In The News

Welcomed legislation introduced in Washington this week by lawmakers representing both West Virginia and Virginia would correctly ensure the promise of lifetime health care and pensions to retired miners and their families The Miners Protection Act was introduced Tuesday by U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito , R-W.Va., U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. The legislation would specif...Continue Reading

Over the July 4 recess, I led a bicameral congressional delegation to Kuwait, Iraq and Turkey to visit American troops and diplomatic personnel and assess the war against ISIL and the dire humanitarian situation in the region. I believe Congress has two primary jobs regarding the battle against ISIL — to authorize the war and provide appropriate budgetary support to succeed. We have yet to do either. For nearly a year, I have been pushing Congress to do its constitutional job and authorize...Continue Reading

The Pamunkey Indians, Pocahontas’ tribe, had an obvious, historical and reasonable claim to federal recognition. But this is Virginia, where no Native American tribe has ever received federal acceptance. And this is 2015, where naked avarice and decades of institutional racism still provide the fuel necessary for opposition. Overcoming a fierce campaign by MGM, which is opening a casino in Prince George’s County, Md., the Pamunkeys won due recognition from the U.S. Bureau of Indian A...Continue Reading

Senate Democrats are drawing red lines on an Iran deal as negotiators race toward a final agreement. Democrats will be crucial to making sure a deal survives the Republican-controlled Congress, and are outlining what they want to see in any agreement accepted by the United States and its six negotiating partners, collectively known as the P5+1.  Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said the level of inspections allowed at Iran's facilities, including military sites, will be the most closely scrutinized a...Continue Reading

City and community leaders expressed relief after the Army announced Thursday it would cut fewer than 100 people from Fort Eustis over the next two years as part of an effort to trim the Army's ranks by 40,000. They had been bracing for cuts of up to 4,200 at Fort Eustis. Only 94 soldiers are on the chopping block, according to Lt. Col. Richard Stebbins, a spokesman for the Newport News post. The figure comes as a happy surprise after the Army spent more than a year looking at 3,400 active duty ...Continue Reading

The decision this year by state lawmakers to set aside $400,000 as compensation for Virginians forcibly sterilized decades ago marks a small but meaningful gesture of societal penance. The payments, capped at $25,000 per individual, can never fully compensate for the injury the state inflicted on some 7,000 Virginians in the name of eugenics. That doesn’t mean the government shouldn’t try, or that today’s leaders are absolved from acknowledging the barbaric injustices of their ...Continue Reading

One kid's birthday wish turned into a giant community event.  When Camden Eubanks asked his mom for the ultimate water balloon fight party, she had reservations. Camden is home schooled due to his apraxia (which causes issues with speech articulation). He's been in speech therapy since he was 2 years old and has made vast improvement, but sometimes it can still be difficult.  "He's a regular little boy," says his mother. "Camden is a math whiz, loves history, and wants to grow up ...Continue Reading

A six-day trip to Iraq, Kuwait and Turkey left Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine encouraged about what’s happening in the region, but also recognizing the challenges ahead. Kaine returned home over the weekend after leading a congressional delegation to the area, focusing on how the Iraqi government is operating and the battle against the Islamic State. What the group found was an improvement over where things were in Iraq a year ago, Kaine said. Portions of the Sunni and Kurdish populations felt is...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) on Monday said that after nearly a year in office Iraqi's government remains a "work in progress" and more needs to be done to unite the country's ethnic groups against Islamic militants. The government led by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shiite, has brought about “dramatic changes” throughout the country but many, particularly the nation’s Sunni population, are “still waiting to see examples on the ground,” Kaine told reporters. The Virg...Continue Reading

QUANTICO, Va. — They are American national treasures -- our military wounded warriors. Injuries have taken more than a million out of the fight since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But many are overcoming through the healing power of sports. More than 200 elite athletes competed in this year's Department of Defense Warrior Games, held in Quantico, Virginia. The competition kicked off with an opening ceremony similar to the Olympic Games. The crowd of spectators cheered as t...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON — Frodo lived in fear for nine years. He knew when two men showed up at his front door to threaten him in 2006 that his family would continue living in danger because of the three years he spent as an interpreter for U.S. forces in Iraq, including some of the most violent years of the war. “(Militants) said to my parents and my family that we know your son was in the U.S. forces so when we catch him we will kill him,” Frodo said. “I worried about my kids and my...Continue Reading

For Virginia’s American Indian tribes, July 2 likely will go down in history as a red letter, to be remembered as the day the first Virginia tribe gained official recognition from the federal government. Think about that for a second. A tribe from Virginia, the site of the first permanent English settlement in the New World at Jamestown in 1607 — a settlement saved early on by the humanitarian intervention of nearby tribes, is only now, in 2015 gaining recognition by the federal gov...Continue Reading

More than 400 years after their ancestors greeted John Smith and other English settlers, Virginia’s Pamunkey Indians have won recognition from the federal government that they are a Native American tribe. The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs announced Thursday that the Pamunkey tribe’s decades-long quest for recognition has been approved, making the tribe of Pocahontas the first in Virginia to receive the coveted designation. Six other Virginia tribes are seeking recognition through an ...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says the reopening of embassies in Havana and Washington is another demonstration that the U.S. doesn't have to be imprisoned by the past. Obama is announcing the formal restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. He's calling it an "historic step." Obama says Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Havana over the summer to raise the American flag over the embassy. The president says the reopening of a full embassy in Hav...Continue Reading

When their travels in Virginia take Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine to the working waterfront of Hampton Roads, both tend to make a pitch for a once obscure, now controversial federal agency called the Export-Import Bank. Now, they've joined in a warning to colleagues on Capitol Hill that the scheduled expiration of the agency's authority to guarantee loans to help foreign companies buy U.S. goods could mean pain beyond the wharves of Newport News, Norfolk and Portsmouth. The bank's authorit...Continue Reading

The legacy of Loving v. Virginia, a 1967 federal court case that invalidated state bans on interracial unions, rang loud and clear in Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling Friday that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. “The court has long held the right to marry is protected by the Constitution. In Loving v. Virginia ... a unanimous court held marriage is 'one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by f...Continue Reading

Con una mayoría de 6 votos a favor y 3 en contra, que rompió todas las previsiones de los analistas, la Corte Suprema dio su respaldo a los subsidios fiscales cuya entrega contempla el Seguro de Salud a Bajo Costo, popularmente conocido como Obamacare, dándole al presidente Barack Obama la más rotunda victoria política de los últimos tiempos sobre sus opositores republicanos.La esperada decisión fue anunciada el jueves 25, un día antes de l...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine has introduced for the second time a bill that would allow middle school students to explore career and technical education programs through apprenticeships or projects. Shenandoah Valley educators endorse Kaine's Middle STEP Act, saying it is important for students to develop career plans while they are attending middle school. Kaine is pushing the legislation because he has been told of the need for additional career exploration at the middle school level by teachers, emplo...Continue Reading

Sen Tim Kaine is joining 12 other senators to introduce legislation to improve pain management services at Veterans Administration hospitals with measures to avoid abuse of opioids. “As I travel around Virginia, I hear from families, employers, and first responders about the harmful impacts of opioid abuse,” Kaine said.  “We need to embrace a comprehensive approach to fighting this epidemic, and one important step is to prevent the over-prescription of pain medication...Continue Reading

Sometimes, it’s good to have a pal in the White House. President Barack Obama signed an executive order expanding the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program to recognize students who opt for Career and Technical Education programs. Former technical school teacher (and now Sen.) Tim Kaine, an early Obama backer asked him to. It wasn’t just his time teaching carpentry and welding at the Instituto Tecnico Loyola in El Progreso, Honduras, that made Kaine such an advocate for career education...Continue Reading