made as a company to strengthen our safety, quality, and compliance programs.”

The Justice Department said in a statement that they are “confident that this resolution is the most just outcome.” The department has said the families of 110 crash victims either support resolving the case before it reaches trial or did not oppose the deal.

Meanwhile, nearly 100 families have opposed the agreement. More than a dozen relatives spoke at the Sept. 3 hearing in Texas, with some coming from Europe and Africa.

“Do not allow Boeing to buy its freedom,” said Catherine Berthet, who traveled from France. Her daughter, Camille Geoffroy, died in the Ethiopia crash.

The first civil trial over that crash opened Wednesday in federal court in Chicago. The jury must decide how much Boeing has to pay the family of one victim, Shikha Garg, a United Nations consultant who was among several passengers traveling to a U.N. environmental assembly in Kenya.

The criminal case centered around a software system that Boeing developed for the 737 Max, which airlines began flying in 2017. The plane was Boeing’s answer to a new, more fuel-efficient model from European rival Airbus, and Boeing billed it as an updated 737 that wouldn’t require much additional pilot training.

But the Max did include significant changes, some of which Boeing downplayed — most notably, the addition of an automated flight-control system designed to help account for the plane’s larger engines. Boeing didn’t mention the system in airplane manuals, and most pilots didn’t know about it.

In both of the deadly crashes, that software pitched the nose of the plane down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor, and pilots flying for Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines were unable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, the planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months.

Investigators found that Boeing did not inform key Federal Aviation Administration personnel about changes it had made to the software before regulators set pilot training requirements for the Max and certified the airliner for flight.

Vantage Data Centers to invest $2B on Stafford campus

Vantage Data Centers plans to invest $2 billion to build a campus in , Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Thursday.

The investment is expected to create 1,100 construction jobs, as well as 50 permanent jobs after the campus reaches full capacity.

“ offered a significant opportunity for Vantage to serve our customers seeking capacity and access to the resources of ,” Dana Adams, president of North America, said in a news release. “The region’s proximity to major metros, access to robust infrastructure and growing technology ecosystem make it an ideal location to meet skyrocketing demand.”

Located a little more than an hour from Vantage’s three existing data center campuses in , the new campus has been dubbed VA4. It will house three two-story data centers totaling about 929,000 square feet on 82 acres.

VA4 will operate with a closed-loop chilled water system that minimizes the need for large amounts of water for cooling and will be built to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification.

The campus’ general contractor is California-based DPR Construction, which has an office in . The first building is scheduled to open in late 2027.

“Thanks to companies like Vantage, Virginia is leading the world into a future powered by the limitless possibilities of artificial intelligence,” Youngkin said in a news release. “With this $2 billion in investment, Vantage is paving the way for a stronger Stafford County and a stronger Virginia.”

VA4 will bring the company’s statewide capacity to 782 megawatts. Vantage’s total investment for all four Virginia campuses is about $8 billion.

Launching in 2010 with one data center in California, Vantage has expanded to more than 30 campuses across five continents.

“Virginia has been a cornerstone of Vantage’s North American growth since we first entered the market in 2017,” Adams stated.

Vantage is eligible for Data Center Sales and Use Tax exemptions on qualifying computer equipment and enabling software.

US holiday sales expected to rise despite economic uncertainty

Summary

  • U.S. holiday spending forecast at $1.01–$1.02 trillion, up 3.7–4.2%
  • Consumers increasingly focus on discounts amid and
  • Spending growth uneven: higher-income households outpacing lower-income
  • delays economic data, adding uncertainty to forecasts

NEW YORK (AP) — American shoppers are expected to spend more during this holiday shopping season than last year despite economic uncertainty and rising prices.

The 2025 forecast from the National Federation on Thursday estimates that shoppers will collectively spend between $1.01 trillion and $1.02 trillion in November and December, an increase of 3.7% to 4.2% compared with last year.

Retailers rung up $976 billion in last year, or a 4.3% increase from the prior year, the group said.

“We’re seeing really positive behavior and engagement from consumers, ” President and Matthew Shay told reporters on a call Thursday. “In fairness, that’s been somewhat of a surprise.”

But Shay said more Americans are growing selective and they’re focused on discounts. And while spending is expected to be up again, the growth of that spending may be in decline.

That is still greater than the average increase of 3.6% between 2010 to 2019. Americans ramped up spending after that during the coronavirus pandemic. Holiday season sales rose 8.9% in 2020 and soared 12.5% in 2021, according to the NRF.

The group’s holiday forecast is based on economic modeling using various key economic indicators including consumer spending, disposable personal income, employment, wages, inflation and previous monthly retail sales releases. NRF’s calculation excludes automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants to focus on core retail.

Holiday spending accounts for 19% of annual sales for the retail industry, though for some retailers the number is a lot higher, according to the NRF. And consumer spending in the U.S. is monitored closely because it drives about 70% of the nation’s gross domestic product.

The forecast this year, however, arrives during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. There has been no government data released on the jobs market or retail sales since the shutdown began 37 days ago.

“Forecasting is increasingly challenging in this environment,” Shay acknowledged.

The NRF forecast is in line with other estimates, however, which point to slowing growth.

Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending across all payment methods including cash, predicts that holiday sales will be up 3.6% from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24. That compares with a 4.1% increase last year.

Deloitte Services LP forecasts holiday retail sales to be up between 2.9% to 3.4% from Nov. 1 through Jan. 31, compared with last year’s 4.2%.

Adobe expects U.S. online sales to hit $253.4 billion this holiday season, representing 5.3% growth. That’s smaller than last year’s 8.7% growth.

Consumer spending in the U.S. has remained resilient even as consumer confidence has eroded.

Mark Matthews, NRF’s chief economist and executive director of research, said consumer behavior is changing with a sharper focus on finding deals. And the frequency of family nights out at a restaurant is on the decline, NRF executives said.

The timing of the government shutdown is “absolutely problematic,” Matthews said, noting that it’s led to a loss in private sector income, which erodes consumer demand.

Spending should recover once the shutdown ends, Matthews said, yet there are broader issues of concern that will not be solved when the government shutdown ends.

The gap between wealthy and lower-income households is widening, according to analysts.

Based on spending from its credit card and bank customers, Bank of America found that spending growth among lower income households rose 0.6% in September compared with the same period last year. Among higher income brackets, spending rose at more than four times that speed, or 2.6%, in September. And wages are growing faster for higher income households.

That is making it more difficult for lower income households to keep up when tariffs and other economic factors are pushing prices higher.

In a separate report this week, Bank of America estimated that U.S. consumers are bearing 50% to 70% of the U.S. tariff costs, and it expects that load to grow.

“We think there is overwhelming evidence that tariffs have pushed inflation higher for consumers,” Bank of America economists Stephen Juneau and Aditya Bhave wrote.

At the same time, U.S. companies have announced tens of thousands of job cuts. Some companies have cited rising operational costs from new tariffs under the Trump administration, as well as shifting consumer spending, corporate restructuring, or increased spending on artificial intelligence.

That has led retailers to pull back on the hiring of seasonal workers.

Virginia teacher wins $10M in school shooting case

Summary

  • Jury awards $10 million to former teacher
  • Zwerner was shot by a 6-year-old student in January 2023
  • Verdict finds assistant principal ignored gun warnings
  • Case shocked and sparked national concern

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — A jury in Virginia awarded $10 million Thursday to a former teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student, siding with her claims in a lawsuit that an ex-administrator ignored repeated warnings that the child had a gun.

The jury returned its decision against , a former assistant principal at School in Newport News.

Abby Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. She had sought $40 million against Parker in the lawsuit.

Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest.

Zwerner did not address reporters outside the courthouse after the decision was announced. One of her attorneys, Diane Toscano, said the verdict sends a message that what happened at the school “was wrong and is not going to be tolerated, that safety has to be the first concern at school. I think it’s a great message.”

Parker was the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants.

The shooting sent shock waves through this military shipbuilding community and the country at large, with many wondering how a child so young could gain access to a gun and shoot his teacher.

The lawsuit said Parker had a duty to protect Zwerner and others from harm after being told about the gun. Zwerner’s attorneys said Parker failed to act in the hours before the shooting after several school staff members told her that the student had a gun in his backpack.

“Who would think a 6-year-old would bring a gun to school and shoot their teacher?” Toscano told the jury earlier. “It’s Dr. Parker’s job to believe that that is possible. It’s her job to investigate it and get to the very bottom of it.”

Parker did not testify in the lawsuit. Her attorney, Daniel Hogan, had warned jurors about hindsight bias and “Monday morning quarterbacking” in the shooting.

““You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable,” Hogan said. “That’s the heart of this case.

“The law knows that it is fundamentally unfair to judge another person’s decisions based on stuff that came up after the fact. The law requires you to examine people’s decisions at the time they make them.”

The shooting occurred on the first day after the student had returned from a suspension for slamming Zwerner’s phone two days earlier.

Zwerner testified she first heard about the gun prior to class recess from a reading specialist who had been tipped off by students. The shooting occurred a few hours later. Despite her injuries, Zwerner was able to hustle her students out of the classroom. She eventually passed out in the school office.

Zwerner testified she believed that she had died that day.

“I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner said. “But then it all got black. And so, I then thought I wasn’t going there. And then my next memory is I see two co-workers around me and I process that I’m hurt and they’re putting pressure on where I’m hurt.”

Zwerner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. She has since become a licensed cosmetologist.

Parker faces a separate criminal trial this month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison in the event of a conviction.

The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he got his mother’s handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse.

CarMax CEO out after nearly a decade

SUMMARY: 

  • Bill Nash out as president and
  • David McCreight named interim president and CEO
  • CarMax forecasts weak third quarter

Amid forecasts of dismal third quarter earnings, Bill Nash is out as president and CEO at national used-vehicle retailer CarMax, even as its chief rival, Carvana, marked record quarterly results.

Nash, who had led the -based company for close to a decade, is also stepping down from the company’s board.

CarMax board member David McCreight, who previously served as CEO of Lulu’s Fashion Lounge Holdings, an online platform for women’s apparel and accessories, has been named interim president and CEO.

Former CarMax CEO Tom Folliard, the current chair of the CarMax board, has been named interim executive chair of the board. He served as the company’s CEO from 2006 to 2016.

The leadership changes are effective Dec. 1, according to the company.

Thursday, in its third quarter forecast, CarMax said it expected comparable store used-unit sales to fall 8% to 12% and predicted earnings of 18 cents to 36 cents a share. Analysts had expected third-quarter earnings of 70 cents a share.

As of 3:25 p.m. Thursday, CarMax shares were trading for $30.80, down from $36.08 at open and from $40.81 at the previous close.

CarMax’s recent financial results do not reflect the company’s potential and “change is needed,” according to Folliard.

“The board has decided that more direct involvement from David and me will help strengthen the business in this transitional period,” Folliard stated in a news release.  “During this time, we are focused on driving sales, enhancing profitability and reducing cost.”

CarMax attributed the third quarter results to a decline in retail unit sales, depreciation in the wholesale business and marketing costs.

On Oct. 29, CarMax competitor Carvana, an Arizona-based e-commerce platform for buying and selling used cars, announced record third-quarter results. The company sold 155,941 retail units, a 44% increase year over year. Carvana’s revenue for the quarter was $5.6 billion, a 55% increase year over year.

In late October, CarMax laid off about 350 employees nationally, including 55 in Virginia. Of the 55 affected employees in Virginia, 25 are in the area, CarMax said in an email last month.

Last year, CarMax laid off approximately 415 employees nationwide, including 14 in the Richmond region, and approximately 400 drivers, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch

As of this past summer, CarMax had about 30,000 employees, including 3,300 in Virginia. The company has more than 250 stores in 41 states.

Founded in 1993 as a subsidiary of electronics retailer Circuit City, CarMax reported more than $26 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue.

For the second quarter of its fiscal 2026 year, CarMax reported total revenues of $6.59 billion, down 6% from the second quarter of fiscal 2025. For the previous six months, though, CarMax had $14.14 billion in total revenues, down 0.1% from the first six months of fiscal 2025.

In the second quarter, CarMax’s combined retail and wholesale used numbered 338,031, down 4.1% year-over-year.

Nash began at CarMax in 1997 as an auction manager. A 1991 graduate of James Madison University, Nash started his career in payroll and accounting at Circuit City, the consumer electronics retailer that launched CarMax in 1993.

A search to identify a permanent CEO had already been launched by the board, according to a news release. Russell Reynolds Associates, a New York-based search firm, is assisting with the effort.

The complete third-quarter results are scheduled to be reported on Dec. 18.

Norfolk’s long-awaited temporary casino opens Friday

SUMMARY:

  • ‘s first casino opens Friday in a temporary hall with 132 slot machines
  • It’s a preview of a $750 million permanent resort opening in 2027
  • Open daily from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m., with capacity for about 100 players

The wait is nearly over: Norfolk’s first casino opens Friday inside a temporary gaming hall — a precursor to the future $750 million permanent resort and casino rising next door.

The , an industrial tentlike structure developed by and the , offers a first glimpse of what’s ahead. Though modest in scale, with 132 slot machines spread across a 3,600-square-foot gaming floor, its debut marks the first time casino play will be available in Norfolk after years of planning.

The gaming facility will operate daily from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. Rows of machines light up with recognizable gaming titles such as Buffalo Ultimate Stampede, Dragon Link and the influencer-favorite Huff N’ Even More Puff.

Machines ready for use at Interim Gaming Hall in Norfolk on Nov. 6, 2025. Photo by Kristen Zeis

“These are some of the most popular games in the country right now,” said casino spokesperson Jay Smith. “People know their games that they like.”

The temporary facility has a total footprint of 7,200 square feet, including back-of-house operations. The capacity for the gaming floor will hover around 100 players at a time, ensuring the floor remains active without being overpacked and with no open machines.

Beyond gaming, Bailey said the Interim Gaming Hall also features the state’s first alcohol vending machine. The machine utilizes both photo ID and artificial intelligence identification to verify that users are over 21.

“It’s more accurate than a human, as far as making sure we don’t overserve people,” he said of the vending machine. “It can’t overserve. … Hopefully, that machine gets utilized and authorized in other places across the commonwealth, because it’s just a cool piece of equipment [and] technology.”

Outside, a partnership with Norfolk’s Ghost Kitchen food truck — known for its smash burgers — keeps guests well-fed. The operation will serve visitors throughout the two-year interim run.

An emerging market

As someone who has worked in the gaming industry for 25 years, Bailey notes that there are “very few new gaming markets in the U.S.,” making Virginia’s recent venture into the industry unique. There are currently only three operating in Virginia — , , and Danville’s . Norfolk will mark the fourth casino to open in Virginia, to be followed by a $1.4 billion Petersburg casino that broke ground in March.

It’s a lucrative space, with Virginia’s three operating casinos jointly generating $73 million in monthly revenue for September.

Bailey hopes to acclimate the state’s residents to the gaming experience.

“There’s a lot of people who’ve never even stepped foot into a casino before,” he said. “And so for us, it’s about creating a casino experience for them that’s going to make them feel comfortable, make them feel valued, and treat them like an individual as they should be, and make them want to come back and enjoy their time when they’re gaming.”

Interim Gaming Hall in Norfolk, on Nov. 6, 2025. Photo by Kristen Zeis

No table games will be offered at the Interim Gaming Hall. But that will change when the full-scale, currently unnamed, permanent resort opens in 2027.

Expected to create 850 jobs, the resort — a joint venture between Boyd Gaming and the Pamunkey Indian Tribe — will have a 65,000-square-foot casino, a 200-room hotel, eight food and beverage outlets, and a 45,000-square-foot outdoor deck. It will also include 1,500 slot machines and 50 table games, as well as 13,000 square feet of meeting space and 4,000 square feet of spa and gym space. The operators expect to announce its branding next year, according to a news release.

However, before the permanent casino opens, the temporary site will lay the groundwork for introducing the market to the Boyd brand.

“We’ve hired about 84 team members, and we’re still hiring,” Bailey said.

While the temporary site is slated to open officially on Friday, an invitation-only event was held on Wednesday, offering some Boyd’s gaming reward members to play. All revenue from the invitation-only event and the first day of opening will be donated to the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore.

It’s been a long road for the casino to become a reality. The casino was approved by Norfolk voters in fall 2020, but construction was delayed due to conflicts over design plans between Norfolk City Council and the developers. An earlier partnership between the and Tennessee investor Jon Yarbrough ended last year, and Boyd Gaming entered the picture. At that time, Boyd and the tribe scrapped the casino’s previously announced branding as the HeadWaters Resort & Casino.

Construction began in February on both the temporary and permanent structures. Bailey notes there was “a lot of skepticism” about the casino opening in Norfolk and said he’s excited about Hampton Roads residents discovering that the casino is “really happening.”