Press Rewind podcast
No time to read our weekly recap newsletter? Then listen up: It’s the Press Rewind podcast, which will catch you up on top headlines in five minutes or less. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
The week’s top stories
-Monk Madness took over the Fredericksburg area last week, with crowds coming out to see the Buddhist monks of the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center make their Walk for Peace from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to promote peace, compassion and nonviolence. The trek came through Fredericksburg and through Caroline, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties, writes Taft Coghill Jr.
Photojournalist Jeff Kearney and Free Press Managing Editor Joey LoMonaco captured images of all of the excitement. Below are just a few of the pictures they took:
PHOTOS: The Venerable monks make their way through Fredericksburg
-Four people involved in a racially-charged dispute on Partlow Road last summer recently met with the Spotsylvania Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office and decided to discontinue their cases. Two county residents were facing charges of brandishing a firearm and indecent exposure, and a Black couple from Richmond were each facing a charge of filing a false police report and a charge of obtaining money by false pretenses. However, the case seemed more and more complicated as time passed, Coghill reports.
-The marching bands at Spotsylvania’s five high schools could receive an extra $7,300 each in the next fiscal year if a proposal from the county School Board comes to fruition. The education budget for fiscal 2027 still needs approvals from the School Board and Board of Supervisors. Coghill has the story.
-It appears less likely that a proposed ICE detention center will be put in Stafford. The county’s Board of Supervisors issued a statement last week, saying that “no official communication” has indicated the locality is being considered for a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Several speakers at the supervisors’ meeting Tuesday spoke against ICE anyway. The uproar came after a story in The Washington Post said Stafford was under consideration for an ICE warehouse.
-A humanitarian mission from the Fredericksburg area to West Africa in April will feature a donated ambulance and medical supplies left over after the closing of the Moss Free Clinic. The woman behind the trip is Nana Noi, regional systems coordinator for the Rappahannock Emergency Medical Services Council. Her daughter, Naomi, is working on a nursing degree in Ghana, and she tells her mother daily about the lack of resources there.
Go figures (numbers in the news)
7,872 — That’s the square footage of the former home of the Rappahannock United Way. It sold last week for $2.1 million and will continue in another form of public service. Bill Freehling has the details and other business news in Biz Beat Roundup.
What they’re saying
“I wanted something that was permanent.” -Carolyn Marks Johnson, Texas artist. Her work is being featured in the University of Mary Washington’s Ridderhof Martin Gallery. It features 23 collars, hand-stitched and cast in bronze. Each collar honors the achievements of women who contributed to equality for all. Kathy Knotts has the story in Free Time, our weekly arts and entertainment newsletter.
Pressing on (a look at the week ahead)
-We’ll take a look at what a proposed redrawing of Virginia’s congressional district boundaries could mean to the Fredericksburg region. Gov. Abigail Spanberger has signed off on holding a special election in April on a proposed constitutional amendment to allow the redistricting, but the matter also is now before the Virginia Supreme Court.
Sunday read
-A handful of Fredericksburg-area leaders were on Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s transition team, which helped prepare her for her new office. Your Press Rewind writer talked to a few of them about their experience and the issues on which they advised the woman now known as “Her Excellency.”
