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 July 8, 2025:
‘Richmond Cool Kit’ outlines heat mitigation plans for city infrastructure
Reported by VPM News’ Patrick Larsen
Richmond suffers from the urban heat island effect. It makes some parts of the city 10 or more degrees Fahrenheit hotter than other, shadier spots — making them dangerous places to be on hot, sunny days, like during the scorching late-June heat dome that sent nearly 500 Virginians to the emergency room.
On the heels of the heat dome, the City of Richmond released a guide to heat-mitigating infrastructure in late June — right as Congress debated cutting programs that forecast extreme heat and provide partnerships and funding for localities seeking to cool things down.
The Richmond Cool Kit doesn’t contain proposals for specific projects. Instead, it lays out a wide variety of cooling strategies that the city says it plans to apply to future infrastructure work.
The strategies cover everything from expensive infrastructure work (like depaving unused parking lots and replacing them with trees and other plants) to strategies that Richmonders can implement in their day-to-day lives to protect themselves and their neighbors (like putting up foldable shade canopies when it’s hot and sunny).
The feds' hidden immigration weapon: Virginia's surveillance network
Reported by Kunle Falayi for the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO
At least five Virginia counties shared data collected by Flock Safety automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) with federal authorities for immigration enforcement, despite prohibitions against using the surveillance for such operations, according to law enforcement logs.
About 50 immigration-related enforcement searches were conducted in Flock data in Fairfax, Chesterfield, Isle of Wight, Loudoun and Stafford counties between June 2024 and April 2025, according to an analysis of the logs. Law enforcement agencies create logs of searches for license plate and vehicle data collected by the Flock Safety cameras.
The logs reveal how data from more than 1,000 cameras tracking Virginia motorists was shared widely between agencies and potentially used beyond its original purpose for criminal investigations and locating missing persons. The online tech news site 404 Media first reported on the data logs, known as audits, and shared data with the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO and other media outlets.
The tech news site identified roughly 4,000 immigration-related searches in the Flock system data. VCIJ found six searches from Chesterfield County Police Department, three of which department spokesperson Elizabeth Caroon said "were conducted at the request of immigration authorities."
News you might have missed from around (or next to) the commonwealth:
- Richmond cut a deal to get its inspector general to leave. It’s so secret, officials can’t even say it exists. (The Richmonder)
- A dive into the UVA Board of Visitors’ political donations (The Cavalier Daily)
- What's in the tax and spending bill Trump signed into law (The Associated Press)
*This outlet utilizes a paywall.