As 2025 draws to a close, here’s a look at Cardinal News’ most-read stories this year. There’s a bit of celebrity star power, a fascination for Virginia demographics trends, a dash of sports and some news on how national politics is playing out in Southwest and Southside Virginia.
10. Alicia Silverstone offers reward of up to $50,000 for information on baby giraffes missing from Natural Bridge Zoo
Coming in 10th place was the celebrity entrance into the Natural Bridge Zoo saga. The “Clueless” actress used her star power in November to bring renewed attention to the baby giraffes missing from a private zoo that has been under state scrutiny since 2023. The zoo manager, Gretchen Mogensen, opted for jail time instead of revealing the animals’ whereabouts.
To learn more about all the twists and turns of this mystery, listen to our podcast episode “Where are the Missing Giraffes?: Unraveling the Secrets of Natural Bridge Zoo.”
President Donald Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship is not the first attempt to overturn the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. In 1897, a Virginia lawyer argued that the amendment itself was unconstitutional because of how it was ratified. President Grover Cleveland initiated the landmark case by attempting to make an example out of a man of Chinese descent who was born in the United States.
8. Opinion: Migration trends have changed. Most rural counties in Virginia are now seeing an influx of young adults.
The median age of Virginia’s rural counties is getting younger, according to U.S. Census data released in September. One demographics expert said that people ages 25 to 44 are fleeing the high housing costs of urban centers, enabled by remote work. But, as Dwayne Yancey notes, the overall population in those same counties is decreasing because of higher death rates and lower birth rates.
7. Oak Hill Academy in Grayson County hires former NBA star Carmelo Anthony
It’s a homecoming of sorts for the star Oak Hill Academy alumnus, whose 20-year NBA career included the Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks and 10 appearances as an NBA all-star. In April, the boarding school announced that he would be co-general manager of the well-regarded basketball program and mostly work remotely.
6. Opinion: Rural communities are keeping Virginia from becoming an exporter of people. That’s where the population growth is.
Another opinion piece about population shifts caught people’s attention, this one from May. U.S. Census data showed that almost every rural county in Virginia saw more people move in than move out. Dwayne Yancey says this is the biggest demographic shift Virginia has seen since the pandemic and helped reverse a trend of losing population statewide every year since 2014.
5. Police arrested a Forest man on a charge of making a threat of death or bodily injury against Del. Wendell Walker
Another Lynchburg legislator said Walker was the third state lawmaker to receive such threats during the 2025 election cycle. Considering this was just a few weeks after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah, attention toward politically motivated violence was especially high.
4. Opinion: Northern Virginia is ‘at a critical crossroads,’ which means rural Virginia is, too
Noticing a pattern? Readers across Cardinal Land really liked clicking on stories that discussed the symbiotic relationship between Southwest and Northern Virginia. In Dwayne Yancey’s column from July, he argued that Virginia’s rural areas especially depend on tax revenue from Northern Virginia to keep money flowing to them from the state government.
3. Opinion: James Madison University stands out in College Football Playoff field. Its mandatory student fee for athletics is more than 4 times higher than all the other schools put together.
This opinion piece from Dwayne Yancey hasn’t even been on the website for a month, but it came in third on our list of most-read stories. Mandatory student fees — regardless of the amount — for college athletics is already controversial because many people think higher education costs are already too high and, arguably, only a handful of students benefit from the payout. Dwayne Yancey argues that the state should repeal laws that allow these mandatory fees.
2. Trump administration rescinds $500,000 EPA grant to fund a community project helping 5 Southwest Virginia communities
Less than six months after flood damage from Hurricane Helene, President Donald Trump’s administration canceled grant funding that would help make rural communities less susceptible to flooding. The nonprofit that received the grant, Appalachian Voices, and several other groups are currently appealing a judge’s decision to dismiss their class-action lawsuit challenging the termination.
1. Opinion: I drove 300 miles in rural Virginia, then asked police to send me their public surveillance footage of my car. Here’s what I learned.
By far, the most-read story of 2025 was from our executive editor, Jeff Schwaner, who took a journey to find out how police use license plate readers across Virginia to track drivers’ movements — without a warrant and even if they aren’t suspected of a crime. The drive only lasted a day, but his battle to access public records about his own car lasted a month.