In The News

He may be prominent on the national stage, but Tim Kaine's political and personal roots run deep in Richmond. The U.S. senator started in politics in 1994 as a city councilman representing the Ginter Park neighborhood where he still lives — and where he raised three children with wife Anne Holton, Virginia's secretary of education and daughter of former Gov. A. Linwood Holton Jr. Kaine subsequently served as Richmond mayor before being elected lieutenant governor in 2001 and governor...Continue Reading

Provisions of U.S. Sen. Timothy M. Kaine’s Teach Safe Relationships Act were signed into law this week as a rider on the Every Student Succeeds Act, making public funds available for elementary and secondary school instruction about sexual assault and safe relationships. Packaged within the bill that replaces the No Child Left Behind Act, the provisions open Title IV funds for grants that encourage instruction and training on safe relationship behavior among teenagers and young adults. The...Continue Reading

[The Wall Street Journal] asked 50 people—from Gillian Anderson to Nell Zink—to name their favorite books of 2015. Tim Kaine on 'Showdown' My reading highlights are a new book, a recent book and an old classic. Wil Haygood’s“Showdown” is a fast-paced telling of how President Lyndon B. Johnson schemed to nominate Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court—running straight into the teeth of the segregationists running the Senate Judiciary Committee. Expe...Continue Reading

Varias organizaciones ecologistas de Estados Unidos se mostraron hoy optimistas sobre el alcance del acuerdo internacional sobre cambio climático que está a punto de lograrse en la Cumbre del Clima (COP21) de París, e instaron a la comunidad internacional a aprovechar este "momento clave". Adrianna Quintero, fundadora y directora ejecutiva de la organización estadounidense Voces Verdes, aseguró a Efe desde la capital francesa que se trata de "una oportunidad &u...Continue Reading

El Congreso de Estados Unidos recibió hoy un nuevo proyecto de ley sobre la "autorización para el uso de la fuerza militar" (AUMF, por su sigla en inglés) contra el Estado Islámico (EI) en Irak y Siria, la primera de este calado con carácter bipartidista y bicameral. Los representantes Scott Rigell, republicano por Virginia, y Peter Welch, demócrata por Vermont, presentaron el nuevo texto en la Cámara baja, mientras que en el Senado lo hicieron Ti...Continue Reading

Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined a Senate push on Thursday for Congress to vote on a formal authorization to use military force against Islamic State, a boost for an effort that has struggled to gain traction among lawmakers. Eight days after an attack in San Bernardino, California, by a couple who pledged loyalty to the militant group, Republican Representative Scott Rigell and Democratic Representative Peter Welch backed a proposal to formally autho...Continue Reading

A top US Senator today asked Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to repeal a dress policy in its army which prevents Sikhs from serving in the military with their religious articles intact. "Under current Department of Defense (DoD) policy, implemented in 1988, members of the Sikh faith are unable to serve in the military unless they abandon their articles of faith--namely maintaining unshorn hair, beards, and wearing a turban," Senator Tim Kaine wrote in a letter to Carter....Continue Reading

Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Virginia Beach, is joining Sen. Tim Kaine's efforts to getCongress to formally authorize the use of military force against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. Rigell and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., are introducing a companion bill to the one Kaine and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., introduced this summer, and which still has not been taken up by the Senate. “I feel very strongly about this,” Rigell said. “We need to have thi...Continue Reading

The Roman statesman Cato the Elder was so alarmed by the rise of the Phoenician city across the Mediterranean that he ended every speech — no matter what the topic — with the declaration: “Carthage must be destroyed!” Tim Kaine is not quite to the Cato the Elder stage, but Virginia’s junior senator does use every opportunity — and lately there have been a lot — to issue a slightly less-ringing declaration: Congress should vote on using force against the ...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress have criticized President Obama’s response to the Islamic State — also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, or ISIS — but have been slow to authorize the use of force against the group. In his address Sunday, Mr. Obama again challenged Congress to give him a formal authorization to use force. So-called authorizations of the use of military force — basically declarations of war — do exist; one passed the...Continue Reading

The federal education bill meant to overtake No Child Left Behind passed the Senate on Wednesday with provisions included by Virginia representatives. The Every Student Succeeds Act, reauthorizing and amending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, passed through the Senate on Wednesday on a vote of 81 to 17 after passing the House of Representatives 359 to 64 one week earlier, according to congressional websites. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill. The bill is tou...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON — Tim Kaine always travels with three harmonicas. “You never know when you’re going to get a chance to play,” the freshman U.S. senator from Virginia says, dumping three instruments onto his uncluttered office desk before picking one up to honor a request for a tune. He warms up with a few chords of blues but then breaks into an early Beatles classic with a catchy harmonica intro — “Love Me Do.” “You can see how hard we work in th...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he’s impressed with area law enforcement agencies’ approach to the heroin epidemic. During a visit to the city Monday afternoon, Kaine attended a roundtable discussion on the heroin/prescription opioid problem with representatives from the Northwest Virginia Regional Drug Task Force, Valley Health, area schools, concerned community members and Winchester Police Chief Kevin Sanzenbacher, at the Timbrook Public Safety Center, 231 E. Piccadilly St. About...Continue Reading

President Barack Obama had two messages for the American public during his address from the Oval Office on Sunday night. While one left much to be desired, the other was precisely what the nation needed to hear. To start, the president outlined his administration's actions against the Islamic Statefighters who control vast swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. He also proposed a few modest, but important, steps he'd like to see adopted to support that campaign. The president brok...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) today announced that 18 Virginia localities will receive more than $1.5 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The funding will help Virginia families who receive federal housing vouchers and public housing residents reduce their dependency on welfare assistance and rental subsidies, by providing tools and resources that will assist them in gaining job skills and increasing the...Continue Reading

British warplanes have attacked ISIS positions in Syria. The sorties came soon after the House of Commons authorized military intervention against the Islamist group. Westminster held a vigorous debate before the vote. Members of Parliament ultimately gave their consent to Prime Minister David Cameron’s request for authorization. The vote issued a stirring statement of national resolve. The United Kingdom stands as one. Hilary Benn, a Labour shadow secretary and son of the legendary leftis...Continue Reading

París está nuevamente en las noticias, pero afortunadamente esta vez no es a causa de un acto de terrorismo, sino por un propósito común de casi 200 naciones que asumen un gran reto. Ese desafío es el cambio climático. Una gran mayoría de científicos, las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos, Su Santidad el Papa Francisco, todos están de acuerdo en que el cambio climático es real y es causado principalmente por el uso de combusti...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) announced Tuesday that the Senate unanimously passed the bipartisan Treatment of Certain Payments in Eugenics Compensation Act, excluding payments from state eugenics compensation programs from consideration in determining federal benefits. Without this legislation, many eugenics victims who receive compensation payments from states, including Virginia and North Carolina, could see their federal benefits ...Continue Reading

Virginia’s congressional delegation is wrestling with how the federal government can help states combat the heroin epidemic spreading across the east coast. More than 25,000 people across the nation die from heroin or other opioids annually. In the commonwealth last year, more people died from opioids than from car wrecks. That’s partly why Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine is trying to make it easier for people to get the drug Naloxone, also called Narcan.  “It’...Continue Reading

AT SOME POINT, Congress must find the courage to listen to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine’s warnings about the violence Islamic State is doing to America’s Constitution. Since August 2014, U.S. warplanes and drones have been chasing the fundamentalist thugs of the Islamic State group across Syria and Iraq. We’ve been lobbing bombs into their bedrooms, destroying their encampments, disrupting their movement and killing their leaders. And yet Islamic State — also known by the acronyms...Continue Reading