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Heather Mitchell is the Republican candidate for who’s running for the House District 2 seat, to represent portions of Prince William and Stafford counties.

The seat is currently held by Democrat Jennifer Carroll Foy.

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Vanpools are becoming a more popular way to commute in Northern Virginia.

OmniRide’s Vanpool Alliance program has more than 600 vans registered and in use with its program. The majority of the vans use the Interstate 95/395 corridor, ferrying commuters to and from their offices in Washington, D.C., and Arlington.

However, new E-ZPass Express Lanes are set to open on I-66 in 2022, and the number of vanpools registered with the program could more than double, said program manager Joe Stainsby.

The new lanes on I-66 and new commuter parking lots along the corridor will open up new transit options for those living along that highway — slugging/ridesharing, vanpool, and commuter more bus service — options that have been widely available for I-95 commuters since the 1970s.

Standby joined me on this latest edition of the Potomac Local Podcast to talk about how vanpool work to reduce traffic congestion, and who they will play a role in the future of mobility in our region.

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On this episode of the Potomac Local Podcast, we take our reporting deeper with an interview with longtime Prince William County Realtor and one-time candidate for the Prince William Board of County Supervisors Scott Jacobs.

He’s been at the center of the debate on how to preserve the Rural Crescent — the last rural tract of land in a growing county of just over a half-million people located outside Washington, D.C. The crescent-shaped land tract encompasses an area of more than 80,000 acres stretching from Quantico Marine Corps Base to Manassas National Battlefield Park.

As we reported in June 2019, tensions were high at another meeting of Prince William County officials and residents of the Rural Crescent

Some who live there want the two-lane roads, and the land where many dairy and cattle farms used to operate, to be preserved in time.

Others — especially the farmers who used to operate but no longer do because of changing market conditions and encroachment from residential and commercial development — want to sell the land for a fair market price and leave.

All of this puts the county in the middle, trying to figure out how best to appease these constituencies while preserving the open land — something that’s becoming more difficult to find as the years pass.

Today on the Potomac Local Podcast, we talk with Dr. Robert “Bob” Schneider, executive director of OmniRide.

The 30-minute discussion tackles these topics:

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By Saffeya Ahmed
Capital News Service

RICHMOND — Two delegates, both former journalists, introduced legislation Monday to protect student journalists from censorship and shield reporters from having to disclose confidential sources.

Dels. Chris Hurst, D-Montgomery, and Danica Roem, D-Prince William, urged the General Assembly to pass such legislation.

“Journalism matters. Facts matter,” Roem said. “We have to get this right.”

Sponsored by Roem, House Bill 2250 — introduced for the second year in a row — would protect members of the press from being forced by courts to reveal the identity of anonymous sources.

“The whole point of the shield law is to protect reporters from being jailed for protecting confidential sources,” said Roem, a former reporter with The Prince William Times.

In 1990, Roem’s former editor Brian Karem served jail time for withholding the names of anonymous sources while reporting in Texas.

“He did it to protect his sources’ confidentiality,” Roem said, “and to keep his word.”

Virginia is one of 10 states that does not implement shield protections for members of the press; Roem also pointed out that a federal shield law does not exist. HB 2250 includes a clause requiring sources to be revealed when there is an “imminent threat of bodily harm,” Roem said.

In addition to shield laws, Hurst said it’s urgent the legislature also pass HB 2382, which he is sponsoring. The bill would safeguard the work of student journalists from administrative censorship.

If the bill passes, Virginia would join 14 other states in providing protections for high school or college students. Half of the states with current protections for student journalists passed legislation in the last four years.

“Thorough and vetted articles and news stories in student media shouldn’t be subject to unnecessary censorship by administrators,” Hurst said.

Hurst has advocated for measures close to his heart since election to office in 2017. A former anchor and reporter for WDBJ 7 news in Roanoke, Hurst was dating Alison Parker, a fellow WDBJ reporter who was fatally shot on live TV in 2015, along with photojournalist Adam Ward.

The bill would create the freedom for student journalists to publish what they please without fear of administrative retaliation.The institution would be allowed to interfere only if  content violates federal or state law, invades privacy unjustifiably, creates clear danger or includes defamatory speech.

While the current legislation focuses on implementing protections for student reporters in public schools and universities, Hurst said he wants the protections to eventually encompass private institutions. He said the legislation was “something that would, as fast as possible, put protections in place for student journalists at our public schools, our public colleges and universities.”

These pieces of legislation come at a time when professional journalists are increasingly targets of violence. A 2018 report by Reporters Without Borders — a nongovernmental organization that promotes journalistic free speech worldwide — found nearly 350 journalists were detained, 80 killed and 60 held hostage by November. More than 250 reporters globally were jailed in 2018, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

On this edition of the Potomac Local Podcast, reporter Olivia Briscoe joins me to talk about her reporting on the Prince William County Landfill, and about how plastics are piling up there. 

She reported this week that, since a decision made by China earlier this year to stop accepting used plastics for recycling, that waste has been piling up at the local landfill. 

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We’re getting a tour of the poultry barn at the Prince William County Fair on this episode of the Potomac Local Live Podcast.

Find out what goes into judging the best bird in Prince William County. There’s a lot more to it than you think.

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When it comes to our food, many of us know what we're eating but a lot of us don't know where it comes from. 

We get a behind the scenes look at what it takes to raise show beef cattle entered into competition at the Prince William County Fair.

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From a press release: