Whittney Evans

Nov 4, 2024 | vpm.org | Whittney Evans

All five candidates for Richmond mayor have said they’d implement a gun violence prevention measure called Group Violence Intervention — a strategy that's been used for decades to reduce homicides and gun violence in cities like Boston, Detroit and New Orleans. But Richmond leaders have previously declined to adopt the strategy.

Oct 9, 2024 | vpm.org | Whittney Evans

Two Hanover County school officials have been dismissed from a federal lawsuit filed in July by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia alleging that the county’s school board violated an 11-year-old transgender student’s rights by banning her from playing on the girls’ tennis team at her middle school. Judge M.

Sep 29, 2024 | vpm.org | Whittney Evans

Imagine being married for more than three decades — and the day your spouse dies, you learn they’d given your entire retirement savings to someone you don’t know. That’s what happened to Chesterfield resident Patti McFarland,“I guess I have to discuss it in order to explain why it needs to be fixed,” she says. “It’s just an archaic rule that nobody’s corrected.”Patti reached out to VPM News to find out how this is legal in Virginia and how others can protect themselves.

Sep 18, 2024 | vpm.org | Whittney Evans

The ACLU of Virginia’s lawsuits challenging Virginia’s model policies for transgender public school students have now been tossed out by two state judges — for procedural reasons. Attorneys for the Virginia Department of Education successfully argued state law shields the agency from being sued under the sovereign immunity doctrine. Circuit courts in Hanover and York counties also agreed with VDOE’s attorneys that the ACLU missed an administrative deadline when it filed the lawsuits in February.

Sep 9, 2024 | vpm.org | Whittney Evans

Richmond’s five mayoral candidates are getting plenty of facetime with voters ahead of the November election: There are roughly 10 mayoral forums planned in the community over the next two months. One held late in August at the Second Baptist Church Southside drew several hundred voters. It was organized by Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities — a network of religious-based community organizations focused on social justice issues, specifically housing and gun violence.