The VPM Daily Newscast contains all your Central Virginia news in just 5 to 10 minutes. Episodes are recorded the night before.
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Here’s a recap of the top stories on the morning of June 4, 2025:
Curious Commonwealth asks: How did Chesterfield County’s charter get lost so many times?
Reported by VPM News’ Billy Shields
In an inconspicuous reading room on the third floor of the Library of Virginia, work is underway to restore a seminal document in the history of Chesterfield County – the 1749 Commission of the Peace, now considered the county’s original charter.
“It is the birth certificate of Chesterfield County,” said Liess van der Linden-Brusse, the librarian of the Chesterfield Historical Society.
It is a difficult piece of parchment to miss. Not only does it still have its original ribbon-and-wax seal, but it’s about 80 inches diagonally from corner to corner — the size of a very large television. Despite that, the charter has had an extraordinary journey over more than 275 years — disappearing multiple times along the way, before ending up in the library’s hands in 2017.
“We know that the document was in a lot of locations,” laughed Amanda Pohl, the county’s clerk of court.
As part of the VPM News series Curious Commonwealth, reporter Billy Shields set out to trace the path of the document — which started out as a pact between Sir William Gooch (Goochland County’s namesake) and King George II to set up Chesterfield’s courthouse and designate various officers to police it.
Charlottesville City Council approves new city attorney hire
Reported by VPM News’ Hannah Davis-Reid
After more than a year, Charlottesville is one step closer to officially having a new city attorney. The City Council during its June 2 meeting approved the hiring of John Maddux into the role. Maddux previously served as deputy city attorney of Asheville, North Carolina, where he served for more than a decade.
Maddux is slated to be admitted to the Virginia State Bar on June 4 and sworn into office on June 6. He replaces former City Attorney Jacob Stroman, who was placed on leave in April 2024 after a complaint and retired that September.
Residents also expressed concern Monday night about the council’s recent approval of Flock Safety cameras, an AI-driven license plate reader system that runs images through a national crime database.
404 Media recently reported that a Texas sheriff’s office searched nearly 7,000 camera systems nationwide in its search for a woman they say self-administered an abortion. In Norfolk, a federal lawsuit against the city’s usage of Flock cameras is set for October.
“The federal government has shown that it increasingly lacks respect for the rule of law, and so we cannot trust this sensitive community data to be in the hands of law enforcement and possible bad actors and the state,” said Elizabeth Stark.
News you might have missed from around the commonwealth:
- Pete Buttigieg endorses Levar Stoney in Lt. Gov. race (Richmond Times-Dispatch)*
*This outlet utilizes a paywall.