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Bon Secours hires new chief clinical officer for Richmond market

Dr. David Hasleton is the new chief clinical officer for ‘ market, the health system announced Thursday.

In this role, Hasleton will oversee clinical operations, working with clinical teams, operational leaders and physicians and advanced practice clinicians.

Most recently, Hasleton served as chief officer for Intermountain Health, a health system headquartered in Utah. In that role he oversaw clinical and operational outcomes across five states.

Hasleton earned his medical degree and from the University of Illinois College of Medicine.

“I am confident that his strategic vision, dedication to patient safety and commitment to quality will further enhance our mission to deliver exceptional care to our communities,” Bon Secours Richmond President Mike Lutes said in a statement.

The Bon Secours Richmond Health System offers a network of seven acute hospitals, primary and specialty care practices, ambulatory care sites and continuing care facilities across a 24-locality region.

Close calls at Washington DC airport raise questions about why changes weren’t made before crash

WASHINGTON (AP) — While Congress pushed ahead last year with adding 10 new daily flights to Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National , many looked past concerns about dangers in the congested skies over the nation’s capital.

Squeezing in more flights would only increase the risks, said Virginia’s two senators, who called a near miss between two planes on a runway of the County airport last April a “flashing red warning light.”

What wasn’t publicly known at the time — and didn’t surface until this week during the into the January midair collision between an airliner and military helicopter that killed 67 — was that close calls at the airport were far more frequent than travelers and aviation experts knew.

Now, safety experts and family members who lost loved ones in the Jan. 29 are asking why no one acted in the face of what appeared to be a looming disaster.

The National Transportation Safety Board said pilots were alerted to take evasive action to avoid hitting helicopters at least once a month from 2011 through 2024, citing data compiled by the Federal Aviation Administration, and that there were 85 near misses when aircraft were within a few hundred feet (meters) of each other during recent years.

“How does that happen in this day and age and somebody doesn’t do something about it?” asked Doug Lane, whose wife, Christine Conrad Lane, and their 16-year-old son, Spencer, died in the crash.

Pilots have long worried about the congested and complex airspace around the airport near the heart of the capital, where flights must maneuver around military aircraft and restricted areas. It was no secret there had been previous close calls, but the numbers found by the NTSB were alarming.

“Why someone was not paying attention to those numbers and those events are questions yet to be answered,” said James Hall, a former NTSB chair during the Clinton administration.

“What not to do is to ignore that many incidents,” he said.

officials have not yet addressed whether they knew there were so many encounters between planes and helicopters at Reagan National. Messages seeking comment were not immediately returned Thursday.

Current NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who oversees the FAA, both said they were angry that the number of close calls were not recognized earlier by the FAA.

“If someone was paying attention, someone was on the job, they would have seen this,” Duffy said. He also announced he will move forward with banning some helicopter flights around the airport, a move that was temporarily made after the crash.

Safety advocate Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the U.S. Transportation Department, said that while there was plenty of blame to go around for the midair collision, the FAA was shockingly complacent.

“They literally wait for a disaster,” she said. ”I can’t even fathom how the families of those lost in this crash can even with this. I mean this would be so maddening to hear.”

The crowded airspace around Washington drew attention last year when Congress debated an aviation safety bill that allowed 10 more flights a day at Reagan National, despite strong objections from Virginia’s Democratic senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.

Kaine, during a speech on the Senate floor, didn’t mention specific concerns about encounters between airliners and helicopters or cite any statistics, but he did say the congestion was “a problem waiting to happen.”

While Congress did OK the extra flights, they had not started as of the deadly January collision.

The FAA limits arrival and departure slots at three of the nation’s busiest airports, where demand exceeds the airport’s capacity: Reagan National and New York City’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports.

But Congress has a history of directing the FAA to add slots at Reagan, even though Washington’s other international airport, Dulles, has capacity to handle them. Reagan is closer to the capital and most federal departments and therefore more convenient, particularly for lawmakers.

Mike McCormick, coordinator of the Air Traffic Management program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said the congestion at Reagan National clearly contributed to the midair collision because the American Airlines jetliner, which was on a newly added route from Wichita, Kansas, was diverted to a different runway closer to the helicopter flights.

“In this instance, the sole reason for doing it was because they were too busy,” McCormick said. “This is something that controller has probably done thousands of times.”

The flight from Wichita to Washington began operating in early 2024, with the backing of Kansas lawmakers who said it was a “vital” to link the nation’s capital with the city, which has a long history as an aircraft hub.

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat who serves on an aviation subcommittee, said the cause of the accident and the congestion at Reagan National are for now, “two different conversations.”

“I understand, the desire for us all to be able to connect these dots,” she said. “Right now that is not a connection that has been made by the NTSB.”

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Associated Press reporters Michael Casey in Boston; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Wall Street tumbles after Trump escalates his trade war

NEW YORK (AP) — ‘s sell-off hit a new low Thursday after President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war dragged the S&P 500 more than 10% below its record, which was set just last month.

A 10% drop is a big enough that professional investors have a name for it — a “correction” — and the S&P 500’s 1.4% slide on Thursday sent the index to its first since 2023. The losses came after Trump upped the stakes in his trade war by threatening huge taxes on European wines and alcohol. Not even a double-shot of good news on the U.S. could stop the bleeding.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 537 points, or 1.3% Thursday, and the Nasdaq composite fell 2%.

The dizzying, battering swings for stocks have been coming not just day to day but also hour to hour, and the Dow hurtled between a slight gain and a drop of 689 points on Thursday.

The turbulence is a result of uncertainty about how much pain Trump will let the economy endure through and other policies in order to reshape the country and world as he wants. The president has said he wants jobs back in the United States, along with a smaller U.S. government and other fundamental changes.

Trump’s latest escalation came Thursday when he threatened 200% tariffs on Champagne and other European wines, unless the European Union rolls back a “nasty” tariff announced on U.S. . The European Union unveiled that move on Wednesday, in response to U.S. tariffs on European steel and aluminum.

U.S. households and businesses have already reported drops in confidence because of all the uncertainty about which tariffs will stick from Trump’s barrage of on -again, off -again announcements. That’s raised fears about a pullback in spending that could sap energy from the economy. Some U.S. businesses say they’ve already begun to see a change in their customers’ behavior because of the uncertainty.

A particularly feared scenario for the economy is one where its growth stagnates but inflation stays high because of tariffs. Few tools are available in Washington to fix what’s called “stagflation.” If the Federal Reserve were to cut interest rates to boost the economy, for example, that could also push inflation higher.

Good news came on both those economic fronts Thursday.

One report showed inflation at the wholesale level last month was milder than economists expected. It followed a similarly encouraging report from the prior day on inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling.

But “the question for markets is whether good news on the inflation front can make itself heard above the noise of the ever-changing tariff story,” said Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.

A separate report, meanwhile, said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest signal that the job market remains relatively solid overall. If that can continue, it could allow U.S. consumers to keep spending, and that’s the main engine of the economy.

On Wall Steet, some stocks connected to the artificial-intelligence industry resumed their slide and weighed on stock indexes. Palantir Technologies, which offers an AI platform for customers, sank 4.8%. Super Micro Computer, which makes servers, lost 8%. Nvidia swung between gains and losses before finishing with a dip of 0.1%.

Such stocks have been under the most pressure in the U.S. ‘s recent sell-off after critics said their prices shot too high in the frenzy around AI.

Other areas of the market that had also been riding big earlier momentum have seen their fortunes swing drastically. Elon Musk’s Tesla fell 3% following a rare back-to-back gain, and it’s down more than 40% so far in 2025.

American Eagle Outfitters dropped 4.1% after the retailer said “less robust demand and colder weather” have held back its performance recently. It forecasted a dip in revenue for the upcoming year, though it also delivered a stronger profit report for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

On the winning side of Wall Street was Intel, which jumped 14.6% after naming former board member and semiconductor industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as its CEO. Tan, 65, will take over the daunting job next week, more than three months after Intel’s previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger, abruptly retired amid a deepening downturn at the once-dominant chipmaker.

All told, the S&P 500 lost 77.78 points to 5,521.52. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 537.36 to 40,813.57, and the Nasdaq composite sank 345.44 to 17,303.01.

In the bond market, Treasury yields lost an early gain to sink lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.27% from 4.32%. The yield has been mostly dropping since January, when it was approaching 4.80%, as traders and economists have ratcheted back their expectations for U.S. economic growth.

While few are predicting a recession, particularly with the job market remaining relatively solid, recent reports have shown a souring of confidence among U.S. consumers and companies.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia, but the moves were relatively modest.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

Speyside Bourbon Cooperage in Smyth lays off 75 workers

Speyside Bourbon Cooperage in Atkins will lay off 75 employees at the end of April due to slowdowns in the bourbon industry, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letter dated Feb. 28.

Speyside plans to end second-shift production and third-shift maintenance at the facility. Laid-off workers may be recalled “as business needs warrant based on department, by seniority,” according to the letter.

Sales of American , a category that includes bourbon, increased during the pandemic. But good times don’t last forever. In 2024, domestic sales of American whiskey dropped 1.8%, according to the Distilled Council of the United States. A Feb. 11 economic briefing by the council attributed the slowdown to an increase of prices for goods in the United States, which has limited consumers’ discretionary spending.

A tariff war could make the sales slump worse.

On Wednesday, the European Union announced plans to raise on American goods, including bourbon, as a response to Trump’s 25% increase in tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

, in a Thursday morning social media post, vowed a new escalation in his trade war if the EU goes forward with the planned 50% tax on American whiskey, threatening a 200% tariff on European wine, Champagne and spirits.

“The U.S.-EU spirits sector is the model for fair and reciprocal trade, having zero-for-zero tariffs since 1997,” Chris Swonger, CEO and president of the Distilled Spirits Council, said in a statement Thursday. “We urge President Trump to secure a spirits agreement with the EU to get us back to zero-for-zero tariffs, which benefits the hospitality industry and U.S. craft distillers who export their products. We want toasts not tariffs.”

Tariffs, according to Bob Hausladen, program director of the distilled spirits business certificate at the University of Louisville College of Business, would slow the bourbon industry down. “But I don’t expect it to stop things,” he said.

The global bourbon market grew by 6.4% in 2024, according to the Business Research Company, a market intelligence firm based in Florida.

While tariffs might hurt American whiskey sales to Europe, Japan and India are both home to bourbon lovers, Hausladen noted. “I think we’ll still get some growth internationally,” he said.

Plans to invest $26 million to build the in Atkins were announced in 2018, by then-Gov. Ralph Northam, who said the project expected to create 125 jobs. The cooperage launched operations in February 2020, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.

Speyside Bourbon Cooperage is a division of Speyside Cooperage, which was founded in 1947 in Scotland. In 2008, the Tonnellerie François Frères Group bought Speyside Cooperage. In the United States, Speyside has cooperages in Kentucky and Ohio.

The company opened a stave mill in Bath County in 2018. The mill produces staves, or strips of wood, from American White Oak, which are used to make the company’s bourbon barrels. In 2020, Speyside opened another stave mill in . In July, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Speyside’s plans to invest $16.85 million to build another stave mill in ‘s Brosville Industrial Park, a project expected to create 40 jobs.

A request for comment Thursday on the status of the Pittsylvania County project was not immediately returned by Matt Rowe, director of economic development in Pittsylvania County. Messages to Speyside Bourbon Cooperage and officials in Smyth County were also not immediately returned.

Details about the were posted on the Virginia Department of Development and Advancement site Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this article. 

Inside South Carolina operations of the largest military shipbuilder in the US

A new division of the largest military shipbuilder in the U.S. is in full swing after establishing operations in just two months ago.

Newport News -Charleston Operations, a facility in a division of Virginia-based , better known as , began in Goose Creek roughly 60 days ago.

In two days, the site, which spans nearly 50 acres and includes roughly 500,000 square feet of space, will send off its first structural unit to NNS headquarters in Virginia for U.S. aircraft carrier production.

NNS is the sole builder of aircraft carriers for the nation and one of the two companies that build for the U.S., Matt Needy, general manager and vice president of Charleston operations, said during a tour of the sprawling facility on Wednesday. The company has overseen the design, construction, overhaul and repair of more than 800 ships for the U.S. Navy and commercial customers since beginning 139 years ago.

The purpose of the NNS Goose Creek operations is to specialize in modules of the submarines and aircraft carriers to unburden the main production in Virginia, Needy said.

In January HII closed on the of all the assets of metal fabricator W International SC LLC and Vivid Empire SC LLC (collectively “W International”). Financial terms of the deal were not revealed.

The company specializes in two classes of nuclear-powered submarines, the Virginia-Class and the Columbia-Class. Modules that the Goose Creek operations produce include the habitability module, auxiliary machine room and weapons module of the Virginia-Class along with the auxiliary machine room and the weapons module for the Columbia-Class, Needy said.

Needy said HII had it sights set on South Carolina for some time, considering the pre-established manufacturing workforce in the region.

“Because of the buildings, because of the that are here, because of the pipelines, because of the state and regional and educational relationships that we already had the foundation of, this became the obvious choice to most rapidly expand capacity and frequency for Newport News,” Needy said.

Creating a workforce pipeline

During the acquisition, 99% of the legacy employees from W International transitioned. Currently employing 475 workers at the Goose Creek location, Needy hopes to see those numbers rise by the hundreds.

Alexis Mervin, a class-three welder, has been working at the facility for three years.

“Everyone gets along very well here, its a lot of team membership and working with each other,” Mervin said. “I’m over here building aircraft carriers for the Navy, submarines as well. It’s just an amazing experience.”

When joining the NNS Goose Creek facility, employees go through a 12-week course learning the specifics of NNS operations. During their training, they are considered full-time employees with benefits.

“This is a people-centered business,” Needy said. “It takes the heads, the hearts, the minds of a lot of great shipbuilders doing this complex work every day to bring the ships to life.”

Since starting the training program in October 2021, there have been about 1,200 students to graduate from it, Mark Schmitt, director of plant services operations, said. Schools like Goose Creek High School and Berkley High School teach a curriculum that helps the transition into the Newport News curriculum.

“You have these young guys and gals coming out of high school and signing letters in front of everybody going to colleges and universities,” Schmitt said. “Our version of that is The Summit. They come here, their parents come out here and they sign a letter of intent saying ‘I’m going to go be a welder for Newport News.’ It really is a powerful thing for us.”

Ashanti Grant, an 18-year-old welder for Newport News, heard about the opportunity through his high school. After attending Trident Technical College, he is finished his training with Newport News and has been working for about a year

“I didn’t know anything about welding before the job fair,” Grant said. “It’s really good here.”

The site spans 48-acres along the Cooper River, allowing access to deep water transportation as well as rail transportation that goes through the acreage. The land contains 480,000 square feet of manufacturing space.

Making an investment in the Lowcountry

Located next to the HII campus is a Leonardo DRS building under construction to open in 2026. The company is a leading provider of naval power and control technology solutions for the U.S. Navy. Needy said the two companies share a property line, road access and single barge slip so they are having meetings to maintain that relationship.

Materials for the productions are all sourced from the U.S. According to Needy, HII spends $500 million annually on local sourcing in the Lowcountry. Additionally, HII operations contribute $110 million per year in to its workforce, including education, scholarships, retirement and more.

“The Navy is in more demand than ever,” Needy said. “In my 34 years here with Newport News and the Huntington Ingalls Industries, I’ve never seen demand like the need for the ships that we build today.”

When the facility was W International, operations were exclusively a welding facility. Needy says the NNS goal is to build off those operations, scaling into something larger.

Needy said once the locations operations are at full capacity, it won’t just be steel structures for the modules being sent out, but fully outfitted modules with doors, walls, beds and more. He doesn’t expect the facility to be at its full-rate production capacity until 2027 and 2028.

 

 

Judge orders Trump to reinstate probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal in San Francisco ordered ‘s administration to rehire thousands, if not tens of thousands, of probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies, blasting their tactics Thursday as he slowed the new president’s dramatic downsizing of the .

U.S. District Judge William Alsup said that the terminations were directed by the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director, Charles Ezell, who lacked the authority to do so.

White House White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly pushed back, casting the as an attempt to encroach on executive power to hire and fire employees. “The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order,” she said in a statement.

Alsup’s order tells the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, , Energy, the Interior and the Treasury to immediately offer job reinstatement to employees terminated on or about Feb. 13 and 14. He also directed the departments to report back within seven days with a list of probationary employees and an explanation of how the agencies complied with his order as to each person.

The temporary restraining order came in a filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations as the Republican administration moves to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.

“These mass- of federal workers were not just an attack on government agencies and their ability to function, they were also a direct assault on public lands, wildlife, and the rule of ,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, one of the plaintiffs.

Alsup expressed frustration with what he called the government’s attempt to sidestep laws and regulations governing a reduction in its — which it is allowed to do — by firing probationary workers who lack protections and cannot appeal.

He was appalled that employees were fired for poor performance despite receiving glowing evaluations just months earlier.

“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said. “That should not have been done in our country.”

Lawyers for the government maintain the mass firings were lawful because individual agencies reviewed and determined whether employees on probation were fit for continued employment.

But Alsup, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, has found that difficult to believe. He planned to hold an evidentiary hearing Thursday, but Ezell, the OPM acting director, did not appear to testify in court or even sit for a deposition, and the government withdrew his declaration.

Alsup encouraged the government to appeal.

The case is among multiple lawsuits challenging the mass firings. Another judge in Maryland also appeared skeptical of the Trump administration in a Wednesday hearing held in a lawsuit brought by nearly two dozen states. A judge in the nation’s capital, on the other hand, ruled against unions last month, finding the fired workers needed to work through a process set out in employment law.

There are an estimated 200,000 probationary workers across federal agencies. They include entry level employees but also workers who recently received a promotion.

About 15,000 are employed in California, providing services ranging from fire prevention to veterans’ care, according to the lawsuit filed by the coalition of labor unions and nonprofit organizations that represent parks, veterans and small businesses.

The plaintiffs said in their complaint that numerous agencies informed workers that the personnel office had ordered the terminations, with an order to use a template email informing workers their firing was for performance reasons.

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Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.

First Bank names new exec VP and CFO

Former TowneBank President and Chief Operating Officer Brad E. Schwartz will join and as and effective March 31.

-based First National, the bank holding company of First Bank, made the announcement Monday. Schwartz succeeds Shane Bell, who left late last year to become for Potomac Bankshares, parent company of the Bank of Charles Town in West Virginia.

Schwartz brings 40 years of experience in banking in Virginia to the job. He was former CEO, CFO and COO of Monarch Bank prior to its by TowneBank in 2016.

As CFO of First National, Schwartz will oversee all aspects of financial planning, strategy, budgeting, investor relations, accounting operations and regulatory filings. He will join President and CEO Scott Harvard and COO Dennis Dysart as executive officers.

“We are truly excited to have Brad Schwartz joining the First National team at such a critical time for our banking company,” Harvard said in a statement. “Our company has completed three acquisitions in the last 10 years, which has changed the trajectory of our company and demands strong, experienced leadership across the executive team. Brad’s leadership and experience, financial acumen and understanding of community banking make him a perfect fit for First Bank at this time in our 118-year history.”

Schwartz holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting from Longwood University and an from the University of and is a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Georgetown University. He is also a board member of the Community Bankers Bank and served on the Virginia Bankers Association board.

“I am looking forward to joining First National and contributing to the company’s continued growth and success,” Schwartz said in a statement. “My entire career has been focused on high-performance community banking, and I am truly excited to be joining this team and board. I was attracted to their culture of customer and community service that has resulted in a track record of success.”

First Bank, which first opened for business in 1907 in Strasburg, has about 325 employees, assets of $2 billion and 33 branches located throughout Virginia and northern North Carolina.

Blackstone completes Jersey Mike’s Subs acquisition

A spokesperson for Manasquan, -based sandwich chain Subs told NJBIZ that completed its of a majority stake in the company Jan. 16. They added the terms of the remain unchanged from the private equity behemoth’s November 2024 announcement.

Blackstone did not immediately respond to a request for more information. Financials have not been disclosed, but the transaction was reportedly valued at $8 billion.

Since its start in 1956 as a small sandwich shop in Point Pleasant, Jersey Mike’s has expanded to more than 3,100 locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The influx of cash will help the fast-growing “accelerate its expansion across and beyond the U.S. market, as well as its continued investment in technology and digital transformation,” according to Blackstone.

Going forward, Jersey Mike’s founder and CEO Peter Cancro will maintain “a significant equity stake” and continue to lead the business, Blackstone has said. Cancro’s involvement with the brand dates back to when he was 14 and worked at the original shop. He acquired that store in 1975, when he was 17, using a loan from his high school football coach. Jersey Mike’s began 12 years later.

Just getting started

In a statement last fall, Cancro said, “We believe we are still in the early innings of Jersey Mike’s growth story and that Blackstone is the right partner to help us reach even greater heights. Blackstone has helped drive the success of some of the most iconic franchise businesses globally and we look forward to working with them to help make significant new going forward.”

During a November 2023 interview with QSR Magazine, Cancro said the chain expected to open 350 more locations in 2024 as well as in 2025. By 2026, he anticipates between 400 to 450 openings. After that, Cancro sees settling into a cadence of about 15% annual unit growth, or roughly 10-15 openings per week.

Ultimately, Cancro believes 10,000 units is an achievable goal due to the brand’s focus on quality, training and its robust franchisee support system.

Other brands in Blackstone’s portfolio include Tropical Smoothie Café, 7Brew, Hilton Hotels and Servpro.

When the planned acquisition was announced, Peter Wallace, a senior managing director at Blackstone, said, “Jersey Mike’s has grown for more than half a century by maintaining an unrelenting focus on quality and delicious sandwiches – consistently building on its loyal customer based as it has scaled nationwide.”

He went on to say, “Blackstone has deep experience helping accelerate the expansion of high-growth franchise businesses and this area is one of our highest-conviction investment themes. We are excited to partner with an entrepreneur of Peter’s caliber and the talented Jersey Mike’s team. Our capital and resources will help support key investments in growth and technology for the benefit of Jersey Mike’s customers and exceptional franchisees.”

A hot sandwich

Reports first surfaced last spring that Jersey Mike’s was exploring a deal with Blackstone valued at around $8 billion but that negotiations cooled off.

Discussions began after Cancro took note of the sky-high valuations gave other restaurant brands, like Mediterranean fast casual Cava ($4.7 billion). Private equity firms have also scooped up other big names in the sandwich space. Subway and Jimmy John’s sold in deals worth $9.6 billion and $2.3 billion, respectively.

Even if his business sold, Cancro also told Restaurant Business he would want to remain active in the company, particularly with the brand’s many charitable activities.

Since 2011, Jersey Mike’s has raised more than $113 million for local organizations through its Month of Giving campaign. It also launched the Coach Rod Smith Ownership program. That initiative helps provide store-level managers greater opportunities to become Jersey Mike’s franchise owners.

Whistleblowers in Sentara insurance investigation revealed

UPDATED MARCH 18

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia has unsealed a whistleblower complaint against that accused the of improperly inflating local rates in 2018 and 2019.

On Feb. 14, the court revealed the plaintiffs are Sara Stovall, Ian Dixon and Karl Quist — a trio of Charlottesville residents who were galvanized into action after Sentara’s Optima division (now part of Sentara Health Plans) significantly raised rates for 2018 and 2019 health insurance coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act. At the time, Sentara was the only insurer offering health coverage on the ACA exchange in the Charlottesville region.

The previously sealed complaint, filed in 2020, says that Stovall, Dixon and Quist are trying to recover more than $200 million in damages and civil penalties on behalf of the U.S. government from Sentara Healthcare, Optima Health Plan and Seattle-based independent actuarial and consulting firm Milliman, which certified Optima’s insurance rates.

Stovall, Dixon and Quist have accused Sentara, Optima and Milliman of imposing “knowingly fraudulent surcharges,” falsifying calculations and engaging in intentional cost shifting to generate “massive illicit profits.”

The complaint accuses Sentara of violating the federal False Claims Act, which prohibits knowingly falsifying records or statements to the U.S. government. Those found in violation are liable for treble damages.

In September 2017, when Sentara announced it would expand the availability of its Optima Health plans in Virginia, the health system said that 70% of existing customers statewide would see their premiums go up just $4 a month on average, thanks to federal subsidies. However, the remaining 30% would see a more significant average increase of 81.8%.

In fall 2017, when Optima was selling insurance plans on the exchange for the coming year, Quist and Stovall found alternative insurance plans outside of Optima, and Dixon signed up for a 2018 Optima small group plan, although he said in an interview with Virginia Business last year that he was forced to hire an employee he didn’t need to qualify for the plan. The three plaintiffs aired their concerns in a November 2017 interview with The New York Times, and they met with state and federal officials and filed complaints with the state Bureau of Insurance and the American Academy of Actuaries.

In 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil federal False Claims Act investigation into how Sentara set its 2018 and 2019 premiums. The was made public in November 2023, when the Justice Department filed a petition in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, alleging Sentara withheld relevant documents from government investigators. Sentara has fought back against what it categorizes in court filings as government overreach and a “misunderstanding of the ACA’s framework.”

In court filings and public statements, the system denies all allegations and has portrayed itself as a good corporate citizen that stepped up during a politically volatile time to prevent vulnerable Virginians from losing health insurance coverage.

A Dec. 20, 2024, notice by the to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia revealed that the federal government intends to intervene on the allegations made by Stovall, Dixon and Quist that Sentara, Optima and Milliman violated the False Claims Act by making materially false statements and omissions in Optima’s rate filings for the 2018 and 2019 plan years. However, the government declined to intervene in allegations against Milliman based solely on its marketing and use of its health cost guidelines.

The notice says the federal government intends to file a complaint within 90 days of the order to unseal the whistleblower complaint and reserves the right to name additional defendants. The federal government on Dec. 20 also requested that the trio’s complaint and the notice be unsealed.

Plaintiffs ‘completely thrilled’

“At a very basic level, we are, of course, completely thrilled that the Department of Justice, after years of investigation, is so confident in our allegations that they are taking on the case and prosecuting it themselves,” Stovall said. “We knew we were right. We’ve known that we were right, and this, of course, is the ultimate approval of that.”

She and the other plaintiffs remain undecided on how they will proceed with the allegations of the case that the federal government has not decided to intervene in, she said, adding that the three are discussing the matter.

Stovall said she’s curious to see what is revealed when the federal government files its official complaint, saying it would be the result of years of investigation.

“We’ve been trusting them, we’ve been excited,” she said. “We know they’ve learned things, but we don’t know what, so we’ll be learning along with everybody else what’s inside of that complaint, what exactly they found in their investigation.”

Sentara ‘fully compliant with the ‘

Sentara Health spokesperson Mike Kafka says that in 2017, there were “historic market disruptions” and 350,000 in Virginia were at risk of losing Affordable Care Act coverage. At the request of federal and state officials, Sentara worked with regulators to help fill a potential gap in coverage in a short period of time, he said.

“We quickly formulated rates based on sound actuarial principles, the best data available, and with the support from one of the nation’s preeminent actuarial firms,” he said. “Our rates complied with all relevant state and federal laws and rules and were repeatedly approved by regulators.”

Kafka says under the law, insurance companies like Sentara Health Plans (formerly Optima Health) do not keep excess profit premiums, which must be rebated back to customers.

“Sentara was fully compliant with the law and issued over $98 million in rebates to Virginia policyholders for the 2018 plan alone, in accordance with ACA regulations,” Kafka said. “The allegations of wrongdoing are without merit.”

For last year alone, Kafka said Sentara’s participation in the ACA market drove substantial losses without government support or assistance. But Sentara stayed in the market, he added, because “providing health coverage to those who need it is central to our mission.” The complaint, he argued, could have “a chilling effect” and drive insurers like Sentara out of the ACA market entirely.

“The facts are on our side, and we will carefully review any complaint that is filed and make clear that we complied with all applicable laws and regulations while we worked to fulfill our not-for-profit mission,” Kafka said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the plaintiffs in the  whistleblower complaint against Sentara Health did not disclose their status as the complaint whistleblowers during 2017 and 2018 in a New York Times interview and in dealings with state officials and others. The whistleblower complaint was not filed until 2020, well after those interactions took place.

Hitt is co-contractor for Boeing’s $1B expansion in Charleston, S.C.

Falls Church construction company announced Wednesday it has scored a joint contract on -based Boeing’s $1 billion expansion project in North Charleston, . 

Hitt will partner with North Carolina’s BE&K Building Group to expand Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner production facilities in North Charleston, announced by South Carolina’s governor in December 2024. Boeing has two manufacturing campuses there, and the Fortune 500 and giant expects the expansion to help it build 10 planes a month by 2026 and create 500 jobs over the next five years. 

Construction on the expansion is expected to begin late this year, with completion planned in 2027, according to Hitt’s news release.

Boeing’s expansion in South Carolina comes as it attempts to recover financially and reputationally after the January 2024 midair blowout of a panel in a Boeing 737 Jet filled with Alaska Airlines passengers. The opened a criminal , Boeing’s airplane sales plummeted, and CEO Dave Calhoun stepped down amid pressure last year.

In August 2024, Robert “Kelly” Ortberg took over as president and CEO of Boeing, which recorded $12 billion in revenue losses last year and dealt with a seven-week strike last fall by 33,000 union machinists on the West Coast. In January, Boeing began laying off about 10% of its , about 17,000 employees nationwide, in response to the financial losses.

Ortberg has since placed focus on the aerospace giant’s work culture and a renewed emphasis on safety standards, and he is based in Seattle, near Boeing’s Puget Sound commercial airplane facilities. He held a company-wide “town hall” meeting in St. Louis that was webcast to Boeing’s other sites last week.

“Hitt is proud to partner with BE&K and Boeing on this transformative expansion in Charleston,” Evan Antonides, Hitt’s co-president, said in its release. “This investment reinforces Boeing’s commitment to growth in South Carolina, and we’re honored to help bring their vision to life. Our Charleston team looks forward to delivering a project that will drive economic impact and job creation in the region.” 

With anticipated 2024 revenues of $8.4 billion, Hitt is a commercial construction company that employs nearly 1,900 nationwide across 14 offices, including in Charleston. 

BE&K Building Group is a design-build and construction management firm that specializes in aviation and aerospace, according to a news release. BRPH will be the architect of record for the expansion in North Charleston.