Vaccine mandates and abortion bans fuel Virginia's first gubernatorial race debate
CBSN
The same campaign topics that dominated in the weeks leading up to California's recall election were front-and-center days later in the first debate of Virginia's gubernatorial race.
Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin and Democratic candidate and former Governor Terry McAuliffe deeply differed over their views of COVID-19 vaccination mandates and abortion laws during Thursday night's debate.
On President Biden's vaccine mandate, which requires federal workers and contractors and employees of large companies to be vaccinated, Youngkin doubted whether the president "has the authority to dictate to everyone that we have to take the vaccine." Other GOP governors have expressed the same views, though Youngkin didn't specify if he would challenge the administration in court.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.