Virginia governor visits beach maskless
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Gov. Ralph Northam has repeatedly urged Virginia residents to cover their faces in public during the coronavirus pandemic, but the Democrat didn't heed his own plea when he posed maskless for photographs alongside residents during a weekend beach visit.
A spokeswoman for the governor's office said Sunday that Northam should have brought a face mask with him during his visit on Saturday to the Virginia Beach oceanfront, news outlets reported.
"He was outside yesterday and not expecting to be within six feet of anyone," Northam spokesman Alena Yarmosky said in a statement. "This is an important reminder to always have face coverings in case situations change -- we are all learning how to operate in this new normal, and it's important to be prepared."
Northam has suggested that he will announce a statewide policy on face coverings on Tuesday. At the beach on Saturday, the governor told reporters that his administration was still working on the details.
"Wearing a mask could literally save someone else's life," he said last week, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
First launch of Virgin Orbit postponed
MOJAVE, Calif. -- Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit postponed its first space launch Sunday due to a technical problem.
The company said one sensor was "acting up" and fuel was being offloaded from the rocket in Mojave to address what it termed a minor issue.
"This means we are scrubbed for today," it said in its social media post.
A backup launch window was available for this morning but the company did not immediately announce its revised plan for the inaugural use of its air launch system.
Virgin Orbit's rocket is carried beneath the wing of a Boeing 747 that will take off from Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles and fly out over the Pacific Ocean.
The rocket will be released and its motor will ignite a few seconds later to propel a dummy satellite into low Earth orbit.
Virgin Orbit, based in Long Beach, Calif., is a sister company to Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company preparing to carry passengers on suborbital flights over New Mexico.
Mississippi professor honored for poetry
OXFORD, Miss. -- A University of Mississippi professor who has published four collections of poetry has been named a Guggenheim Fellow.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil said in a university news release that she will use the fellowship to focus on "a new collection of poems inspired by natural history and folklore and navigating what it means to help raise a half-Asian American family in the American South."
She and her husband, Dustin Parsons, who is also a writer, live in Oxford with their two sons.
"I want this work to call readers to become and remain students of the natural world and to celebrate the sweetness of beautiful noises and silences of this planet -- even, and in spite of increasing violence to each other and the outdoors," she said.
Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago to parents who emigrated from the Philippines and India.
The fellowship by John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was established in 1925 and is granted to people across artistic and academic disciplines. Nezhukumatathil was among 175 recipients chosen from about 3,000 applicants. She was the only Guggenheim Fellow in Mississippi this year. The university news release did not disclose the amount of Nezhukumatathil's fellowship.
"It's quite simply the biggest honor of my career to have my work and creativity be recognized in this way, and it's also humbling to see the names of previous winners, many of whom I consider my writing heroes," Nezhukumatathil said.
Ex-lawmaker hurt in motorcycle crash
WACO, Texas -- Former U.S. Rep. Allen West of Florida was recovering Sunday after suffering a concussion, several fractured bones and cuts in a motorcycle crash in Texas, according to a post on his Facebook page.
The post said West was driving back from a rally in Austin focused on reopening the state amid the coronavirus pandemic when the accident occurred Saturday.
A post on his page later on Sunday said West, who was in stable condition, was expected to be released today and then plans to take a week off to recuperate.
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West is running for chairman of the Republican Party of Texas.
Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Ryan Howard said in an email that troopers responded to a crash on Interstate 35 near Waco about 5 p.m. Saturday. He said an unidentified vehicle had unsafely changed lanes in front of two motorcyclists. He said one of the motorcyclists tried to brake and the rear motorcyclist crashed into the front motorcyclist.
He said both motorcyclists were taken to a hospital in Waco to be treated for injuries that weren't life threatening.
Allen's campaign manager, Lisa Hendrickson, said West was the motorcyclist in front in the Department of Public Safety description of the accident.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 05/25/2020