A hot and humid July 4th could end with showers and storms.

In mid-June 2023, Virginia paid off the financing that allowed the Commonwealth to obtain Natural Bridge. That will eventually lead to more improvements at the state park.

“All men are created equal.”.

An 1833 statue of Thomas Jefferson will be removed from New York’s City Council chamber by the end of the year.

The Bedford County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a burglary at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest.

Poplar Forest has been preserved to tell Jefferson's history, but now new efforts are being made to tell the stories of enslaved people who helped build it.

Those attending the University of Virginia this fall will have to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19.

Join Megan and Lindsey as they chat about The Rock possibly running for election, the latest food crime against popcorn, and fun facts about Thomas Jefferson.

Charlottesville, she wrote, “lynched you, hung the noose at city hall and pressed the souvenir that was once your finger against its lips.”AdIt ends by stating that the city of 47,000 “is anchored in white supremacy and rooted in racism. “This is a new era of Black electeds,” said Wes Bellamy, a friend of Walker’s, a former Charlottesville vice mayor and interim chair of Virginia State University’s political science department. "You all said you were open to being challenged.”Bellamy, who lives in Charlottesville, told the AP that the city has made a lot of improvements in recent years. Ad“And so in this way, Mayor Walker is 100% in line with Black women elected officials, not just mayors but those who are serving in Congress,” Brown said. Among them is Peter Snyder, an entrepreneur and former Fox News contributor who lives in Charlottesville.

LYNCHBURG, Va. – A historic tavern in Lynchburg is up for sale. The Joseph Nichols Tavern dates back to 1815, and it’s believed Thomas Jefferson was a frequent patron. William Holt is a preservationist and said he bought the building in 2015 because he’s a fan of America’s third president. Holt had plans to restore and reopen the historic landmark last year, but lost the business due to declining health and COVID-19 restrictions.

Here are some fun facts about 10 U.S. presidents.

(AP Photo, File)NEW YORK – When Joe Biden addresses the country for the first time as president, his inaugural speech is likely to echo calls for unity that predecessors have invoked since the first time George Washington was sworn in. Unity has since been a theme, and an anxiety, for many incoming presidents, who have faced economic and social crises and moments when the very future of the U.S. was in doubt. “Unity has always been an aspiration," says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. But when we have domestic turmoil we use the word unity.”The United States was forged through compromise among factions that disagreed profoundly on slavery, regional influence and the relative powers of state and federal government. “A president often claims the country is ‘united’ behind a belief when it’s more wishful thinking than reality,” Widmer says.

A statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in front of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia on graduation weekend at the school Saturday May 16, 2020, in Charlottesville, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)VIRGINIA – A group of scientists at UVA is launching a new app that shows you the likelihood that someone at an event is unknowingly contagious with COVID-19. The data shows your likelihood based off of location and the number of people. “We put this app together with the idea that you select of a location, a county in this case, and then there’s a display that shows the likelihood that someone at that event is likely contagious, based on the number of people at that event,” said Michael Porter, a UVA data scientist. Researchers behind the app say it is not foolproof, but the numbers show a best guess. It also does not reflect the people who have been vaccinated or may have immunity.

Va. – A school board in a northern Virginia city has voted unanimously to change the names of a high school and elementary school named for founding fathers George Mason and Thomas Jefferson. The vote Tuesday by the school board in Falls Church came despite a community survey that showed broad support for keeping the names of George Mason High School and Thomas Jefferson Elementary. In the survey, just 26% thought the George Mason name should be changed, while only 23% felt that the Thomas Jefferson name should be changed. It will cost more than $100,000 to change the names, according to estimates. Mason is the city’s only public high school.

Richmond, VA – WSLS-10 Sports has confirmed through sources that Richmond Public Schools have decided to forgo the upcoming winter sports season for 2020-2021. They will play a 14-game regular season beginning on December 21. Gymnastics, indoor track, swim and dive and wrestling all begin practice on Dec. 14, and will begin their regular seasons on Dec. 28. Gymnastics, indoor track and swim and dive will hold six meets each, while wrestling will have eight contests. Regionals begin for all four sports on Feb. 1.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Concerns over Thomas Jefferson’s history of owning enslaved people has prompted a local health district in Virginia to drop the Founding Father’s name and call itself the Blue Ridge Health District. Director Denise Bonds told The Daily Progress in Charlottesville last week that the name change is an effort to be more inclusive. She said Jefferson was a really important historical figure. She said the district wants them to feel comfortable coming to the health department. The district serves Charlottesville as well as the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson.

FOREST, Va. – Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, one of Central Virginia’s strongest ties to the founding fathers, welcomed Independence Day visitors in a different way this year because of covid-19. Poplar Forest guests could still tour the Third President’s former home, but tours were limited to ten people at a time. Everyone at Poplar Forest had to wear a mask, and the museum organized several outdoor activities to keep people at a distance. “A couple of weeks ago, we were very worried that we wouldn’t be able to do anything,” Massie said. However, the house did not open to the public until Independence Day 1986.

An Ebony Magazine article titled, "Thomas Jefferson's Negro Grandchildren" was published in either 1954 or 1958. She broke that silence for the magazine interview, appearing with a handful of other elderly black men and women beneath the bold, all-capital-letters headline: "THOMAS JEFFERSON'S NEGRO GRANDCHILDREN." Peter Fossett, who had actually been born into slavery at Jefferson's Virginia plantation, Monticello. The plantation's online Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia identifies Fossett as the grandson of slave Mary Hemings Bell (a relative of Sally Hemings) and an unknown white father possibly, it suggests, carpenter William Fosset. Bessie Curtis, when she spoke to Ebony Magazine, was listed as a caterer and an active member of First Baptist.

Rembrandt Peale, White House/Wikimedia CommonsCHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Charlottesville will no longer celebrate Thomas Jefferson's birthday as an official city holiday and instead will observe a day recognizing the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans. The city council voted Monday night to scrap the decades-old April 13 holiday honoring the slave-holding president and Founding Father. Charlottesville will now mark Liberation and Freedom Day on March 3, the day U.S. Army forces arrived in the city in 1865. Charlottesville has been grappling publicly for years with how to tell its history of race and discrimination. Those efforts intensified after white nationalists gathered in the city in 2017 for a rally that descended into deadly violence.