In The News

U.S. lawmakers said Tuesday they are encouraged by growing defense cooperation with India but remain concerned about religious intolerance and slavery in the South Asian nation ahead of a visit by its prime minister. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined ties between the world's two largest democracies in advance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to Congress. There is strong support among U.S. lawmakers for deeper relations with India, but plenty of grumbles about limited progr...Continue Reading

As warm weather returns and the last days of school draw near, I’m sure that, like me, you’re looking forward to spending a lot of time outdoors this summer. As you read troubling headlines from Latin America and other parts of the world about the Zika virus, I’m also sure you are concerned about how to keep yourself and your family safe. #Let’s first understand the virus and the threat it poses to Virginia. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC...Continue Reading

Danville’s Youth City Council met Sen. Tim Kaine at the U.S. Capitol on their tour of Washington, D.C. on May 17. Pictured (from left) are Rebecca Rodden, Mary Kate Milam, Senator Kaine, Reginald Jeffries, Ishmale Davis, Kristen Harper-Edwards, Dacia Marable and Kameron Walker.

If Hillary Clinton should pick Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as a running mate, we don’t know whether that will excite or depress Bernie Sanders supporters — apparently a key consideration in the Clinton camp. However, this much seems certain: Selecting Kaine might put a lot of members of Congress on the spot, on both sides of the aisle. We refer, of course, to Kaine’s two-year quest to persuade Congress to do its constitutional duty — to vote on whether to authorize...Continue Reading

For Hampton Roads, where Pentagon dollars are a lifeblood of the economy, the 2017 spending proposals making their way through the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are mostly good news. Sailors should get a pay raise. The region’s shipbuilding and repair industries are in line to be fully funded. The legislative plans would block President Barack Obama’s desire to start a new round of military base closings and stifle the Navy’s desire to mothball 11 cruisers, including...Continue Reading

U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine have applauded Senate passage of the Fiscal Year 2017 Energy and Water Development funding legislation, by a bipartisan vote of 90-8. The first of 12 appropriations bills providing discretionary funding for the federal government, the bill provides funding for projects under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation at the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The ...Continue Reading

The Senate's marked-up defense spending bills has lots of good news for Virginia -- and a big worry for the Virginian member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. That's because it includes sweeping reforms of the Defense Departmentthat were presented to committee members a week ago, under an embargo that kept the proposal in-house, said Sen. Tim Kaine.  One result  -- he says he's changed his mind about supporting the committee's longstanding practice of marking up the def...Continue Reading

FISHERSVILLE-Rural hospitals like Augusta Health suffer financially on the reimbursement for Medicare patients, who account for about 50 percent of the operation's patient load. But federal legislation introduced last month by two Virginia U.S. senators would buck up the Medicare reimbursement formula for rural hospitals. The Fair Medicare Hospital Payments Act of 2016, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, would establish a national minimum wage index for Medi...Continue Reading

The number of people killed by terror attacks in Africa in the last year is as large, if not larger, than the deaths inflicted by ISIS in the Middle East, U.S. officials said Tuesday. In response to the assessment, a senior lawmaker questioned whether race explains why the U.S. is not more involved in the fight there. Obama administration officials testifying before the Senate said that even as Africans continue to struggle with militant groups such as Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, they face the ...Continue Reading

Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine are among 40 Democratic Senators asking for the Department of Education to weigh in on LGBT rights. Lawmakers sent a letter to the department asking for guidelines on the protection of LGBT students. The senators say it’s in response to laws like one passed in North Carolina, which requires transgender people to use bathrooms in state buildings and schools corresponding to the gender on their birth certificates. While a similar bill died in Virginia, some...Continue Reading

In 1786, while living in Paris, Thomas Jefferson recalled his Virginia home to his friend Maria Cosway, writing, “Where has Nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? Mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! And the glorious Sun, when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, and...Continue Reading

Senators aren’t too keen on a House Republican proposal to give them a say in who the president appoints as the head of the National Security Council, which the GOP and several former Defense secretaries complain has ballooned out of control. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) is expected to propose a measure to winnow the size of the White House’s security apparatus and subject its chief to Senate confirmation when the annual defense authorization ...Continue Reading

Representatives and senators from Virginia are joining Gov. Terry McAuliffe in encouraging the Obama administration into reconsidering issuing a major disaster declaration following a winter storm. Representatives Rob Whittman and Randy Forbes along with Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are asking the president for help after tornadoes hit Virginia back in February. The storm included a deadly EF1 tornado with 110 MPH winds that tore through the town of Waverly, killing three pe...Continue Reading

This week's announcement by President Barack Obama that the United States will commit an additional 250 special forces to Syria has been met with condemnation from Russia, Syria's ally, and a prominent Democratic senator. Obama made the announcement Sunday in Germany, alongside German ChancellorAngela Merkel, saying the forces are needed to target and kill Islamic Stateterrorists. But as was pointed out by both the Russians, who are backing the government of President&nb...Continue Reading

Legislation recently introduced by U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine could ensure rural Virginia hospitals receive fair Medicare reimbursements — a move receiving praise by leaders from both Danville Regional Medical Center and Centra Health. “Delivering quality care has always been a priority at Danville Regional Medical Center,” Danville Regional Medical Center CEO Alan Larson said in a statement. “The proposed legislation would help provide the resources needed t...Continue Reading

Talking to her doctor about what to do when the cost of her life-saving medicine jumped more than 14-fold was simply horrifying, retired William and Mary librarian Berna Heyman told a U.S. Senatepanel Wednesday. "I had been very stable, living a good life," she said in response to Sen.Tim Kaine's question about her decision to go off the Valeant Pharmaceuticals drug Syprine. "I felt like I was taking a chance and I didn't feel like I had an option other than to take that chance." Heyman is ...Continue Reading

When Judge Merrick Garland walked into Sen. Tim Kaine's office late one afternoon, the Virginia Democrat asked the Supreme Court nominee what number this meeting was for him.   "I don't know," Garland replied as cameras clicked away, capturing the pair moving toward the couch in Kaine office. He recovered quickly and quipped, "Number one!"   The chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has been on a whirlwind tour of Senate offices ever since President Bara...Continue Reading

We welcome the U.S. Senate’s passage last week of the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015. The welcomed, and logical measure, seeks to address the nation’s energy opportunities and challenges with the help of fossil fuels. While far from perfect, the proposed legislation does prioritize an all-of-the-above energy policy and includes important amendments for clean-coal technology and keeping coal competitive. Area lawmakers supporting the overall legislation included U.S. Sen. Joe...Continue Reading

Faith is often worn as a badge on the campaign trail, with candidates quoting the Bible and endorsing policies that appeal to religious voters.   Three deeply religious senators spoke on Wednesday at a panel discussion on Capitol Hill about the interplay between religion and politics, and how their faith shaped their personal and political lives.   The senators worked through assumptions people make about them.   “One stereotype would be, 'I’m a r...Continue Reading

Some opponents of a new independent commission to close military bases have recently proposed the Pentagon instead pick the facilities it doesn't want and ask Congress to approve the choices through the annual budget process. But two of the Army's top installations officials say that approach would spark the kind of ugly political battles the Base Realignment and Closure Commission was designed to minimize — and potentially be an economic calamity for the communities that get on ...Continue Reading