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Snowy Start to the New Year, Major Investments in Hampton Roads and Caroline County, and New Consumer Protections in Virginia
Published 3 months, 3 weeks ago
Description
Good morning, this is Virginia Beach Local Pulse for Thursday, January first.
We're starting the new year with some significant weather on our hands. Early this morning, a snow squall moved through our area just as folks were waking up, bringing brief snow showers and gusty winds. By now, things have cleared out and we're looking at mostly sunny skies this afternoon, but it's going to be cold and breezy out there. Highs today will only reach the low to mid thirties, with northwest winds gusting up to thirty miles per hour, so if you're heading out, bundle up and secure anything loose in your yard. Tonight stays clear but chilly, with lows dropping into the upper teens and twenties. Friday looks a bit better with partly to mostly sunny skies and highs in the upper thirties to low forties.
Now for some big economic news affecting our region. Huntington Ingalls Industries, a major employer right here in Hampton just across the water from us, is investing twenty-eight million dollars to transform one of their assembly buildings on Commander Shepard Boulevard into an advanced manufacturing facility. This new light manufacturing space will house industrial three-D printing technology and bring about three hundred employees into the facility, most of them existing Newport News Shipbuilding workers moving into new roles. That announcement came in December and represents a significant boost for our aerospace and defense sector.
Over in Caroline County, there's major infrastructure development underway. CleanArc Data Centers is building a three-billion-dollar data center campus in Ruther Glen. The facility, called VA1, will eventually run at full capacity of nine hundred megawatts and create about fifty jobs. They're breaking ground now, with the first phase of three hundred megawatts expected to come online in the first quarter of twenty twenty-seven.
Meanwhile, at city hall, Richmond is looking to revitalize downtown with a major mixed-use development. The city is seeking a development team to transform the former Public Safety Building site into a complex centered around a new downtown bus transfer hub. The project would include ten bay bus terminal, over five hundred residential units, and significant retail and amenity space. The request went out in November and they're actively looking for partners to bring this vision to life.
On the jobs front, Virginia's minimum wage just increased to twelve dollars and seventy-seven cents per hour, up from twelve forty-one. It's a small bump but every bit helps our working families. Unemployment benefits also increased, with eligible Virginians now receiving an additional fifty-two dollars per week.
There's also some new consumer protections taking effect today. Social media companies now face requirements to limit minors under sixteen to one hour per day on their platforms, with parents able to adjust those limits. And on health care, Virginia insurance providers must now fully cover cancer screenings including mammograms and prostate cancer tests with no deductibles or copayments.
That's what we're watching today here in Virginia Beach. Thank you for tuning in and please subscribe for more updates. This has been a Quiet Please production. For more, check out quietplease.ai.
For more http://www.quietplease.ai
Get the best deals https://amzn.to/3ODvOta
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
We're starting the new year with some significant weather on our hands. Early this morning, a snow squall moved through our area just as folks were waking up, bringing brief snow showers and gusty winds. By now, things have cleared out and we're looking at mostly sunny skies this afternoon, but it's going to be cold and breezy out there. Highs today will only reach the low to mid thirties, with northwest winds gusting up to thirty miles per hour, so if you're heading out, bundle up and secure anything loose in your yard. Tonight stays clear but chilly, with lows dropping into the upper teens and twenties. Friday looks a bit better with partly to mostly sunny skies and highs in the upper thirties to low forties.
Now for some big economic news affecting our region. Huntington Ingalls Industries, a major employer right here in Hampton just across the water from us, is investing twenty-eight million dollars to transform one of their assembly buildings on Commander Shepard Boulevard into an advanced manufacturing facility. This new light manufacturing space will house industrial three-D printing technology and bring about three hundred employees into the facility, most of them existing Newport News Shipbuilding workers moving into new roles. That announcement came in December and represents a significant boost for our aerospace and defense sector.
Over in Caroline County, there's major infrastructure development underway. CleanArc Data Centers is building a three-billion-dollar data center campus in Ruther Glen. The facility, called VA1, will eventually run at full capacity of nine hundred megawatts and create about fifty jobs. They're breaking ground now, with the first phase of three hundred megawatts expected to come online in the first quarter of twenty twenty-seven.
Meanwhile, at city hall, Richmond is looking to revitalize downtown with a major mixed-use development. The city is seeking a development team to transform the former Public Safety Building site into a complex centered around a new downtown bus transfer hub. The project would include ten bay bus terminal, over five hundred residential units, and significant retail and amenity space. The request went out in November and they're actively looking for partners to bring this vision to life.
On the jobs front, Virginia's minimum wage just increased to twelve dollars and seventy-seven cents per hour, up from twelve forty-one. It's a small bump but every bit helps our working families. Unemployment benefits also increased, with eligible Virginians now receiving an additional fifty-two dollars per week.
There's also some new consumer protections taking effect today. Social media companies now face requirements to limit minors under sixteen to one hour per day on their platforms, with parents able to adjust those limits. And on health care, Virginia insurance providers must now fully cover cancer screenings including mammograms and prostate cancer tests with no deductibles or copayments.
That's what we're watching today here in Virginia Beach. Thank you for tuning in and please subscribe for more updates. This has been a Quiet Please production. For more, check out quietplease.ai.
For more http://www.quietplease.ai
Get the best deals https://amzn.to/3ODvOta
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI