Shared by the canine's Georgia-based owner under @life.with.the.wee, the video shows the dachshund—described as being one of six in the account's bio—lying in the middle of a garden, flat on her back, legs loose, eyes closed, looking entirely at ease in direct sunlight. Overlaid text captures the mood succinctly: "Just a girl working on her tan."
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On March 23, the first Wind Turbine Generator in Dominion Power’s massive, 176-tower Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project (CVOW) began sending 14.7 megawatts of electrical current to Offshore Sub Station #2. This achievement marks an important event in the development of CVOW, which, when completed early next year, will be the largest wind farm in the United States. CVOW will provide 2.6 gigawatts of power, enough for 660,000 homes. Harnessing the power of the wind means this project has expected fuel savings of $3 billion for customers during the project’s first decade of operations.
The project spreads the 176 836-foot-tall turbines 0.9 miles apart in a gridded lease area that begins 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach and extends an additional 15 miles to the east in the Atlantic Ocean. At that distance, the curvature of the Earth makes it difficult to see the turbines clearly from shore.
The task of installing all of those turbines and their 354’ blades falls to Dominion’s Charybdis, the first Jones Act-qualified Wind Turbine Installation Vessel. Charybdis is a 472’, self-elevating vessel equipped with a dynamic positioning system. She can carry four of the wind turbine generators at a time from Portsmouth’s Marine Terminal to the CVOW field and install them using her 2,200-metric-ton main crane. You can follow her activities on the free Marine Traffic website and phone app, as well as Dominion’s plans for the rest of April in the company’s monthly Mariner’s Report. (You’ll find all of the reports to date and other project Resources here.)
Look at Marine Traffic, though, and you’ll see many more vessels involved with building out CVOW. Each tower’s 31-foot-circumference monopile, up to 272’ long, has been driven into the seabed and stabilized with rock for scour protection. The vessel undertaking the latter task is appropriately named Livingstone. Only then can an offshore supply ship like 292’ HOS Riverbend deliver the transition tubes, towers, generators, and blades for Charybdis to install them, one by one, onto their monopoles. Meanwhile, these vessels require a fleet of supply ships like 498’ heavy lift transport vessel Maria, 85’ anchor handling tug VOE Viking, 82’ safety vessel Pontos, and 86’ high speed crew transfer vessel Patriot Leader. The latter is typical of the big aluminum catamarans developed for servicing crews and cargo to wind farms whenever needed, in all reasonable weather. It’s no surprise that some of them are coming from the East Coast’s primary builder of pilot launches, Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding of Somerset, Massachusetts.
Remember that once a tower generates power, it has to be brought ashore to connect to the grid. Carefully laid and stabilized on a prepared seabed, 176 inter-array cables (231 miles in total) will connect individual towers to three large, crewed offshore substations. From there, nine buried submarine high-voltage, alternating-current Offshore Export Cables (approximately 350 miles total length) connect the offshore substations to shore at the State Military Reservation in Virginia Beach. The business of laying those cables, stabilizing them, and building out that infrastructure requires another fleet of vessels, led by 285’ cable layer Curo, supported by 302’ offshore supply and cable support ship HOS Black Foot. Other support vessels include 126’ tug Isabelle, 394’ cable lay barge Ulisse, and 79’ diver support vessel Storm Diver. The magnitude of Dominion Power’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project forms a staggering management challenge, a huge investment in clean electricity for the Commonwealth’s twenty-first century. Despite a temporary but expensive work stoppage in December and increased material costs, CVOW is forging ahead. It brings Tidewater Virginia a class of power generation and maritime commerce that, while new to these shores, is well established in Europe’s North Sea and elsewhere. As Chesapeake Bay Magazine publishes this story on Earth Day 2026, visit the live Marine Traffic website on a computer screen and look at what the various vessels in CVOW’s fleet are doing to celebrate our Island Home.
But the question remains as to whether it will be damaging to whale populations.
Yes, it was a rather newsy day. With Iranians unable to decide who was representing them in the negotiations of their surrender in Pakistan, President Trump graciously allowed them a little more time (as yet unspecified) to get their shit together and come to the table. The Department of Justice announced indictments on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for a number of thing, chiefly surrounding their funding of "witnesses"/provocateurs in the right wing groups they claimed to be monitoring, including the KKK, and the Charlotte riot. And the TDS afflicted citizens of Northern Virginia voted overwhelmingly to steal the representation of the more rural half of the state with a map that purports changing its representation from 6-5 Democrat to 10-1 "temporarily" , in a statewide election that went 51-49.
So first, Open Source Intel @Osint613, "U.S.–Iran talks stalled with no response from Tehran, NYT reports. Vance’s Pakistan trip not canceled, but currently on hold as Iran has yet to respond to U.S. positions. Nervana Mahmoud @Nervana_1, "Hearing from Arabic sources that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard places Qalibaf, Pezeshkian, and Araghchi under house arrest. Negotiations with US are halted." Eric Florack at PJM, wonders Are We Seeing the Makings of an Iranian Civil War? Capt. Ed at Hat Hair, Trump Extends Ceasefire ... And the Blockade; UPDATE: Iran Threatens 'Harsher Lesson'. From News Wax, Trump Pauses Military Action Against Iran and Iran News Agency Denies It Wanted Ceasefire Extension. The Will Cain Show @WillCainShow, " BREAKING NEWS: TRUMP ANNOUNCES IRAN CEASEFIRE EXTENSION @willcain has the details." Sundance at CTH, President Trump Extends Ceasefire with Iran Pending Internal Regime Discussions. Ace, Iran Refuses to Send Delegation to Negotiations in Islamabad as Cease-Fire Is Due to Expire "The trouble here is that Trump wants a deal. Iran does not. They want to keep their nuclear program and missiles and remain in power. Trump wants them to want a deal, but they do not. So he keeps threatening them in apocalyptic terms to make them want to want a deal. But they don't. And I don't think they believe he would or even could "end their civilization." Trump doesn't want this war to drag on but that's exactly what Iran wants. They figure that if they can drag this out, public opinion in the US will compel Trump to just walk away from the war without actually forcing them to come to terms or to abandon power. And they're probably right, unfortunately." I understand Trump's point, but it should have been made with sometime limit, and perhaps punctuated daily with destruction of a power plant or oil facility.
Amy Curtis at PJM Here's Chris Murphy's Lame Excuse for Why He Cheered for Iran Evading Our Blockade. Chris Murphy @ChrisMurphyCT, "Ok Twitter, I can’t believe I need to clarify this but obviously Trump’s bungled mismanagement of this war is not “awesome”. As I have said a million times here, it’s a disaster and he should end the war immediately. My tweet was something called “sarcasm”." Bo Snerdley @BoSnerdley, "First of all - it is "X" not Twitter. Secondly - you are blaming the "platform" for YOUR POST. If you meant it "sarcastically" you could have used or an emoji or simply said "(sarcasm)" . YOU made the post. YOU should own it and stop blaming "Twitter" for your TDS inspired, anti-American- anti-Military post." Quote Fox News @FoxNews "JUST IN: Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy doesn't say he has any regrets after furious backlash to his X post calling reports of Iranian ships slipping past the U.S. naval blockade "awesome." "I guess I just have to be more careful about sarcasm on Twitter," Murphy."
Ace, Conservative Former DOJ Prosecutor Joe DiGenova Sworn In as Special Consultant to Investigate the Russiagate Conspiracy, "Cry moar, NYT:" Matt Forney @mattforney, "Must-read article on how the Obama and Biden administration systematically purged right-wing lawyers from the Department of Justice, replacing them with barely-experienced Democratic Party hacks (many women). Remember when the "Elite Human Capital" crowd kept crowing about how conservatives are too stupid to run the machinery of government based on the political affiliation of appointees during Trump's first term compared to Obama's presidency? Turns out that like all EHC just-so stories, it was BS. Conservatives are underrepresented in the civil service, DOJ, and so forth because they have been gatekept out." Shipwreckedcrew @shipwreckedcrew, "I've removed the paywall from this article -- now free to all -- so there is a better understanding of the historical developments that have led to this."
Sauron's Eye complains Witnesses in criminal probe of ex-CIA Director Brennan subpoenaed to testify before grand jury, sources say. Sundance reports Devin Nunes Resigns from Truth Social to Focus on President Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board. GeneVolokh at the Volokh Conspiracy highlights how FBI Director Kash Patel Loses Defamation Lawsuit Over Morning Joe Statements. Apparently the wilder the lies, the safer you are.
The Potomac River got top billing in large part due to the massive sewage spill that dumped over 230 million gallons of raw sewage into the river in January. But even if the spill had never happened, the Potomac would have made the top 10, according to Potomac Riverkeeper Network President Betsy Nicholas.
"We were already under discussions about having it as part of the top 10 endangered rivers at the end of last year," Nicholas told News4 on Tuesday. "So we were gathering information based primarily on the impact of water withdrawals, and then water quality concerns, about data centers."
The American Rivers list cites the "rapid, unchecked buildout of data centers" in the D.C. area as "a significant and growing threat" to the Potomac. Nicholas says data centers use a lot of water for cooling super-sensitive computers and chips. The more data centers there are, the more water is pulled from local water sources, like the Potomac. "As much as maybe 2 to 4 million gallons a day of water could be used for cooling," Nicholas told News4.
