It was a surprising observation, Rai said, given research suggests “many of the habits, such as having patience and gratitude, actually start at” the elementary school level. So Rai, Austin Chen and Ayush Ranjan worked to address that by creating a book.

Called “The Seed That Grows,” the book emphasizes the importance and value of saving, among other things. The trio wrote the storyline and created the images, and the book has now been distributed across Fairfax County elementary schools and to various countries abroad.

“For being able to be financially stable, you have to have those basic skills about not just spending money whenever you get a chance, but actually having that basic discipline in order to save it or wait awhile,” Rai said.

The book, Rai said, uses a metaphor of a seed to discuss saving, investing and delayed gratification. It tells the story of two kids who each get a seed: one who decides to plant it and wait for a tree to grow, and the other who traded the seed for a piece of candy, a short-term goal.

As the story progresses, the contrast between thinking in the near and long terms is revealed, Rai said.

The group raised over $1,000 for the project and 274 books were distributed at 12 nearby Fairfax County schools and five international schools.

Because their adviser has connections at the World Bank, Rai said translated versions of the book made it to India, China, Kazakhstan and Australia.

They also hosted several read-aloud sessions, asking students to participate in surveys before and afterward.

“We saw a 74% in understanding,” Rai said.

Now, they’re planning to take the same concepts used in the book and turn them into a financial literacy game, Rai said.

The hope, Rai said, is students will develop “habit-based learning in order to instill their success and their discipline and their financial success when they grow up and manage their finances.”

Source

The incident happened around 5:30 p.m. Thursday in a townhouse community not far from Dulles Airport. The van’s driver, a woman, was making a left turn from Highland Mews Court onto Madden Court when the crash happened in the parking lot.

Fairfax County Police Capt. Harold Morris, assistant traffic division commander, said during a news conference Friday that the van made a left turn when “the 9-year-old who was operating the electric scooter struck the rear of the minivan on the passenger side.”

The boy, who investigators said wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time, was taken to the hospital, where he later died.

“This is a tragic event, and we want to make sure that everyone knows that we are with the family during this time,” Morris said.

In a news release later Friday, police said neither alcohol nor speed were a factor in the crash. They identified the van as a 2012 Honda Odyssey.

The driver remained on the scene at the time of the incident, police said. Morris said there’s “no indication at this time that there’s any unsafe or reckless manner” in which the woman was driving the van. No charges have been filed as of Friday.

While police have received some video footage of the crash, Morris said it’s unclear how fast the e-scooter was going, what kind it was and who owned it.

The police’s Victim Services Unit has been on the scene of the crash, and “our chaplain was out there last night to provide services for those to comfort them,” Morris said.

Fairfax County law requires anyone 15 and under to wear a helmet when operating any type of e-bike.

In the Commonwealth, e-bikes are sorted into one of three categories. Class 1 e-bikes are pedal assisted only and have a 20 mph maximum assisted speed.

Class 2 e-bikes have pedal assist and throttle and a 20 mph maximum assisted speed. Class 3 bikes are pedal assist only and have a 28 mph maximum assisted speed.

Anyone with information about Thursday’s crash can call Fairfax Police’s Crash Reconstruction Unit at 703-280-0543.

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A group of Northern Virginia residents protested Thursday against a plan to build a transmission line in a 6.5-mile stretch of Prince William County, as Dominion Energy hosted an event explaining why the project is needed.

At Patriot High School in Nokesville, Virginia, Dominion organized an hourslong open house for its proposed Nokesville-Bristow project. The plan calls for a 230-kilovolt transmission line that will connect the existing Nokesville Substation with a planned Bristow Switching Station.

Last week, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors effectively took two routes out of contention, saying it didn’t plan to offer Dominion easements or use of county property for the routes called “blue” and “light blue.”

The proposal led to the latest clash between the Virginia utility and residents and lawmakers.

“Everywhere I go, there are either data centers or more substations and these transmission towers,” Carylee Carrington, a longtime Prince William County resident, said. “This is where I want to have my kids grow up. I have a 14 and 11-year-old, and it’s just been shocking to see how things have changed.”

Transmission line critics held a news conference in the school’s parking lot. Some sat on tractors. Others held signs that read “Bury the Lines” and “Save Our Rural Land.”

An organization called The Coalition to Protect Prince William County planned the event, which featured state officials such as state Sens. Danica Roem and Jeremy McPike, among others.

Deshundra Jefferson, who chairs the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, told �鶹���� local officials’ hands are “tied to a certain extent, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to fight against this.”

“Dominion can do better and they need to do better,” Jefferson said. “What they’re looking at is profitability, not the people, not the communities that they’re impacting.”

Dominion Energy said the Nokesville line is necessary to ensure community members have “dependable electric service as the Innovation Park area expands,” according to the project’s website.

At the company’s open house inside the school, residents lined up to read signs with project details and ask questions about the proposal.

Data centers are frequently mentioned as a reason for the need for the extra lines and Dominion spokeswoman Aisha Khan said they’re “a big factor in driving that demand.”

“But so is electrification. So is the growing population. So are your hospitals, your schools, your fire stations,” she said.

Demonstrators called for the line to be buried underground. Khan said that option has been studied but isn’t feasible. Other buried utilities are in the way, she said, and bedrock is a barrier.

“Trying to get through that bedrock,” Khan said. “It’s going to take so long, so many months to try to drill through that. And on top of that, it’s going to be costly.”

Dominion must submit a preferred line route to the State Corporation Commission for consideration before the project can move forward.

Khan did not have a cost estimate for the project or an estimated time frame for identifying a preferred route.

Walker Trenum, who has lived in Nokesville for 23 years, said many people are worried “about the whole data centers constantly pushing in, taking over Ashburn and they’re eventually going to work their way down here.”

“The important thing is trying to drag that out as long as possible to keep the fight alive until people can see the real harms behind it.”

Kat, another Nokesville resident, said the line is going to “cut apart people’s private properties and it’s going to destroy the beauty of our lifestyle.”

Khan said Thursday’s event was the second open house for the project, and comments can also be .

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The bus driver facing charges in the deadly Stafford County crash was granted bond Wednesday, but a second court has to weigh in before he can be released.

Jing Sheng Dong faces five involuntary manslaughter charges in connection with the May 29 crash along Interstate 95 in Stafford County, near mile marker 146.

During the hourlong bond hearing in Stafford County Circuit Court, Judge Charles Clark granted Dong $25,000 secure bond on three of the five charges.

Clark also ordered that Dong not consume any alcohol or drugs unless a doctor prescribes it, and to surrender his U.S. and Chinese passports, personal driver’s license and commercial driver’s license.

Clark ordered Dong, who lives on Staten Island, not to leave Virginia and to remain in the commonwealth under house arrest, with the exception of court appearances, lawyers’ meetings and doctor’s visits. He’s not allowed to have any contact with crash victims or their families.

Dong, who was in a wheelchair and had an interpreter present for the hearing, nodded in agreement.

In issuing his ruling, Clark said he weighed whether Dong is a danger to himself or others and whether he is a flight risk. Ultimately, he said, “the danger and risk can be mitigated.”

Dong won’t be released until another bond hearing in General District Court, where prosecutors filed two of the five involuntary manslaughter counts. They did so to avoid having a trial begin within five months, which is the circuit court requirement.

Thomas Walsh, Dong’s attorney, said a bond hearing in District Court could be scheduled as early as this week. If all parties agree to the same bond terms, Walsh said, a formal hearing may not be needed.

Dong’s trial is scheduled for Oct. 6, but Walsh said that may change based on the bond rulings.

In court Wednesday, Stafford Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Olsen argued Dong should be held without bond. He said Dong’s Chinese passport made him a flight risk.

Olsen also said that because Dong had a commercial driver’s license and was driving a bus, he had heightened responsibility under the law.

On May 29, Dong was driving a charter bus with more than two dozen passengers from New York to North Carolina. At around 2:30 a.m., Dong was passing through Stafford on southbound Interstate 95 when his bus struck a line of cars that was slowing for a construction zone near Marine Base Quantico.

Dong approached a “sea of red lights,” Olsen said in court, and didn’t show any evidence of slowing down.

Prosecutors entered photos of the chain-reaction crash aftermath into evidence under seal. They also played three videos in court — one from an express lane pole camera that showed the cars slowing and subsequent crash, another video from the inside of a truck and footage from a sheriff deputy’s drone that flew over the crash scene at daybreak.

A witness who was part of the crash, Olsen said, will describe Dong’s “driving behavior” in the moments before it happened.

Olsen also described Dong’s previous traffic violations, including one in Annapolis for driving a bus 72 mph in a 50 mph zone.

“He’s a danger behind the wheel, and nothing can stop him from getting behind the wheel,” Olsen told the judge.

But Walsh said Dong wasn’t on his phone, under the influence of alcohol or drugs or sleeping at the time of the crash. Walsh previously argued that Dong was driving under the speed limit.

A medical report, Walsh said, revealed Dong had to be cut out of the bus and transported to the hospital. He now has “staples down his stomach,” among other injuries, Walsh said.

“There’s videos from inside the bus where he’s driving, not asleep, not on a phone, no drugs,” Walsh told reporters after the hearing. “It’s just a horrible accident.”

Dong has shown remorse for the crash, Walsh said.

“When I showed him news reports of the accident with the pictures, he broke down crying,” Walsh said. “The first time we met him, he just started crying. He got emotional.”

The bond condition that requires Dong to stay in Virginia before trial could be challenging, Walsh said, because he doesn’t live in the state. The judge said a hotel could be a sufficient proof of address.

“It’s an accident,” Walsh said. “It’s horrible. Getting a jury is going to be tough, to set aside the emotions of losing a family that just basically disintegrated, and another person. It’s going to be hard for me to get that.”

�鶹����’s Neal Augenstein contributed to this report.

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In a letter to Spanberger on Tuesday, state Del. Joseph McNamara and Sen. David Suetterlein wrote that affording the commission “the necessary time for conscientious review is critical.”

“Virginia should not be rushed,” they .

The proposed $67 billion merger would create an energy giant as data centers drive increased demand. If approved, the company would serve about 10 million utility customer accounts in Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, The Associated Press reported.

Under Virginia law, the review process is 60 days from a completed application, though the State Corporation Commission can extend that time frame another 120 days. A deal is approved by default if that time expires, though the governor or elected officials can call for a special session to extend the review period.

Separately, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell told �鶹���� the commission “needs an additional six months to look at the merger. I reached out to the SCC and talked to them about it, and they’ve indicated they could use the additional time.”

In a announcing the merger filing last week, Dominion said its customers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina would receive $2.25 billion in bill credits over the first two years after the deal closes.

The merger, Dominion said, would also allow the company to have greater purchasing power and help “meet growing power demand affordably while maintaining service quality and reliability.”

Dominion referred �鶹���� to the press release when asked for comment on the call to grant the State Corporation Commission more time to review the deal.

Spanberger, meanwhile, signaled support for the extra time when it was included in the House of Delegates’ budget proposal in June. That amendment would have given the commission up to a year. However, that did not make it into the final budget package.

In a statement Tuesday, a Spanberger spokesman said the governor is reviewing the proposed merger and her administration is “assessing all available avenues to lower costs for Virginians and achieve these shared priorities.”

The merger also requires approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission, the Public Service Commission of South Carolina, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Their reviews “may expose risks, produce concessions, or supply conditions unavailable to the SCC before the Commonwealth’s clock runs out,” McNamara and Suetterlein’s letter said.

Brennan Gilmore, executive director of utility watchdog Clean Virginia, said the current time frame isn’t sufficient to examine the potential impacts on customers. This week, Clean Virginia filed a motion with the commission suggesting the proposed merger can’t move forward because there are many unanswered questions, including how the merger could affect Virginians.

“Virginians, no matter where you are in the state, these decisions will be impacting you,” Gilmore said. “I know people are having a hard time paying their electric bill as it is. If this acquisition goes forward, it looks like bills will be even higher, so now’s the time to let your voice be heard.”

Asked for comment about customers worried about rate increases after a merger, Dominion told �鶹���� in a statement: “Under Virginia law, the State Corporation Commission is the established, independent body with the authority and expertise to evaluate utility mergers. We believe the SCC’s longstanding, fact-based process is the appropriate venue to ensure a thorough review that protects customers.”

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Loudoun County Public Schools and Supervisors, and Dominion Energy, had asked the commission to hold off on a decision while the parties worked through challenges associated with the proposed “Golden to Mars” transmission line project. The $513 million plan calls for 230 and 500-kilovolt lines that will help power data centers.

Dominion said the plan will help “keep electricity reliable in your community.” It includes 185-foot towers, and the plan has drawn fierce opposition from the community.

But Monday night, the commission said the selected route will move forward, because delaying the project “unreasonably jeopardizes the provision of reliable electric service within the Commonwealth.” The decision paves the way for the project’s opponents to appeal to Virginia’s Supreme Court.

In April, the State Corporation Commission selected a path called Route 4 for the project. It would have put the line near Rock Ridge High and Rosa Lee Carter Elementary schools. That option would have required school board approval, but the board never provided it.

Instead, the agency announced a different path, Route 3A, would proceed. The commission called that option “clearly inferior.” But Loudoun’s school board accepted donated land from the Loudoun Valley Estates homeowner’s association, meaning both routes include school property.

During a special school board meeting last week, community members expressed concerns with the project’s future and urged the school board to push back against the project.

Robert Brown, for one, said Route 3A would “place major transmission infrastructure in a location with serious impacts on nearby homes, students, educators, school operations, neighborhoods and the Broad Run Stream Valley environment.”

Lauren Lillestolen, meanwhile, said the school board should “make the best choice for its schools, not the SCC. If the school board is unable to block all routes surrounding the schools and alternative options do not exist, please look at the information objectively and choose the route that reduces impact to students at school and at home.”

Vicky Hu has been a vocal critic of the project, because she said part of the proposed route would run along her property. During the meeting, Hu told the board, “When we are drowning, abandoned by the county, you have courage standing up for the school and for the community. I just want to say thank you.”

Dominion and the county had been making “meaningful progress” toward an agreement, according to a State Corporation Commission filing. A joint school board and Board of Supervisors meeting to talk more about the project is scheduled for July 29.

Source

A controversial plan to build a new transmission line across 115 miles of rural Virginia will help provide power to the northern part of the state, where customers will also be paying for it.

Valley Link’s Joshua Falls to Yeat Electric Transmission Line Project would use a 765-kilovolt line running from Campbell County to Culpeper County. PJM, which operates the regional grid, approved the project and is considering it a solution to address growing demand.

The line could cost between $1 and $2 billion and is scheduled to be completed by 2029, though Craig Carper, a Valley Link spokesman, said that timeline may change.

In communities along the proposed route, the project has been met with fierce resistance. Critics have raised concerns about safety, environmental impacts, changes to neighborhood views and effects on property values.

As heat waves become more common and demand grows from data centers, electric vehicles and smart devices in homes become popular, Virginia will need more power. By 2040, demand is expected to nearly double, Carper said.

“There’s many drivers toward the increased load demands that we’ve got, but data centers are the lead, and the bulk of those are in that data center alley,” Carper told �鶹����.

The project is proposed by Valley Link, a joint venture between Dominion, FirstEnergy Transmission and Transource.

The group studied nine counties. The latest route no longer includes Spotsylvania County and runs through Orange, Louisa, Goochland, Fluvanna, Buckingham, Appomattox, Campbell and Culpeper counties, Carper said.

Fewer than 75 homes are within 500 feet of the proposed line, and fewer than 10 are within 150 feet of the latest route, according to Valley Link.

Valley Link said it aims to minimize impacts on wetlands, conservation easements and historic and architectural resources while avoiding schools, residential neighborhoods and river crossings whenever possible.

It has hosted a series of open houses aimed at addressing concerns and reviewed thousands of public comments.

Much of the proposed route crosses land where Valley Link doesn’t have existing rights of way, requiring negotiations with property owners. The right of way would extend 100 feet on either side of the center line, Carper said.

Court-settled purchases, he said, “are used only as a last resort,” but “every landowner is compensated if an easement is put on their land.”

The final design for transmission structures have not been determined. Valley Link plans to submit its preferred route to Virginia’s State Corporation Commission this fall and expects a ruling in fall 2027.

“The grid is interconnected,” Carper said. “Problems in one region do not stay in one region due to the interconnectivity of the grid.”

He said the grid serves Richmond, Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg and the Shenandoah Valley.

During a Culpeper Board of Supervisors meeting last month, Kathleen Rodgers Kirk said the “best parts of Virginia were never meant to be sold. Not now, not ever.”

At the same session, Jim Hurlock called the project a “calculated takeover.”

The project includes the proposed Yeat substation in Culpeper, which local elected officials have publicly opposed.

Despite the pushback, Carper said there’s no alternative: “The Plan B does not exist.”

“There’s discussions that we’ll need to have with relevant parties to determine what happens if we get to a point where local zoning approval isn’t granted,” Carper said.

For Rick Kilcoyne, who lives north of Lake Anna, one concern is what he said would be the project’s impact “on our view shed here.” He also raised concerns about health effects and property values, saying real estate agents have told him homes with views of power lines can lose value.

“We’re going to get power everywhere, but there’s just no local value here,” Kilcoyne said. “There’s just no local value. It’s just a straight take, which is, ‘we’re going to run these power lines across here.’ The rates aren’t going down.”

While the project would run through rural Virginia, Carper said it will help power-hungry data centers in Northern Virginia.

“This is, by its very nature, impactful,” Carper said. “There’s no getting around it. We understand that and we appreciate that. We can’t eliminate the impacts, but we can do our very best to minimize impacts.”

Speaking as a Dominion spokesman, Carper said customers will help cover the cost of the project. On the company’s bill statements, it includes a transmission section. That portion is expected to go up $1 or $2, Carper said.

“If one part of the grid is sick, the whole grid is sick,” Carper said.

Source

Fairfax County, Virginia, leaders this week approved a plan to round cash transaction totals up or down to the nearest nickel, a step that comes in response to the lack of new penny coins being produced.

As part of the shift, anyone who pays a tax bill or fee in person with cash will have the transaction totals rounded.

The change comes after the U.S. Mint stopped making new pennies last November. During the last Virginia General Assembly session, lawmakers gave local jurisdictions the authority to pass a temporary ordinance to adjust bills and account balances for taxes and other services.

“The lack of new coins, coupled with the underutilization and circulation of existing coins, has already led to shortages that are impacting the ability of businesses and governments to obtain pennies for cash transactions,” said Christopher Hartl, chief of the Banking and Investments Division for Fairfax County’s finance department.

It’s unclear exactly how many people pay county balances with cash, but according to county documents, there have been recent instances in which pennies haven’t been available at certain locations. As a result, residents have intentionally been given the incorrect change.

Under the plan, if the total transaction amount ends with a one, two, six or seven as the last digit for the number of cents, the price will be rounded down to the closest number of cents divisible by five.

If the amount ends with a three, four, eight or nine as the last digit for the number of cents, the total will be rounded up to the nearest number of cents divisible by five.

The impact of the change on total amounts is expected to be “immaterial,” according to county documents, because the adjustments wouldn’t be more than 2 cents higher or lower.

Hartl told the Board of Supervisors this week that the change will give county departments “the ability to address this rising issue.”

Anyone paying with a check or credit card isn’t expected to be impacted.

No members of the public spoke during a hearing on the proposed change Tuesday afternoon.

Fairfax’s legislation is scheduled to begin on July 1, 2027.

Lawmakers in Richmond are expected to be briefed by the Department of Taxation on a long-term solution before the 2027 General Assembly session.

In Fairfax County, cash is accepted at community centers and for taxes, fees and sales of goods and services.

In a social media video explaining the change, Supervisor Walter Alcorn said the county’s “kind of not making change anymore because there are no more pennies being produced in this country.”

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According to the court docket, Jimenez was stopped May 5 for driving 104 mph in a 70 mph zone.

It’s unclear where Jimenez was driving at the time.

Local news site first reported details of the incident.

�鶹���� has contacted Jimenez’s office for comment.

Based on court records, Jimenez was also charged with not having registration information.

Jimenez, who is being represented by McLean-based attorney Makan Shirafkan, is scheduled to appear in court Monday morning.

Under Virginia law, drivers are considered guilty of reckless driving if they’re going 20 mph or more over the speed limit or faster than 85 mph, regardless of the posted speed limit. Reckless driving is considered a Class 1 misdemeanor.

If convicted, a Class 1 misdemeanor comes with a $2,500 fine and/or up to a year in jail.

Jimenez represents the county’s Mason District and represents Fairfax on the Virginia Association of Counties and the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission.

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Brownouts happen when a utility intentionally lowers the voltage on distribution power lines going into a home or business. When the voltage is reduced, lights appear to be a brownish color, though the impact is sometimes so minimal it goes unnoticed.

Heat waves and the increasing presence of data centers have “pushed demand to record levels,” said Ben Hobbs, Schad professor of environmental management at Johns Hopkins University.

“The last five years have been a big change,” Hobbs said. “We’ve seen, of course, an increasing frequency of heat waves. We’ve seen the data centers and crypto, which also consumes a lot of power.”

As the D.C. region sweltered under 100-degree temperatures earlier in July, regional grid operator — an estimated 168,158 megawatts between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on July 2, according to preliminary data. PJM edged out a previous peak record set Aug. 2, 2006.

However, there haven’t been any weather-related events on the PJM system that have led to brownouts, a spokesman told �鶹���� in an email.

Similarly, a Dominion Energy spokesman told �鶹���� that while it hasn’t been confirmed yet, “I suspect that we set multiple all-time peak load records” during the heat wave over the July Fourth weekend. A similar record was set during the extreme cold weather in late January; in a 24-hour period this winter, load demand increased 25%, the spokesman said.

Brownouts are generally deemed a last resort, Hobbs said, because if voltage drops too much, the quality of service deteriorates. It could mean a less bright light bulb, a toaster oven that’s less hot or a small rise in the household temperature, even if the air conditioning unit is operating at full capacity.

Some residents have signed up for energy saving programs, which help prevent brownouts. Pepco, for one, offers customers who enroll bill credits in exchange for the ability to adjust the air conditioning unit or heat pump during peak times.

Similar programs exist for factories and manufacturing facilities, Virginia Tech electrical engineering professor Saifur Rahman said. In exchange for the ability to temporarily shut down power, they get a lower rate.

“If you have significant shortages of capacity, the first thing a utility does is, their customers that it’s contracted with to interrupt them during shortage periods, in exchange for which they get a lower price, those get interrupted first,” Hobbs said.

While data centers require significant power, the arrangements are preplanned, Rahman said. So, when a company agrees to give a data center power, it has to arrange for extra power to be brought in through transmission lines or local generation.

During this month’s heat wave, the U.S. Department of Energy gave PJM the authority to direct utilities to move data centers to backup generation. However, the company didn’t need to take that step, it said.

PJM didn’t direct utilities to temporarily cut power in targeted areas, and doesn’t anticipate needing to do it as 100-degree temperatures return this week, a spokesman said.

When power is lost because of a storm, Hobbs said, the result is a blackout. But brownouts generally refer to “an imbalance of overall supply and demand because of heat increasing demand and at the same time decreasing supply.”

“It’s not like we’re going to be living with brownouts every day for a year or anything like that,” Hobbs said. “It’s going to be short in duration, but of course, at precisely the time that you really need the power for you, the air conditioning.”

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The board indicated its support for the idea during its meeting Thursday, unanimously approving a plan asking the Board of Supervisors to consider the possible benefits.

The step comes weeks after Virginia’s General Assembly passed its budget, which included a provision allowing local jurisdictions to hold a referendum to increase the sales tax by 1%. If voters sign off, the extra revenue would be used in Fairfax County for school renovation and construction projects.

“Every year, this board confronts aging buildings, deferred maintenance, rising construction costs and the growing gap between what our students deserve and what our capital funding can support, while ensuring Fairfax County maintains its AAA bond rating,” board member Karl Frisch said. “We have a responsibility to be good stewards of tax dollars while thinking creatively about how we meet those challenges.”

There’s a $400 million deferred maintenance backlog in Fairfax, school officials said. While the county’s policy is to renovate school grounds every 25 years, it has operated under a 42-year renovation cycle.

Virginia has previously allowed some rural counties to let voters weigh in on the possibility of increasing the sales tax. The nine jurisdictions where voters signed off have collected about $119 million combined, .

While the Fairfax County School Board is advocating for the referendum, the idea is unlikely to reach the ballot in the near term.

“Now is not the right time,” said Jeff McKay, who chairs the county’s Board of Supervisors. In a statement, he said he wouldn’t support a referendum this year, in part because of the rising costs families are facing.

“This enabling authority was only granted by the General Assembly a few weeks ago,” McKay also said. “It has not yet been reviewed by our Board or vetted with the public. That input is an important part of the process, and doing it right takes time. I do not support rushing that process this year.”

Through a spokeswoman, Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chair Deshundra Jefferson said she didn’t have any comment on the possibility of a referendum.

Phyllis Randall, chair of Loudoun County’s Board of Supervisors, told �鶹���� that she’d support allowing voters to consider the possibility.

However, she said, “Personally, I don’t want to see a sales tax increase right now. Financial times are very, very tough.”

The board isn’t expected to discuss the idea during its final meeting before August’s break, Randall said.

Arlington, meanwhile, is considering a referendum, .

In Fairfax, school board member Mateo Dunne said there’s a need for “thinking outside the box” to help expedite the renovation process.

“Realistically, we need to update our electrical, our HVAC, our plumbing and other infrastructure far more frequently, including playgrounds and asphalt parking lots, because they don’t last as long as 25 years without updates,” Dunne said.

Fellow board member Melanie Meren said a referendum is a chance to ask the public if they want to invest in schools.

“This is relief from the relentless use of homeowner tax to fill the gap from the state to fund our public school facilities that benefit all Fairfax residents, whether they have children in schools or not,” Meren said.

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Aiden Mattauszek was looking at potential scholarship opportunities during his final months as a high school senior when he came across Duck Tape’s annual Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest.

The contest awards a $10,000 cash scholarship to the student whose prom tuxedo or dress, crafted entirely from duct tape, is voted the best. Mattauszek, a 2026 graduate of Hayfield Secondary in Fairfax County, was intrigued by the opportunity and spent about a week thinking about how he wanted to approach the design.

Then with help from his parents, 27 rolls of duct tape and over 100 hours of work, Mattauszek created a suit and accessories he considered both broadly interesting and specially tailored to his interests.

The results of his effort included a pair of black baggy pants, a ruffled button-up undershirt, and a “super exaggerated long letterman” jacket with patches on the sleeves, chest and back.

His outfit is now a top 10 finalist in the Stuck at Prom contest, and Mattauszek is competing for the chance to earn scholarship money to help him pay tuition at George Mason University this fall.

“It’s insane, honestly,” Mattauszek said. “I didn’t fully expect to become a finalist, and everybody else has pretty good suits too.”

The letterman jacket was always part of the plan, but Mattauszek “wanted to make it feel like me, so I mixed hip-hop apparel,” he said.

The jacket’s patches represent his love of music, as do sound waves on the accompanying hat. One reveals his passion for soccer, and his birth year is displayed in Roman numerals on the chest. The abbreviation “VA,” represents his Virginia roots.

“It was mostly me and my mom working together with designing the patches, and especially the base outline, and getting the tape on there, because it’s hard to do as one man,” Mattauszek said.

�鶹����/Scott Gelman

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Part of the challenge, Mattauszek said, was “making sure it still would actually fit on, because the tape gets very heavy.” Some of the patches required cutting very small pieces of tape.

He also learned while working with the tape “how strong it is.”

“A lot of times when you messed up and you tried to take it back, it was just not going, so it was very hard seeing how strong the tape actually was,” Mattauszek said.

Mattauszek wore a traditional suit to Hayfield Secondary’s prom, but brought his design with him.

“I showed a couple of my friends,” Mattauszek said. “They were saying it’s pretty cool.”

is open until Monday. The winning dress and tuxedo will be announced later this month.

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During a Land Use Policy Committee meeting Tuesday, county staff detailed two proposals that could make it faster and less expensive for those facilities to open.

The ideas come as pockets of the county lack access to care for toddlers under 5, . Childcare centers run out of homes tend to be cheaper and more convenient because of their flexible hours and locations, according to Jacqui Kamp, principal planner with Fairfax County’s Zoning Administration Division.

“Access to high quality, affordable childcare is a critical component of a community’s well-being,” Kamp said. “It’s important for child development, supporting working families and fostering economic stability.”

Home daycares are required to have either a permit from the county or a license from Virginia’s Department of Education, based on the number of kids they’re working with, Kamp said.

Those with up to four kids in the home need a health and safety inspection, a fire safety inspection and a permit that gets renewed every year.

Any facility working with five to 12 kids needs a license from the state.

Home daycares have to be operated by the person whose primary residence is the house, and one nonresident staffer can work on site between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Currently, “staff found that the special permit and special exemption process can add time and cost for providers,” Kamp said.

Special permit applications took 104 days, on average, to get a decision from the Board of Zoning Appeals, Kamp said, and special exceptions took 251 days. All 53 applications that made it to the public hearing phase were approved.

“Reducing regulatory barriers can increase the supply of home daycares, addressing supply affordability and parental choice,” Kamp said.

One proposal, Kamp said, would allow home daycare facilities with between five and 12 kids to operate under an administrative permit. It would also increase the number of nonresident workers from one to two.

The second would keep the legislative zoning process in place but change submission requirements and modify permissions.

“This is absolutely a challenge, a problem,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Jeff McKay said. “It takes way too long. Coming to the board seems a totally unnecessary step, based on what we see in the fact that all of these have been approved.”

Supervisor Pat Herrity, meanwhile, said some residents who may be interested in opening a home daycare are deterred by the process.

“We’ve seen the fear in the eyes of the people that have had to come before the board and the planning commission,” Herrity said. “It’s a hard process.”

However, he said it’s essential to keep the residency requirement in place, “otherwise you’re going to have people buying homes to run daycare businesses, which I don’t think we want either.”

With some rules for parking and other factors, Supervisor Jimmy Bierman said “an administrative process that makes it easier if we set the proper boundaries” makes sense.

The county could begin working on a draft of the proposed changes this summer, Kamp said, and plans to collect public feedback later this fall.

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She wasn’t speaking and didn’t have any friends, and he later found out the teachers would largely leave her in a corner to play alone.

Because of that speech delay, she was ultimately referred to Arlington Public Schools’ Integration Station program.

She wasn’t talking or hitting developmental milestones. But the hope was time as a student in the program, run through a partnership with The Children’s School, would change that.

Within a few weeks, her vocabulary changed and she started talking about friends. She described playing with other kids.

During a final meeting with the Integration Station team, Dokurno was told she could enter kindergarten without any specialized support.

The partnership offers toddlers with disabilities early intervention and special needs services and allows students to get comfortable and integrated into a general education environment as they prepare for kindergarten.

For the second time in as many years, though, parents are urging Arlington Public Schools not to end it.

“By doing the early intervention, by identifying what she needed early and delivering that to her in a preschool setting, she’s able to go into kindergarten just like any other kid,” Dokurno told �鶹����.

Last spring, as part of Arlington Public Schools’ proposed budget, the program was slated to be cut. The possibility came after a consulting firm found that about $1 million could be saved by “exploring how services of the Integration Station are currently delivered and implementing a new model.”

The program was ultimately funded. But in an email to families in June, The Children’s School’s board of directors and executive director said the school district informed them of plans to “phase out the Integration Station partnership over the next few years.”

The program will remain as-is this fall, the letter said, and one grade will be phased out each year beginning in 2027.

“While we are disappointed to hear that APS is not planning to continue the longstanding TCS/IS Partnership, the Children’s School was founded to provide high-quality childcare and early education to the teachers and staff of Arlington Public Schools and we will continue to fulfill that mission,” Children’s School Executive Director Erin Hindes told �鶹���� in an email.

“We hope Dr. Durán, Dr. Mann, and the Arlington School Board could extend this gold standard education for the benefit of Arlington students,” the email continued.

An Arlington Public Schools spokeswoman declined to make leadership available for an interview about the future of the program.

In a statement, the division said no immediate program changes will occur and it’s planning to reconvene the Early Childhood Work Group in late August to review staff’s recommendations and gather additional feedback.

District staff recently shared a recommendation with the school board for future delivery of early childhood services, it said.

“We remain committed to transparency, thoughtful planning and continued communication throughout this process and will share updates as additional information becomes available,” the statement said.

The county created a working group to navigate a path forward last year and parent Erin Turner said it recommended one of two possibilities: one would keep the relationship with The Children’s School and another included a hub model that could have included a relationship with the school. Neither appears to have been picked.

“When you have to make really difficult decisions, I think it’s really important that you can look each other in the eye and say, ‘We tried, we did everything we could,’ and I just don’t think that’s true here, and I really do believe that our children deserve that,” Turner said.

However, Turner said the goal is a shared one.

“We all want our students with disabilities and other students in Arlington to have access to a good, quality preschool education that’s going to set them up for success in kindergarten,” Turner said.

The county, Dokurno said, pays a subsidized tuition for the special education students assigned to The Children’s School, and “it stands out on the bookkeeping and that’s, I think, why they want to close it.”

Dokurno, who was also part of the working group, said it met for several hours monthly, for 10 months.

“Instead of engaging in good faith and trying to solve the problem, they just had a couple of token parents on a working group that had a predetermined outcome,” Dokurno said.

Because of the impact it has on students like his daughter, Dokurno said Integration Station is “a reason for parents to move here, as opposed to moving to Fairfax. If we end the partnership with The Children’s School, we lose access to those teachers, we lose access to that institutional knowledge, we lose access to the buildings that APS has invested in a lot of cases and I just think it’s going to set a lot of the kids behind.”

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Wang has lived in Northern Virginia for over three decades and remembers the vision for the streetcar along Columbia Pike. He often thinks about ways he can improve the community he grew up in. Public transit is an area he reflects on often.

In a 40-page report, titled “Arlington’s Langston Boulevard is Due for an Unconventional Public Transit Upgrade,” Wang makes a pitch for an aerial cable car to stretch through several neighborhoods. It’s an idea, he said, that could be cheaper than alternatives and connect areas with few public transit options with Metro.

ARL Now first reported the details of his proposal.

“It would be very helpful for people to have other public transit options that bypasses traffic, not just have buses that sit in traffic, that get stuck when there’s road work or if there’s an accident,” Wang said.

Wang’s concept calls for a cable car from Georgetown to the Rosslyn Metro station, and then connected to the East Falls Church Metro up Langston Boulevard, “and just have the two Metros connected through Langston Boulevard,” he said.

Both the Langston Boulevard corridor and Columbia Pike are areas that have many great businesses, Wang said, but “don’t have a great way to get to it, other than cars. You’re going to have to find parking, you’re going to have to drive there and potentially stay in traffic.”

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Arlington’s Department of Environmental Services said the county government hasn’t studied or proposed an aerial gondola for Langston Boulevard or other commercial corridors.

“We appreciate the creativity and the enthusiasm of our residents,” the statement said. “Aerial gondolas can be a useful, though very niche, transportation tool typically suited for places with limited surface options or significant geographic barriers like steep hills or valleys.”

The statement went on to say Langston Boulevard and Arlington’s other commercial corridors already have a functioning street network that “cannot be replaced by any off-street transportation mode.”

But gondolas, Wang said, are “generally a lot cheaper than the other options that we have here in the DMV.”

The proposal, he said, took about two months to write, and he’d been thinking about it for two months before that.

“What I really want to know is, would people actually ride this?” Wang said. “I’m not trying to force this down anybody’s throat. I just think it’s a good idea. I’m passionate about it, but I want to know, would people ride this? What would be their concerns about it?”

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