In The News

The father of a University of Virginia graduate who died of an opioid overdose will be at President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address Tuesday night. Don Flattery, whose son Kevin overdosed on the painkiller OxyContin in 2014, will be the guest of Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, of Virginia, at Tuesday’s address. Kaine and Flattery are both hoping Obama will touch on the problem of opioid addiction during the speech. “Don is such a powerful advocate because his story shows...Continue Reading

About 300 people of various faith traditions continued in a centuries-long journey to understand one another and fight against prejudice Sunday at a forum in Richmond. The “Standing Together” gathering at Congregation Beth Ahabah included U.S. Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., and was sponsored by the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities with the support of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy and the Virginia Muslim Coalition for Public Affairs. The five panelists were...Continue Reading

AN estimated 260,000 Filipino soldiers fought alongside American troops during World War II, helping us win one of our most important victories. In recognition of their bravery and sacrifice, they were promised citizenship by the United States government and to give them the same benefits that all of our veterans deserve. Despite this promise, Filipino World War II veterans were not naturalized until 1990 –  45 years after the war had ended. These Filipino soldiers also had to leave t...Continue Reading

As my colleagues and I prepare for another session of Congress this year, I have been thinking back on what I had hoped to accomplish for Virginians at beginning of 2015 — education reform, long-term transportation funding, a congressional role in shaping our country’s foreign policy and a budget that supported Virginia’s families and businesses were among my top priorities. I’m pleased that we were able to address these issues in a significant way in 2015, and I’ll...Continue Reading

What if we were to tell you there’s a way the state could generate $54 million in new revenue without raising taxes by even so much as a penny? What if we were to also tell you there’s a way to put $1 billion — that’s billion, with a “b” — into the pockets of hard-working private citizens to spend as they see fit? Again, without raising taxes a cent. This seemingly fantastical scheme is laid out in an otherwise rather prosaic report that the chancellor ...Continue Reading

"Prescription drug abuse, misuse and opiod/heroin overdose deaths represent a public health crisis across the U.S. and in the city of Martinsville and Henry County," said Dr. Jody Hershey, director of the West Piedmont Health District. Opiods are prescription painkillers, such as hydrocodone (for example, Vicodin); oxycodone (for example, OxyContin); oxymorphone (for example, Opana); methadone (especially when prescribed for pain), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Hershey made...Continue Reading

RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia conservationists are thanking Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner for crucial votes to protect wetlands. Real estate developers, mining companies and some farm groups have been pressing Congress to stop an Environmental Protection Agency decision defining the Waters of the U.S. rule. The decision clarifies that many American wetlands that had been in legal limbo do qualify for Clean Water Act protections. Skip Stiles, executive director with Wetlands Watch, says ther...Continue Reading

Should any president be able to send U.S. forces into combat abroad without the consent of Congress? Our Constitution says no. But this Congress refuses even to hold hearings on whether Barack Obama should be authorized to deploy large forces into Iraq and Syria to crush ISIS terrorist strongholds. Virginia’s senator, Tim Kaine, tried unsuccessfully over several years to generate public discussion and congressional hearings on the war-powers issue, but has stimulated no action. His frustra...Continue Reading

The omnibus spending bill Congress passed this month includes several explicit mentions of the military campaign against the Islamic State and a $58.7 billion budget line that will allow the Pentagon to continue fighting the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria with bombs and, increasingly, troops on the ground. That may be as close as Congress comes to authorizing war against the Islamic State for the foreseeable future. After a couple of halfhearted attempts, the White House and leaders in the Ho...Continue Reading

Last week, when U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine dropped in on the Head Start program at the Original Walker–Grant School in Fredericksburg, perhaps he granted himself a moment of reflection as he engaged the young children in their learning environment. Sixty years earlier, Virginia’s priority had been to resist public school desegregation. Now, he had the opportunity to not only partake of this setting of welcomed cultural diversity, but also to see the fruit of his labor as a longtime champion...Continue Reading

U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine applauded Senate passage of the Fiscal Year 2016 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which provides discretionary funding for the entire federal government for the next fiscal year. “The bipartisan budget deal helped pave the way for this legislation, which restores some of the most harmful sequester cuts and provides certainty to our military and to Virginia shipyards. It provides much-needed additional resources to improve cybersecurity across the federal...Continue Reading

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday expressed support for considering an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), even though he said President Obama can wage his military campaign without it. "I do believe we have legal authorization under the 2001 [AUMF]. I do also believe that it would be a good sign for American foreign policy to have a new one updating our AUMF to declare our mission with respect to ISIS," he said at a breakfas...Continue Reading

It’s not every day that a U.S. senator visits your school to bring a present. But Head Start students and staff members at Fredericksburg’s Original Walker–Grant School enjoyed seeing Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine on Tuesday as he delivered news about a bill that will replace the federal No Child Left Behind legislation and help schools such as theirs. And the little ones gave Kaine gifts, too: ornaments to hang on his Christmas tree. Last week, President Barack Obama signed the Ev...Continue Reading

On Dec. 4, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) held a conference call during which he fielded questions from representatives of college newspapers around the state. Kaine, the former governor of Virginia, spoke for nearly an hour, first explaining his work in the various congressional committees he’s involved with and then addressing questions about his stance on events taking place in Virginia and around the world. Following the call, The Breeze got reaction from some students on campus. The Elem...Continue Reading

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