In The News

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

Back in his hometown of Richmond during a Thanksgiving recess of the U.S. Congress, U.S. Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., spent Monday listening to the concerns of seniors and their support groups on issues ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to hunger. Kaine, a member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and co-sponsor of the HOPE for Alzheimer’s Act, led a roundtable discussion on the disease focusing on how federal and local government can provide better support. Later, Kaine and l...Continue Reading

The Paris attacks have prompted widespread debate in the US over what to do about ISIS — including within the Democratic Party. To get a sense of that debate, I spoke to Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee. He's helped lead an effort to move the anti-ISIS war out of its legal gray zone with a new congressional authorization for military force, and in April co-signed a letter along with Sen. John McCain and two others calling o...Continue Reading

Back in his hometown of Richmond during a Thanksgiving recess of the U.S. Congress, U.S. Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., spent Monday listening to the concerns of seniors and their support groups on issues ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to hunger. Kaine, a member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and co-sponsor of the HOPE for Alzheimer’s Act, led a roundtable discussion on the disease focusing on how federal and local government can provide better support. Later, Kaine and l...Continue Reading

Virginia’s U.S. senators and at least one area congressman say Congress needs to vote on how to respond to the terrorist group carving out territory in Iraq and Syria and expanding its threat elsewhere. After updating Lynchburg businesspeople on his stances toward world and Washington affairs and talking business innovation Friday, Senator Mark Warner said Congress should vote to address the threat posed by the Islamic State group, also called ISIS, ISIL and Daesh. He has supported author...Continue Reading

In light of the deadly terrorist attacks last week in Paris, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine has reiterated his justified and bipartisan call for Congress to approve an Authorization for Use of Military Force against the Islamic State. Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, joined once again by Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, says Congress is mired in shamefully passive posturing by failing to put its official support behind the military action in which the United States has been engaged with ISIS for the past 15 ...Continue Reading

This is the new look of high school sex ed: A roomful of teens, 14-year-olds mostly, is told that a girl and boy meet at a school dance. The boy drives her home. They kiss. What happens next, over the girl's protests, leaves him confused and her crying, no longer a virgin. "Raise your hands if you think this was rape," health educator Justin Balido asks the Carlmont High School freshmen, drawing them into a debate that has preoccupied college administrators, lawmakers and the courts. Sex educati...Continue Reading