Mystery Authors Host Talk Saturday at Library Here

Mary Riley Styles Public Library (MRSPL) in the City of Falls Church is excited to announce that mystery authors Katharine Schellman and Stacie Murphy will visit the library together for an author talk and book signing event at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 17, 2023. The library will also welcome poet, essayist and memoirist Diana Goetsch at 1 p.m. on Saturday, July 1, 2023, to discuss and sign her critically acclaimed memoir, “This Body I Wore.” MRSPL will co-host both events with Bards Alley Bookshop.

Schellman will promote the release of “The Last Drop of Hemlock,” a sequel to “Last Call at the Nightingale,” the first installment in her new Nightingale mystery series. An atmospheric and intriguing historical mystery that takes place in the 1920s Jazz Age, “The Last Drop of Hemlock” was released on June 6, 2023. Schellman will be in conversation with Murphy, author of the Amelia Matthew mystery series, which takes place in the Gilded Age and includes “A Deadly Fortune” and “The Unquiet Dead.”

Warner Touts Casey For Security Center Head

U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, today issued the following statement:

“The United States faces a dramatically different threat landscape today than it did just a couple of decades ago, with new threats and new technology that mean we must make substantial adjustments to our counterintelligence posture if we are going to successfully safeguard our national and economic security. I have worked closely alongside Mike Casey ever since he became staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2016, and I can think of no one more qualified to lead these efforts as head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. I congratulate him on this nomination, and I look forward to a thorough and swift confirmation process before the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

Kaine Confirms Commitment To Sane Gun Control Policies

“Earlier this spring,” U.S. Tim Kaine announced this week, “I got a letter from a Virginia student. I want to share part of what she wrote to me. The student said: 

“Hello Senator. I am terrified to go to school. I have lived in your state for six years, but I have never been more scared than I am when I go to school every day.

“…I’m supposed to be safe at school. Something needs to change. I’m not the only kid who feels this way. Why should I be scared to go to school?

“Four days after I got this letter, our country watched as Nashville became the latest community to mourn the unthinkable, with the lives of three nine-year-olds cut cruelly short and three adults senselessly killed.

“When these tragedies happen, I find myself getting angry when I hear my colleagues in the Senate simply offer ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Thoughts and prayers are meaningful, but it starts to sound very hollow when that is the response, and nothing more.

“But let me be self critical. I often say, when the unthinkable happens yet again, that I’m heartbroken for the families, and that we need to pass meaningful legislation in Congress to stop it from happening again, like an assault weapons ban. But if we think that offering thoughts and prayers and nothing else is hollow, the truth is, saying that we should do an assault weapon ban — when we know it’s not going to happen anytime soon — begins to sound hollow, too.

“I do think we need an assault weapons ban. We’ve had one in the past. We know it helps reduce gun violence. But we also know that there is zero chance in the near future that this governing body is going to get to 60 votes for that ban, or many other kinds of gun safety regulations that would make a student be less afraid.

“Here is my challenge to myself and to all my colleagues in Congress: Ask yourself if we’ve let the debate around this important issue become stale and futile. Are there solutions and strategies that we’re not talking about, that we might be able to find some common ground on?

“This youngster’s letter cries out to us, demanding that we find common ground. That we avoid complacency. That we not do nothing.

“I don’t have the answers right now, but you better believe that I am committed to finding a way forward on this.”