Ben Paviour
Ben Paviour is reporting in Virginia as part of The New York Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship. He previously covered courts, criminal justice and state politics for VPM News — with a focus on accountability.
He previously covered politics and culture in Cambodia and lived pre-journalism lives as a tech writer at Google and a program manager for a youth job training program in Alameda County, California.
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After a missed deadline, Virginia’s redistricting commission is hearing feedback this week on new political maps for the General Assembly. But the group still hasn’t come to any agreements, and both its backers and critics are losing patience. -
New state filings by Dominion Energy show the utility company paid a newspaper columnist more than $260,000 over the last four years. As VPM previously reported, the columnist -- Gordon Morse -- sometimes wrote unsigned editorials praising Dominion in Hampton Roads newspapers.
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A historically Black town stood in the way of a pipeline – so developers claimed it was mostly whiteIn Union Hill, Va Dominion Energy drew into question the town’s racial make-up in a push to build a pipeline through the former “freedman” community.
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A U.S. District Court judge in Pennsylvania has dismissed a civil lawsuit against Virginia Del. Steve Heretick (D-Portsmouth) that centered on allegations he took advantage of thousands of people who received settlements from injuries or workplace accidents.
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With recreational marijuana sales still illegal until 2024, delta-8, a synthetic alternative, has emerged as an attractive alternative, raising health concerns from experts.
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Gov. Ralph Northam granted a surprise posthumous pardon to seven Black men executed in 1951 on Tuesday. The so-called Martinsville Seven were sentenced to death by all-white, all-male juries over the 1949 rape of a white women.
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Republican Glenn Youngkin pitched a series of tax cuts on Monday that his campaign says will save the average family upwards of $1,400 next year. His Democratic rival, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, has proposed a $2 billion annual investment in education if voters elect him in November. Both plans hinge at least partly on a budget surplus that state officials say is spoken for.
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The Virginia Redistricting Commission voted on Monday to start with a blank slate when they draw the commonwealth’s new political districts rather than beginning with current lines.
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VPM reporter Ben Paviour recently spoke with U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, after the Taliban seized control of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
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The Virginia Redistricting Commission voted on Tuesday to use voting patterns and the addresses of current lawmakers as they draw new political maps. The bipartisan commission is also on track to hire two, partisan map-drawing teams after they failed to agree on one neutral group.
