The full Board of Visitors met Friday to hear reports from Interim University President Paul Mahoney on the University’s agreement with the Justice Department, the state of research at the University and his vision for the University moving forward. The Board also met in closed session for almost three hours to discuss legal and security matters, employee appointments and updates on the search for the University’s 10th president. In Mahoney’s remarks on the Justice Department agreement — which he signed Oct. 22 and which suspended five remaining investigations into the University’s compliance with civil rights law — he explained that confidentiality had been essential to successful negotiations with the Justice Department. Mahoney expressed that it was unfortunate that he had been unable to update stakeholders, including the Board, on the content of these negotiations at the time they were occurring. “The DOJ investigations were a perfect storm, in the sense that there was both great community interest and anxiety and a need for confidentiality,” Mahoney said. “Conducting the negotiations confidentially was critical, both to preserving attorney-client privilege and avoiding giving the DOJ the impression that we were trying to use the press as a tool against them.”

Lynchburg Mayor Larry Taylor has removed At-large Councilman Martin Misjuns as chair of the Finance Committee, replacing him with At-large Councilwoman Stephanie Reed. Clerk of Council Alicia Finney said in the Thursday email that the mayor asked her to provide context for removing Misjuns from the committee. Among the reasons given for Misjuns’ removal were his continued involvement in personnel matters, his continued “abuse/threatening” of city staff and employees, his “continued bad behavior after previous censures,” and his “continued misstatements regarding financial matters,” including about radios purchased for the Lynchburg Fire Department.

Last week, the Roanoke City Council decided to leave the issue of casino gambling in Roanoke off its list of legislative priorities for the 2026 Virginia General Assembly session. But after the 2026 Richmond agenda was set, Mayor Joe Cobb said the casino idea wasn’t necessarily dead. That appears to be based on an agreement made with a casino company that will seek authorization in Richmond on behalf of Roanoke — despite unanimous opposition from state lawmakers representing the Roanoke Valley. Even later, Councilwoman Evelyn Powers noted she and other council members signed a nondisclosure agreement regarding the matter back during the summer; Powers said she didn’t know the name of the other entity. Councilman Nick Hagen on Monday said council members signed the NDA during an executive session that was closed to the public.

The fact that the General Assembly passed legislation two years in a row to end the widespread use of solitary confinement indicates broad public support for the goal. The legislation, however, does not address the isolation of inmates in regional and city jails. As a research team of two students and a professor, we set out to determine how many people in local jails across Virginia are being held in conditions similar to solitary confinement. … Because data about the number of people held in administrative segregation is not publicly available, we sent information requests to 35 regional and city jails across Virginia asking for a “snapshot,” which would help us do a point-in-time count of the number of people held in solitary-like conditions at a local level. We only heard back from 11 jails, which makes our goal of producing a total population estimate unreachable. But we still learned something important: the use of isolated confinement is highly variable between jails.

Just weeks after Clemson University publicly denied any involvement with the controversial Newry Mill housing project in the South Carolina Upstate, newly-released emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request paint a very different picture — one indicating active coordination between the university’s senior leadership, United Homes Group (UHG) and its subsidiaries on a sprawling development that could reshape Oconee County’s landscape. Oconee County Council chairman Matthew Durham — whose independent investigation has driven much of the scrutiny — published portions of the first 175 emails on Facebook late Wednesday, saying they “directly contradict Clemson’s public statements.”

Throughout the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration enforcement effort in the Chicago area, federal authorities repeatedly have said they’re targeting the worst of the worst. But the government’s own data reveals only 15% of those detained had a prior criminal conviction, and only 3% have convictions for violent crimes. CBS News Chicago has asked the head of U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement operations in Chicago, filed Freedom of Information Act requests, and asked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about who has been arrested during Operation Midway Blitz, and why. ICE’s own data paints a picture that it’s not just convicted criminals who are being taken into federal custody.