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Hunger is way up in the U.S., and the problem has gotten even worse in Virginia, according to one new report… The General Assembly will convene next week, and one item on the agenda is a new approach to treating substance-use disorder… Virginia is drawing closer to Governor Youngkin’s goal of having a law enforcement officer in every public school….

Staunton’s mayor resigns unexpectedly, but in Harrisonburg Mayor Reed is selected to continue in that role… Dominion Energy begins to release easements along the path of the cancelled Atlantic Coast Pipeline… The General Assembly gets ready to consider the future of casinos in Virginia….

Thousands gather to honor the memories of slain UVa students at a service in Charlottesville… We have a preview of the General Assembly’s next session, including bills on uranium mining, transgender student athletes, and same-sex marriage… The Forest Service conducts yet another environmental study of the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s impact on the Jefferson National Forest….

Both UVa students injured in last week’s shooting are now out of the hospital, and police continue to search for the gunman’s motive… The toll that gun violence takes on local communities goes beyond the recent shootings at UVa, and Randi B. Hagi explores that in the first of two reports... We also examine the increasing costs of Virginia’s prison population as it ages, in a state without parole for most inmates….

As the Board of Elections certifies November’s results, data show that the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights did not result in a bump in voter registrations this year… Governor Youngkin’s Commission to Combat Antisemitism releases its final report… We have the first of two conversations with adult community leaders reflecting on their gender journeys….

Will 16-year-olds soon be allowed to vote in Virginia?... Former Governor McAuliffe may soon join the Biden administration… Even after November’s surprisingly good jobs report, the president of Richmond’s Federal Reserve wonders if the country will experience long-term labor shortages….

The JMU community gathers for a candlelight vigil after the deaths of three students in a car crash… Charlottesville public school staff may soon be able to collectively bargain… In the General Assembly, the effort to ban solitary confinement hits an obstacle, and the Senate advances a bill to better monitor so-called forever chemicals in water supplies….

In politics this week, George Hirschmann resigns his seat on Harrisonburg’s city council, citing health reasons, and we also have a broader survey of the renewed debate over gun violence in Virginia, with our weekly politics roundup… Meanwhile, there’s an increasing shortage of referees available for youth sports, as poorly-behaving parents drive them off the court and off the field… In our fifth installment of Folklife Fieldnotes, we sit in on an Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony….

In our May 25 edition, we reported that the highest transmission levels for COVID-19 were again in parts of the Shenandoah Valley, and today we take a look at an increase in cases, but not hospitalizations, in central Virginia… What might Virginia legislators do about the national rise in gun violence?... One Culpeper County woman's story of becoming a mother premieres at a festival in Colorado….

The rate of spread of COVID-19 in central Virginia has now outpaced that in the Shenandoah Valley… Lead budget negotiators in the General Assembly say they’ve reached a deal on lots of sticking points, and the full body will vote on it on Wednesday… A new report says Virginia's zoning laws continue to sustain racial segregation in housing, and it has some recommendations for fixing the problem….