Northern Virginia may be best known for its traffic and data centers, but it’s also home to over a dozen breweries.

After facing down a torrent of boos in Galax over the weekend, a new poll shows Gov. Abigail Spanberger with a 54% approval rating—an improvement from a July poll that had her approval rating at 44%.

Tomorrow, I’ll be in Williamsburg to present at the Virginia AFL-CIO’s conference with some thoughts on labor and the media.

Below, I share what I heard and saw at yesterday’s press conference with the Northern Virginia woman who had a gun pointed at her by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.

And, some thoughts on the manosphere (Shakespeare’s version).

Want to get in touch, or have stories you want me to cover? Reply to this email or reach out to me directly at michaeloconnor@couriernewsroom.com.

Michael O’Connor

Reporter, Dogwood

Carolina Molina speaks at a press conference in Falls Church on Aug. 12, 2026. (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood)

I was scrolling Instagram yesterday afternoon when I saw a post that got my attention.

“Join us TODAY at 5:30pm in Bailey’s Crossroads for an emergency press conference with Carolina Molina who will be sharing her experience of being violently targeted by ICE agents,” the caption read.

That was near enough to where I live in Alexandria to warrant my trying to be there in person. Luckily, traffic wasn’t bad, and I made it in time to the spot by a busy road where Molina recounted her frightening encounter.

That encounter has gone viral thanks to Molina recording it on her phone and with a dashcam she has on her car.

Molina put on a brave face for the media during her remarks from a podium and later when reporters gathered to ask her follow-up questions. But it was clear this whole ordeal is taking a toll on her, and eventually she told reporters she was done taking questions.

Organizers called for state and local officials to do more to cut ties with ICE.

Spanberger has been critical of ICE’s excesses but she vetoed measures that immigration advocates and her fellow Democrats want like prohibiting ICE from making warrantless civil arrests in state courthouses.

It will be interesting to see if incidents like the one that happened this week in Falls Church push Spanberger to be more open to these kinds of reforms.

Unionized workers at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden voted yesterday to reject management’s “last, best, and final” offer as part of their drawn-out contract negotiations. The union said to stay tuned about next steps. There’s a raffle going on to support their strike fund.

Virginia clinics see black lung surge in coal miners, Mason Adams with Radio IQ reports.

A Virginia tech firm told the Richmond Fed that while its AI use continues to increase, the company has not decreased its staff: “We still need the same number, if not more humans in the loop to perform different tasks.”

Gov. Abigail Spanberger tours Neighborhood Health, healthcare nonprofit in Alexandria, on Aug. 13, 2026. (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood)

Yesterday, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) voted to formally censure Spanberger over her veto of public-sector collective bargaining legislation.

She got some tough words from the higher-ups in the union: “Abigail Spanberger turned her back on the very workers who helped put her in the Governor’s mansion,” said IAFF General President Edward Kelly.

But I was struck by the more conciliatory tone taken by Kurt Detrick, president of the Virginia Professional Fire Fighters union, and the one who will presumably have to persuade Spanberger to come around on this issue.

“We do not take the action of this censure lightly,” Detrick said. “We want nothing more than

to work with the Governor to enact this critically important legislation and support our Commonwealth’s public safety professionals. We are willing to sit down with her and discuss the path forward just as we have with members of her party. And if that happens, and legislation is approved as she promised, we will be pleased to retract this censure resolution and publicly communicate her efforts.”

Spanberger happened to hold an event today about a mile from my house. I didn’t have a chance to ask her about all this.

But I did get in touch with State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Mount Vernon) who told me he plans to bring back the collective bargaining legislation that he sponsored and Spanberger vetoed.

Still, he hasn’t spoken with Spanberger about what a compromise version of the bill might look like.

(Shakespeare’s Globe/YouTube)

I recently read Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” which is notorious for its misogyny.

I picked it up as part of a long-term project of mine to read more of the Bard’s works. “Shrew” is considered his earliest work, so I thought it a good idea to start this project at the beginning, so to speak.

Reading about the ways Petruchio manipulates the independent Katherina, along with her infamous monologue on the virtues of being a subservient wife, it was hard not to see the beginnings of the hardcore masculinity and embrace of tradwifery in our own time.

It’s an odd play in that it counters these serious themes with some farcical wordplay and a gag about making a poor drunk think he’s a lord à la “Trading Places.”

I’d skip this one unless you’re interested in gender. Better to watch “10 Things I Hate About You.“