Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced on Tuesday the receipt of more than $100 million in opioid settlement payments from drug manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies who agreed to the financial compensation for their role in the opioid crisis.
The press release by Miyares’ office explained the latest round of payments totaled about $108.4 million of the $1.1 billion secured by Virginia in opioid settlements.
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Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares celebrated a victory on Friday after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) halted the enforcement of its new climate changes rules for publicly traded businesses that were imposed by the Biden administration.
The coalition of 25 attorneys general originally sued the Biden administration to block SEC rule changes that require publicly listed businesses report what the government considers climate change risks. A press release from the attorney general notes companies would be forced to “release a plan to adapt to climate agenda recommendations” under the proposed rules.
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A lawsuit brought by religious and faith-based organizations against Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares was settled on Monday, with the parties forming a settlement that drops a requirement for the groups to hire non-Christians.
The conclusion of Cavalry Road Baptist Church v. Miyares was announced by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), whose attorneys represented two Virginia churches, three Christian schools and a pregnancy center network.
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Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares confirmed on Friday that he joined a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general calling on the Department of Justice’s Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Fund to provide additional resources to commonwealth citizens who are victims of crimes.
The VOCA Fund, originally established by a federal law signed in 1984, is financed by fines and penalties paid by individuals convicted in federal cases and funds to provide various services, including financial assistance, to victims of crimes.
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First Lady of Virginia Suzanne Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares on Tuesday held an event for their new fentanyl awareness initiative, called It Only Takes One. They were joined by Roanoke City Mayor Sherman Lea and the parents of a child who died after overdosing on fentanyl.
“Fentanyl is killing our young people and hurting families across the Commonwealth,” Youngkin said during her speech at the event. She added, “By bringing attention to the dangers of this illicit drug, while giving a voice to victims, we aspire to save lives. Ultimately, caring for one another is our higher calling.”
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Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares confirmed on Thursday a $2.8 million media campaign to support Operation Ceasefire, the campaign he began in 2022 to lower gun violence throughout the commonwealth.
A trailer for the attorney general’s campaign, posted to YouTube last month, reveals an upcoming “public awareness and media campaign” titled Ceasefire Virginia. Miyares intends to reach “young people who may be considering gang or violent criminal activity” by targeting them on social media.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin indicated to local media on Friday that Virginia Republicans will reintroduce a bill to charge fentanyl dealers and distributors with murder if their drugs result in a lethal overdose. Virginia Democrats successfully defeated the legislation in February.
Youngkin told 7 News on Friday, “if you’re a drug dealer and you do drugs and someone dies, you should be charged with felony homicide.” He stressed to the outlet, “[w]e cannot coddle drug dealers.”
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Virginia state officials agreed to settle a lawsuit with a Christian wedding photographer after he refused to use his business to celebrate same-sex marriage, according to a press release.
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To save America, first save the court system. Because it may be the last institution in the country doing its job — repelling progressive insanity. Four sound, sage judgments last Friday battered the Left all the way up from a local school district to the White House. Two of them made it a very bad day for the trans movement. But all stress the urgency of voting conservative to maintain righteous normalcy, far more than political circuses like last Wednesday’s Fox Business/Univision/RNC-mounted Republican Primary Debate.
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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) officials announced that they’ve been subpoenaed by the Virginia Attorney General’s Office to release a report on an investigation into the district’s failure to notify some students of their National Merit Awards. FCPS says it’s fighting the subpoena by taking “legal action.”
FCPS says it conducted an independent investigation into their notification process and released a summary of the investigation in March. The investigation concluded that educators did not do anything to intentionally harm students or their college applications, according to FCPS.
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Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has joined a nationwide lawsuit against Avid Telecom for “violating” the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for allegedly “facilitating billions of illegal robocalls.”
Miyares is joining a bipartisan coalition of 48 attorneys general from across the country in filing the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
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A report from the Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office says the Virginia Parole Board violated state law governing victim and prosecutor notifications and had a “culture of ignoring the Virginia Code, Parole Board policies, and administrative procedures,” while accelerating the rate of releases in March 2020. Senate Minority Leader Thomas Norment, Jr. (R-James City) responded to the report by requesting Judge Adrianne Bennett, who was Parole Board chair, to resign.
“Under Chair Adrianne Bennett, the Virginia Parole Board endangered public safety and abused its power by releasing dozens of violent felons against Parole Board policies, and frequently in clear violation of a court order or Virginia law,” Attorney General Miyares said in a press release announcing the report. “Judge Bennett’s brazen abuse of her power put Virginians’ safety at risk so that she could promote a criminal-first, victim-last agenda without regard for victims or their safety.”
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As Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares investigates potential civil rights violations in the widespread withholding of timely National Merit Scholar award notifications to students in suburban Washington, D.C., possibly on “equity” grounds, a local law professor known for public health crusades is floating a novel legal strategy for aggrieved students.
George Washington University’s John Banzhaf says Virginia courts this century have recognized a “somewhat obscure” class of legal claims known as “prima facie torts” that don’t depend on difficult-to-prove allegations such as intentional infliction of emotional distress or racial discrimination.
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Speakers at a pro-gun rally at the Virginia Capitol on Monday criticized some Republican politicians, including Attorney General Jason Miyares, whose office is defending a lawsuit over Virginia’s universal background check laws.
“Democrats might not actually be the roadblock. The roadblock might be Republicans that think that they have the base. There’s something called, ‘The Lesser of Two Evils Fallacy.’ It says that I’m not as bad as the other person, so therefore I’m going to get the votes of my base. We have to get rid of that. If a Republican goes anti-gun, we have to primary them,” Guns of America (GOA) Special Projects Coordinator John Crump said in a speech.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares announced Wednesday a civil rights investigation into Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology amid allegations that school officials suppressed student merit awards until after college early application periods.
“My office will investigate whether the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology administration’s withholding of National Merit Scholarship honors from students violated the Virginia Human Rights Act,” he wrote in a letter to Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid and TJ Principal Ann Bonitatibus, warning that he planned to issue subpoenas if the officials don’t cooperate.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin has asked Attorney General Jason Miyares to investigate the administration at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology after allegations that officials downplayed student National Merit awards until after early selection college deadlines.
“We need to get to the bottom of what appears to be an egregious, deliberate attempt to disadvantage high-performing students at one of the best schools in the country,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a Tuesday press release. “Parents and students deserve answers and Attorney General Miyares will initiate a full investigation. I believe this failure may have caused material harm to those students and their parents, and that this failure may have violated the Virginia Human Rights Act.”
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Governor Glenn Youngkin banned TikToK and WeChat on state devices and WiFi on Friday, the same day Attorney General Jason Miyares signed on to a letter asking Google and Apple to change TikTok age ratings to reflect content on the platform.
“TikTok and WeChat data are a channel to the Chinese Communist Party, and their continued presence represents a threat to national security, the intelligence community, and the personal privacy of every single American,” Youngkin said in a press release announcing his executive order.
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The Virginia Air Pollution Control Board voted four to one with two abstentions on Wednesday to advance a regulatory repeal of the Commonwealth’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), with completion targeted for the end of 2023.
The program requires utilities in participating states to bid on carbon allowances, and withdrawal from the program has been a top goal of Governor Glenn Youngkin since before he took office. Republicans argue that utilities will pass the costs on to consumers, and Democrats highlight funds raised through the program for flood protection and coastal resilience.
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A final report on the grand jury investigation into the Loudoun County Public School district’s handling of two sexual assaults on campuses says senior LCPS administration “were looking out for their own interests instead of the best interests of LCPS,” kept school board (LCSB) members in the dark about critical facts, and also described breakdowns in communication between LCPS, the Sheriff’s Office (LCSO), and the Commonwealth’s attorney’s office that contributed to a failure to prevent the second assault.
“There were several decision points for senior LCPS administrators, up to and including the superintendent, to be transparent and step in and alter the sequence of events leading up to the October 6, 2021 BRHS [Broad Run High School] sexual assault. They failed at every juncture,” the report states. “We concluded there was not a coordinated cover-up between LCPS administrators and members of the LCSB. Indeed, except for the May, 28, 2021 email from the superintendent, the LCSB, both as a body and its individual members, were deliberately deprived of information regarding these incidents until after the October 6, 2021 sexual assault — and even then they learned not from the superintendent’s office but instead from public reporting that the assailant was the same one from the May 28 incident.”
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Attorney General Jason Miyares announced a “One Pill Can Kill” awareness campaign over the risks of fentanyl and counterfeit drugs to try to launch conversations among families ahead of the holidays.
The opioid epidemic has had a devastating effect on our Commonwealth. There isn’t a corner of our state that hasn’t been touched by its pain and destruction. Tragically, overdose deaths are now not limited to addiction, but to counterfeit pills laced with a highly potent, deadly substance – fentanyl,” Miyares said in a press release Tuesday. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen too many young people overdose and die after experimenting with these powerful drugs. As a father, this new threat terrifies me. That’s why I launched ‘One Pill Can Kill,’ a public awareness initiative aimed at generating conversations around the dangers of counterfeit drugs and fentanyl.”
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U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia Christopher Kavanaugh announced sentences in three separate drug dealing cases on Friday, including a case prosecuted by an attorney cross-designated between the Office of the Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Special Assistant United States Attorney M. Suzanne Kerney-Quillen prosecuted the case against Pedro Loza, who was sentenced to 72 months after he was convicted on charges related to the distribution of methamphetamine as part of an organization that trafficked drugs from Texas and Indiana into Southwest Virginia, according to a joint press release from Miyares and the U.S. Attorney’s office.
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Virginia is set to receive $10.7 million as part of a $391.5 million multistate settlement with Google over allegations that the tech company misled users about location tracking related to their Google account settings. “It is imperative that companies take customers’ personal data protection seriously and are transparent and direct about the data collected. As Attorney General, I am committed to protecting Virginians’ personal information and holding accountable companies who mislead Virginians and disregard their privacy,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a press release. In 2018, AP News reported, “Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to. An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so.” The article said that even though users paused “Location History,” some Google apps still stored location data, and users needed to disable another setting, “Web and App Activity,” that was enabled by default. “Specifically, Google caused users to be confused about the scope of the Location History setting, the fact that the Web &…
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Attorney General Jason Miyares announced that the national Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force is taking enforcement action against two telecoms providers over their alleged involvement in illegal robocalls. The two companies Avid Telecom and One Eye, LLC have stopped cooperating with the task force’s investigation.
“The enforcement action against Avid Telecom details several instances in which the task force believes Avid Telecom knowingly accepted and routed illegal robocalls. Further, the task force believes Avid Telecom’s CEO, Michael Lansky, helped another telecom provider hide its suspect traffic,” Miyares’s release states. “The enforcement action against One Eye details how an individual closed another voice service provider, PZ Telecommunication, LLC, and became the apparent CEO of One Eye. This transition occurred after the Federal Communications Commission sent PZ Telecom a cease-and-desist letter.”
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The Virginia NAACP says it is paying $20,000 for a FOIA request into Attorney General Jason Miyares’ Unit of Election Integrity. On Monday, the organization issued a press release suggesting that the unit is unnecessary and that the high price for the requested information is meant to protect the unit from scrutiny. The organization followed up Tuesday with a press conference at the Virginia Capitol. “There is simply no legitimate justification for the creation of this Unit, except to pander to the election deniers and conspiracy theorists whose own rhetoric and actions are the real force undermining public confidence in our elections,” Virginia NAACP President Robert Barnette said in the Monday release. “For the Attorney General to invoke the concept of ‘purity’ in elections in announcing this Unit is particularly alarming to Black Virginians, who have for generations endured racial discrimination, intimidation, and violence intended to prevent them from participating equally in our democracy.” Miyares’ spokesperson Victoria LaCivita responded in a statement, “It is an absolute insult to the Attorney General to falsely claim that he, as the first Hispanic ever elected to statewide office in Virginia, is trying to intimidate and prevent Virginians of any color or background from…
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Dominion Energy, the Office of the Attorney General, and other stakeholders have announced a tentative settlement agreement over how the utility will pay for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) Project. The agreement, which still needs approval from the State Corporation Commission, would allow the utility to bill some cost overruns in the project to consumers, but sets a cap along with some protections for the utility’s shareholders who would otherwise bear the burden. Attorney General Jason Miyares said that’s a win for consumers, and the utility said the agreement balances financial impacts.
“I am pleased that we have achieved consumer protections never seen before in modern Virginia history,” Miyares said in a press release. “For the first time Dominion has significant skin in the game to ensure that the project is delivered on budget. Should the project run materially over budget, it will come out of Dominion’s pocket, not consumers’. If approved by the State Corporation Commission [SCC], this agreement provides first-of-its-kind protections for Virginia consumers. A wide range of stakeholders support this agreement. I especially want to thank the Sierra Club and Appalachian Voices for joining, as well as Virginia’s largest private employer, Walmart. This landmark agreement means that Virginia will be a national leader in offshore renewable energy for years to come and most importantly in a fiscally responsible way.”
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Attorney General Jason Miyares said he’s joining 18 other attorneys general led in an investigation into several major banks for their involvement in the United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA).
“The U.N’s Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which includes American companies, punishes Virginia farmers and Virginia companies that deal with fossil fuel-related activities,” Miyares said in a press release. “Virginians are not subject to U.N. business standards. That’s why I’ve joined a coalition of attorney generals investigating six major American banks for ceding authority to a foreign body.”
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Virginia has received $67.4 million, the first payment in a Johnson and Johnson settlement requiring its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals to stop selling opioids in the U.S.; the Commonwealth will receive about $99.3 million total from the company over nine years.
“I’m thrilled that the money from these record-breaking settlements is on its way. My consumer protection section worked tirelessly to ensure that Virginians received the most funding possible and received it as quickly as possible. This helps the Commonwealth and individual localities fight back against the opioid epidemic and reduce, prevent, and treat addiction,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a press release.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares has joined 34 other attorneys general in an amicus brief supporting Oklahoma’s laws regulating pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Miyares’ press release said Virginia’s laws are similar to Oklahoma’s, and the regulations are necessary to protect consumers and pharmacies against PBMs, which act as middlemen between insurance providers, pharmacies, and drug manufacturers.
“Virginians’ healthcare costs continue to rise, and PBMs are partially to blame. Virginia has enacted laws to protect consumers from abusive PBM practices—including laws I supported in the General Assembly. Now, as your Attorney General, protecting consumers is one of my most important jobs, and I will continue to fight for these laws and the consumers they protect,” Miyares said.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin called for increased funding to support law enforcement and partnerships with localities as part of the administration’s Monday announcement of Operation Bold Blue Line. The proposals were the result of his violent crime task force, which he said found Virginia lacks law enforcement officers, prosecutors, programs for at-risk youth, and support for witnesses and victims.
“It’s often said that our law enforcement heroes represent a thin blue line,” he said in a speech outside a City of Norfolk Library alongside Attorney General Jason Miyares and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.
“Friends, with nearly 40 percent law enforcement vacancy rates in some cities, with too few prosecutors actually prosecuting, with diminished community engagement and witnesses and victims less willing to come forward, that thin blue line is getting far too thin.”
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Governor Glenn Youngkin announced Friday that he wants $10 million in the upcoming budget for research and development for energy technology, including $5 million focused on nuclear.
“Today I am pleased to propose a $10 million investment in the upcoming budget to turn Virginia into a leader in energy innovation,” Youngkin said in the announcement. “With technologies like carbon capture and utilization, and resources like critical minerals, hydrogen, and nuclear, we will make Virginia the epicenter for reliable and affordable energy innovation.”
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Senator Bill Stanley (R-Franklin) is representing former race car driver Hermie Sadler in a lawsuit over skill games against Governor Glenn Youngkin, Attorney General Jason Miyares, and the Virginia ABC. In an August update to the lawsuit first filed against the previous administration, Sadler criticizes top finance legislators for modifying Virginia’s skill games ban through the budget and says the ban still violates free speech and due process rights.
“[A] select group of budget conferees, including Senator Howell and Delegate Barry Knight schemed to sneak into the delayed budget bill a purported amendment to the enjoined Skill Games Ban,” the updated lawsuit complaint states.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin has issued a state of emergency, triggering Virginia’s price-gouging laws ahead of heavy rain and gusty winds, remnants of Hurricane Ian, expected to hit Virginia beginning on Friday.
“In addition to making smart decisions and keeping up with news developments during a statewide emergency declaration, Virginians must also support each other during this potentially hazardous time,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a Thursday press release. “Any violations of Virginia’s Anti-Price Gouging Act or exploitation of Virginians’ wallets will be thoroughly prosecuted through the Virginia Consumer Protection Act by my office. Bad actors will be held accountable.”
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Virginia is partnering with the National Child ID program to provide ID kits for families to keep on hand if a child goes missing.
“As Attorney General, my biggest priority is keeping our children safe. That’s why I’m thrilled to join Virginia Tech legend Frank Beamer and launch the Virginia Child ID Program. The National Child ID Program is a free, easy, and effective tool to help Virginia parents prepare for the unimaginable,” Miyares said in the Thursday announcement.
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Over a dozen school districts across Virginia were targeted by hoax reports of active shootings or other violence on Monday and Tuesday. That’s part of a broader wave of similar hoax calls targeting schools across the U.S.
“On Monday, Virginia State Police personnel responded to assist numerous local police and sheriff’s offices with reports of active shooters on school campuses,” Virginia State Police Public Relations Director Corinne Geller told The Virginia Star. “None of the threats were deemed valid, and the state police, through collaboration with the Virginia Fusion Center, is now working with those same local law enforcement agencies to investigate the source of the threats and to determine if there is any evidence to connect them.”
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Attorney General Jason Miyares signed a letter along with 50 other attorneys general requesting the Federal Commissions Communications to do more to address illegal robocalls. The attorneys general say robocalls often come from foreign actors who spoof Caller ID to show U.S.- based numbers, and ask the FCC to expand which call network providers are required to authenticate Caller ID.
“Robocalls aren’t just annoying – they are illegal tools used to take advantage of the most vulnerable in our communities. We have to do more to protect Virginians from these scammers, which is why I’m encouraging the FCC to require more robocall protection technology,” Miyares said in a release.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares has created a 20-member Election Integrity Unit within the Office of the Attorney General [OAG]; the unit will investigate and prosecute violations of election law, provide legal guidance, and work with law enforcement to protect election purity.
“I pledged during the 2021 campaign to work to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections. It should be easy to vote, and hard to cheat. The Election Integrity Unit will work to help to restore confidence in our democratic process in the Commonwealth,” Miyares said in a press release.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares announced Wednesday that a grand jury has chosen to bring two felony and one misdemeanor charge for incidents occurring around the time of the 2020 election against former Prince William County Registrar Michele White.
“First of all, proper investigations, we shouldn’t know what’s going on exactly, you know, as opposed to when some certain folks do investigations there’s a leak every thirty seconds,” said John Mills, director and founder of the National Election Integrity Association.
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Virginia will get $16.61 million over six to ten years as part of a $438.5 million agreement in principle with JUUL after an investigation into whether the e-cigarette manufacturer marketed its products to underage users.
“Youth vaping is an epidemic, and from the get-go JUUL has been a leader in the e-cigarette industry. But JUUL targeted young people with deceptive social media advertising campaigns and misled the public about the product’s dangers. My office will continue to go after and hold accountable companies that market addictive products like e-cigarettes to minors, with no concern for their health or well-being,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a press release announcing the agreement.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares and 36 other attorneys general want Congress to grant them power to enforce consumer protection laws against airlines; on Wednesday the National Association of Attorneys General sent a letter to Congressional leaders saying that the U.S. Department of Transportation has failed to protect airline customers under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Miyares said in a press release, “Flying is essential to millions of Virginians and helps support both our state and national economies, which means that consumer confidence in the air travel experience has significant economic impact. For years, the federal government has failed to spur the U.S. Department of Transportation to effectively and efficiently respond to consumer complaints and state attorneys general have little to no authority to hold airline companies accountable when they break the law and abuse consumers. Congress must discuss possible legislation that provides more consistent and fair enforcement mechanisms for consumer violations to protect Virginians that are heavily reliant on the airline industry for personal and professional travel.”
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Attorney General Jason Miyares’ grand jury investigation into the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) can go forward after the Virginia Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit from the school board seeking to block the investigation.
In a Friday opinion, the Supreme Court said the only grounds for blocking the injunction would be under a violation of the Virginia Constitution, which grants authority to school boards to oversee schools.
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A federal court in Pennsylvania ruled that an antitrust lawsuit from 42 states against the Chesterfield, Virginia-based manufacturer of Suboxone can go forward, a “major victory” according to an announcement from Attorney General Jason Miyares.
“The intentional implementation of an illegal ‘product hopping’ scheme to block or delay generic versions of a medication used to help individuals recover from opioid addiction is a despicable exploitation of the opioid epidemic. The decisions made by Indivior Inc. caused purchasers to pay artificially high prices for a leading opioid addiction treatment, making access to recovery more difficult for Virginians while putting more money into the pockets of the manufacturers amid a national opioid crisis,” Miyares’ release states.
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RICHMOND, Virginia — Attorney General Jason Miyares stopped at the Calhoun community center in Gilpin Court, a low-income neighborhood with a local reputation for violence. Miyares met privately with local leaders and parents and handed out backpacks with school supplies to residents as part of a series of stops he is making around Virginia.
“I came here to the Calhoun Center to hear what was happening, and what people are saying is happening,” Miyares told reporters after the Thursday meeting. “A lot of it was about school safety, but also about larger issues in the community.”
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Attorney General Jason Miyares announced a settlement with two landlords, culminating a lawsuit alleging that the Richmond-based landlords defrauded tenants by offering services for low-income tenants without providing the services. Jump Start U2, Inc, and Vasilios Education Center, Inc., and their operator Carl Vaughan must pay $10,000 in restitution to consumers who paid for services that weren’t provided; they’re also not allowed to collect on over 175 judgements against tenants, worth more than $200,000 in total.
“We will not tolerate landlords who take advantage of Virginians seeking affordable housing by violating and ignoring laws designed to protect Virginia consumers. My office is dedicated to protecting vulnerable Virginians from such abusive practices, and we will continue to hold bad actors accountable,” Miyares said in a press release Tuesday.
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The U.S. Department of Education (ED) granted federal loan forgiveness to former ITT Technical Institute students, including $141.6 million across 7,190 Virginians, after findings that the school falsely advertised the value of its degrees.
“Attending higher education is a big decision, and a sacrifice for many Virginians,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a press release.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares is warning that the latest congressional budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2023 will cut funding for the Virginia Army National Guard (VANG) Counter Drug unit program by about ten percent, eliminating several positions.
“The current proposed budget reductions would result in the loss of five VNG Counter Drug Unit analysts across the Commonwealth, one of which would be lost in Southwest Virginia. The loss of this analyst in SWVA would leave only two VANG Counter Drug analysts to provide support for the 52 counties in the Western District of Virginia. As you are both aware, this region is already underserved, underfunded, and has long been nearest the epicenter of the opioid crisis in our country,” Miyares said in a letter sent to Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Mark Warner (D-VA) as well as Representatives Ben Cline (R-VA-06) and Jennifer Wexton (D-VA-10).
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Richmond law enforcement will distribute cold case decks of cards to inmates at the Richmond City Justice Center; the cards feature pictures and names of victims of unsolved homicides.
“The loss of a murdered loved one is devastating. Not receiving justice makes it even worse. I’m hopeful that this creative tool will help law enforcement provide answers and justice to these families,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in an announcement.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares joined an amicus brief opposing the Biden administration’s ongoing lawsuit over the CDC’s mask mandate for interstate travel. A district court vacated the requirement, but the CDC appealed, and the Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Biden case is now in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
“Mask Mandates across the country have been lifted in virtually every aspect of daily life. For months, Americans have been traveling safely while making their own, autonomous decisions. The CDC mask mandate on public transportation, like air travel, is obsolete and no longer necessary – not to mention a clear example of federal overreach,” Miyares said in a press release.
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The Virginia State Corporation Commission approved applications from Dominion Energy for its proposed Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project to feature 176 wind turbines 27 miles off Virginia’s coast, although the project still needs federal approvals.
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Most Virginia localities were expected Friday to start receiving their share of the first payment in an opioid settlement, about $4.1 million split across the 133 localities. Additionally, Virginia’s Opioid Abatement Authority (OAA) will receive about $9.9 million, Attorney General Jason Miyares announced.
“I’m thrilled to announce that after a long period of waiting, the payments to Virginia’s Opioid Abatement Authority and to Virginia’s localities under this landmark settlement are on the way. Now, Virginia communities will be able to take actionable steps to fight back against the opioid epidemic, knowing that more help is on the way,” Miyares said in a press release.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares is one of 23 attorneys general suing the USDA over expanded guidance adding discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity to its application of Title IX rules for the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), which provides federal funding for food assistance programs including school meals.
“The Biden Administration is attempting to use the power of the federal government to force Virginia to choose between nutrition assistance for vulnerable children or advancing an extremist agenda,” Miyares spokesperson Victoria LaCivita said in a statement.
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