By Carten Cordell | Virginia Statehouse News   ALEXANDRIA — A federal auditor blasted the multi-state airport authority overseeing construction of the $5.5 billion Silver Line Metro extension for mismanagement, lack of transparency and failure to allow competition on contracts. The U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General’s report on the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority cited several [...]

By Carten Cordell | Virginia Statehouse News   ALEXANDRIA — Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell announced a sales tax holiday Monday on 22 items considered essential to hurricane preparedness as 2012 the season approaches. “This tax-free holiday will make it easier and more economical to assemble an emergency kit now which may make Virginian’s lives easier [...]

  By David Frisk | Virginia Statehouse News   RICHMOND — Gov. Bob McDonnell has stressed economic growth as a hallmark of his administration, and a new tax reform proposal is being billed as a way to boost jobs. But the reforms would come at a cost.   The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, which promotes free-market [...]

By Kathryn Watson | Virginia Statehouse News ALEXANDRIA — With an average SAT score of 2,200 and a 100 percent graduate rate, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology here ranked No. 10 in Newsweek’s 2012 report on America’s Best High Schools. Virginia, which also boasts the No. 16 school, Richmond’s Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government [...]

  By David Frisk | Virginia Statehouse News RICHMOND — A lawsuit to allow easier signature-gathering for the Libertarian Party could cause Virginia Republicans a big headache in November by putting a competitor on the ballot, especially because similar lawsuits have succeeded around the country during the past decade. Several federal court rulings have invalidated restrictive state laws on signature-gathering, [...]

By Carten Cordell | Virginia Statehouse News ALEXANDRIA — As construction of Phase 2 of the Silver Line Metro extension awaits approval from Loudoun County, parking for its two proposed stations has become a hot potato passed back and forth between two project partners, each looking for ways to lighten their bottom lines. Loudoun agreed [...]

By Kathryn Watson | Virginia Statehouse News   ALEXANDRIA — Prospective students scoping out colleges and universities in Virginia won’t find out how many graduates get jobs, but they will learn how much graduates earn with certain degrees and majors from various schools. Even without the employment data, the database may not present an accurate assessment [...]

By Carten Cordell | Virginia Statehouse News   ALEXANDRIA — About the only thing Virginia and the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority agree on when it comes to extending the Silver Line metro to Washington Dulles International Airport is both want it built. But concerns about cost overruns and organized labor agreements have turned the $2.8 [...]

By Kathryn Watson | Virginia Statehouse News ALEXANDRIA — The House of Delegates on Monday rejected a handful of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s education-related budget amendments. Two of those amendments would have jeopardized the higher salaries of school support staff in Northern Virginia, something delegates in both parties of the Republican-controlled House — but particularly those who represent the northern part [...]

By David Frisk | Virginia Statehouse News RICHMOND — The General Assembly on Monday passed three key amendments offered by Gov. Bob McDonnell that restore economic development funding left out of the fiscal 2013-14 budget adopted in April. The governor’s new “life sciences initiative,” intended to fund biological and medical research at several state universities to [...]