Virginia senator announces plans for ‘life at conception’ legislation and other state headlines

• “A wave of retirements is rearranging Virginia’s public finance agencies, taking decades of institutional knowledge from one of the most stable, least conspicuous operating arms of state government.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch

• Eviction protections put in place during the pandemic are set to expire June 30. Over the past two-plus years, evictions have fallen sharply across Virginia. “We are expecting it, we are anticipating it and we are trying our best to prepare for this.”—Virginian-Pilot

• Del. Kelly Convirs-Fowler, D-Virginia Beach, came out as bisexual during a Pride event Sunday. “I wanted to speak my truth and it just felt right in the moment to say it.”—Virginian-Pilot

• State Sen. Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell, has announced he intends to introduce legislation in 2023 to “protect life at conception.”—Southwest Times

• “Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s return-to-office mandate is adding to tensions at the Virginia Department of Health, where at least two employees say they’ve been asked to hand over medical documents to the state’s health commissioner to support requests to work remotely for the next year.”—VPM

• After late changes to the state budget blocked the expected July 1 release of roughly 550 inmates, the Virginia Department of Corrections confirmed that the 2020 earned sentence credit law that would have let them out on that date did indeed prohibit credits from being applied to violent crimes, a point of contention in the Senate.—WRIC

• The only abortion clinic in the Tri-Cities area of northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia is moving from Bristol, Tenn. to Bristol, Va. in the face of a looming abortion ban from the former state.—WJHL

• The Spirit of Norfolk, a ship that caught fire earlier this June with 100 people on board and then burned for five days, had cleared a safety inspection a month earlier. The vessel didn’t have a fire alarm because it was built in 1992, before they were required.—Virginian-Pilot

• PolitiFact finds that Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney’s claim that Black people in Virginia are eight times more likely to die from gun homicide than White people in the state is correct.—VPM

• Someone is sending a Blacksburg woman $1,800 mystery checks.—Roanoke Times

• Molly Ringwald, the “Brat Pack” actress who starred in such 1980s classics as “The Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles” spoke at a fundraiser in Richmond for state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield.—Richmond Times-Dispatch