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A new era of international trade is underway on the U.S. East Coast, and the Port of Virginia is well-positioned to cement its position as the mid-Atlantic’s true global gateway.

In early May, the port welcomed the COSCO Development, the largest containership to ever come to the East Coast. A few weeks later an even larger vessel, the OOCL France, eclipsed the COSCO Development’s record. And so the big ship era at the Port of Virginia is underway.

These two ships are the first of a new generation of ultra-large container vessels to come to the East Coast. These mammoth ships are fitting symbols of the important role that international commerce and trade play in the Virginia and the national economy.

Millennials are moving to America’s cities — and not just the biggest ones. While places like New York City and Los Angeles remain millennial magnets, research from the Urban Land Institute shows that smaller cities, from Virginia Beach, Va., to Riverside, Calif., are actually seeing the most relative growth in their population of 25-to-34-year-olds.

Virginia Beach’s uptick in millennials — a 16% increase from 2010 to 2015 in the metro area — is no surprise to Bryan Stephens, president of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, which includes Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Newport News. Several years ago, Stephens’ department asked local millennials what would make the region a more attractive place to live, work and raise a family. In response to the survey’s results, the city has focused on extending a Norfolk light rail, which launched in 2011, as well as developing new restaurants and revamping city centers. “All of that has been deliberately evolved over the past few years,” Stephens says. (Virginia Beach has also earned a reputation for being an attractive home for retirees too.)

In these post-recessionary times, with many hoping to see a U.S. manufacturing rebirth, the moment is right to retool recruitment and retention practices for your factory floor.

How do you attract mechanically inclined millennials to your machine maintenance crew?

What is the best way to replace retiring equipment operators and technicians whose skills your company has depended on for years?

How do you make certain rank-and-file workers are motivated to stick around for the long term and that their skills remain up to date?

Many in the bedding industry are asking themselves these questions. They have come to find that in an improving economy, poaching experienced staff from the competition isn’t sustainable. For employers, and for the mattress industry as a whole, to prosper and grow, its talent pool must grow, too.

The Port of Virginia is preparing to receive “big ships” potentially weekly after the largest container ship yet arrived at the Virginia International Gateway terminal in Portsmouth on Monday.

“This is what we have been preparing for: the talk is over, the big ships are here,” Virginia Port Authority Executive Director and CEO John F. Reinhart said.

Early Monday morning, the 1,200-foot-long and 158-foot-wide COSCO Development arrived at Virginia International Gateway. For comparison, the ship is 100 feet longer than the new Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and can carry the equivalent of 13,092 containers that are 20 feet long. That beats the port’s record ship to call last year by a capacity of 3,000 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs.

To the kids at Ettrick Elementary School, the gifts from online retail giant Amazon.com look like pure fun, but to Amazon and school officials, they’re powerful learning tools.

Executives and employees from Amazon’s Chesterfield County fulfillment center joined students, school officials and local dignitaries Friday to announce a donation of $7,500 worth of items to help equip a new learning laboratory at the school that will focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

Half a century ago, John Tyler Community College opened its doors to 1,200 students at its lone Chester campus.

Today, the school has grown to become the fifth-largest community college in the state, educating tens of thousands of students annually from its two campuses. Instead of throwing a stand-alone event to celebrate the school’s birthday, John Tyler is incorporating its 50-year celebration into other events throughout the year, the largest of which is its 12th annual Fool for Art festival, which takes place this Saturday, April 22.

Chesterfield Business News Atlantic Constructors, Inc., (ACI) the region’s leading commercial and industrial contractor with […]

On maps, the blue ribbon of the Appomattox River cleaves the Tri-Cities area in two, separating north bank from south bank, Colonial Heights and Chesterfield from Petersburg, Hopewell, Dinwiddie and Prince George.

The newly released master plan for the Appomattox River Trail would redraw that map, spanning the watery divide with a series of bridges and connecting the trails developed independently by the six municipalities to knit the region more closely together around its most valuable natural resource.