A Patrick County Circuit Court judge has dismissed most of a lawsuit filed by Blue Ridge District Supervisor Steve Marshall against the county’s governing board, ending a legal challenge tied to his 2025 censure. … Marshall had sued the board over its April 28, 2025, decision to censure him, alleging that supervisors had held an unlawful closed session before the vote and that the action had damaged his reputation. Additional claims alleged that the board held improper meetings and violated the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by denying requests to record meetings and to obtain public records.

A Virginia driver argued to the Fourth Circuit Wednesday that the First Amendment protects his anti-government license plate. Curtis Whateley used his license plate that read “FTP&ATF,” an acronym for “Fuck the police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,” for over a year before the Department of Motor Vehicles received an anonymous complaint. Whateley argued the government’s revocation of the license plate violated his right to free speech by imposing viewpoint discrimination. A lower court dismissed the challenge, ruling that registration symbols on license plates constitute government speech because they serve as a means of identification.

The United States has more than 3,000 operational data centers, and that number is expected to grow substantially in the years ahead. More than 1,500 new data centers are in various stages of development nationwide, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from Data Center Map. … Virginia and Texas have the most planned data centers (287 and 170, respectively). They are followed by Georgia (141), Illinois (123) and Arizona (86). Virginia and Texas also have the most currently operating data centers (398 and 296, respectively). They are followed by California (277), Ohio (166) and New York (148).

NOTE: I include this article, not because VCOG takes a position on whether data centers are good/bad, but as an explanation for why VCOG fields so many calls from citizens who are concerned about the secrecy surrounding so many of these proposed developments.