Martinsville officials say they have rewritten policies, tightened spending controls and changed how city money is reviewed after a forensic audit found unsupported credit card charges, weak approvals and gaps in financial oversight. But proving those reforms through public records may require another costly search through City Hall. In response to a Martinsville Bulletin request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act seeking records showing what changed after the Brown Edwards forensic audit, the city estimated it would cost $1,318 to produce the documents. The estimate included 40 hours of work by an accounting specialist, four hours by the FOIA officer, two hours by the deputy city clerk, and two hours by the purchasing manager. … “I am sorry that the amount is higher than you anticipated,” City Manager Rob Fincher said in a written response. “But the request involved actions similar to a year-long audit, where a team of accountants comes in and spends a few days gathering the information.” Fincher said much of what was requested could not be quickly searched electronically. “Keep in mind that the majority of what was requested is not electronically searchable because it is stored as physical documents,” Fincher said. “We have only four full-time employees in our finance department for all city operations and utilities, and they would have to cease operations to conduct the search.”

The Western Virginia Water Authority will not provide up to 10 million to 11 million gallons of water a day to the planned Google data center campus in Botetourt County, Executive Director Michael McEvoy said in an email exchange shared with The Roanoke Times. McEvoy copied the newspaper on an email he sent Thursday responding to a list of questions from Ben Verschoor, a member of the Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance, a grassroots group organizing against the planned data center campus. Verschoor’s questions pertained to a series of internal water authority emails dating back to July 2024 that were acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request and published on the alliance’s website. The emails show discussion of a Google request for 3.5 million gallons per day on “Day 1” and 10 million to 11 million gallons per day on “Day N.” They predate the October 2025 signing of the water authority’s utility services funding agreement with Google. In the email sent to Verschoor, McEvoy wrote that the water authority had declined Google’s capacity request for 10 million to 11 million gallons a day.

When then-governor Glenn Youngkin held what would be his final progress report on his Partnership for Petersburg initiative in January, he also announced several projects in the works for the city, including a little-known, billion-dollar data center project. It was apparently the first public mention of the project – a 75-acre, 300-megawatt facility that NuVu Real Estate, a Northern Virginia firm, had submitted to the city the previous May and, in the weeks following Youngkin’s announcement, would secure the first site plan approval for a data center in Petersburg. … NuVu’s three-building campus, planned between I-95 and County Drive and estimated at $1.1 billion, is one of at least four data center projects in the works in Petersburg, according to city documents provided to BizSense through Freedom of Information Act requests. … Requests to Warrenton Group, Menlo Digital and Wagner Properties for comment about their projects did not receive responses. A call to Petersburg Mayor Sam Parham for this story was referred to a city spokesperson, who directed BizSense to Jeff Stoke, Petersburg’s deputy city manager for community development. Stoke did not return calls and emails seeking comment.

In the week leading up to the Iranian attack Friday that killed two U.S. soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against U.S. forces in the country. Those attacks injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted. The episode is the latest example during the Iran conflict of the tension between what the Pentagon says is the need for operational security and the government’s obligation to inform the public about the conduct of the war. … Central Command is not required to release information about injured service members, especially when they quickly return to duty, a U.S. military official said. Moreover, another U.S. military official added, why would the Pentagon divulge information that could help Iran zero in on its deadly ballistic missiles and drone attacks in Jordan and other bases in the Middle East where thousands of U.S. troops are stationed? Central Command has also stopped announcing how many sites in Iran it hits each day for the same reason, U.S. officials say.