A timeline for rebuilding Richmond's Fox Elementary is coming together nearly a year after the building burned down in a catastrophic fire.

What's happening: School officials released preliminary plans for the building and outlined a nearly two-year design and construction schedule in meetings this month.

• If there are no delays, work would be complete by fall of 2024 at the earliest.

Why it matters: The fire displaced hundreds of school children. Questions have since arisen about whether the perpetually cash-strapped school district's insurance policy would cover the full cost of a rebuild.

• Late last year, sources told WTVR that there was a potential $10 million shortfall.

What they're saying: Negotiations with the insurance company are ongoing, Dana Fox, the district's chief operating officer, tells Axios.

• "Hoping to reach a final agreement soon," she wrote in an email.
• She said the district is still reviewing its cost estimates and declined to share a figure for the project.

Worth noting: Fox said she does not anticipate any delays in construction as a result of negotiations.

Catch up fast: Fox Elementary caught fire last February.

• Authorities classified the blaze as accidental, but a cause was never determined.
• Firefighters searched the building the night of the fire after a neighbor reported the fire alarm was going off, but said they found nothing out of the ordinary.
• Less than half an hour later, the building was engulfed in flames.

What's next: The district expects to finalize design work by April.

• Construction is expected to take 16 months once plans are approved by the city's planning commission.

An NPR investigation uncovered long-hidden tape recordings of four executions in Virginia.

Why it matters: The tapes are the only publicly available documentary evidence of the more than 1,300 executions conducted in Virginia before the state abolished the death penalty in 2021.

• Similar materials have only been released in one other state.

Details: The tapes, recorded between 1987 and 1990, offer a behind-the-scenes account of four executions, as narrated by sometimes-uncertain prison staff.

• In one case, they capture a struggle to connect a call to the governor’s office in case of a last minute reprieve.
• Another is notable for what it leaves out, with employees making no reference to the blood that began flowing from the condemned man’s face, which led one reporter to describe the execution as “one of Virginia’s worst.”

Of note: The Department of Corrections confirmed to NPR it has at least six more audio files documenting executions, but refused to release the materials.

• The only reason the four tapes were made public is because a retired DOC employee turned them over to the Library of Virginia in 2006.
• Archivists had restricted access to the materials until NPR appealed the decision.

🗳 Sen. Tim Kaine announced he is running for a third term in the U.S. Senate — a decision he kept so far under wraps that speculation began building in Washington that he was retiring. (Axios)

🔌 Amazon announced a $35 billion data center expansion in Virginia. (Washington Post)

📚 Meg Medina, a best-selling author from Henrico, was named the Library of Congress’ national ambassador for young people’s literature. (Times-Dispatch)

Lost Letter, a casual and affordable Italian restaurant from the Longoven team, is opening inside Longoven in Scott's Addition on Thursday.

Why it matters: Bon Appétit twice named Longoven one of the 10 best new restaurants in America.

Details: Lost Letter will be open every Wednesday through Sunday serving a frequently changing, Northern Italian-heavy menu drawing on co-owner and executive chef Andrew Manning's decade of cooking in Alba, Italy.

• Diners can expect menu items like housemade pasta and mains including braised rabbit and grilled branzino. Pastas are priced in the teens and entrees in the low-20s.
• The new restaurant will take over Longoven's front dining room, bar and patio space. The 4-year-old Clay Street restaurant will still offer its 13-course tasting menu in the back.

After two years of pivoting and trying new concepts in an industry that was hit hard by COVID-19, co-owner Patrick Phelan says he's finally feeling excited about the future again.

• Lost Letter brings together the a la carte and experimenting of the pandemic, along with work-life balance for the team and staff.

In addition to Lost Letter, the team is working on Nokoribi inside The Veil's new tasting room coming soon.

What they're saying: "It's kind of the beginning for us … back to our Sub Rosa pop-up days," Phelan says.

Phelan wants to be clear that Longoven is not closing and fine dining is not dead.

• "I think there's plenty of people who love tweezer food," Phelan tells Axios. "We're not going anywhere."

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Ned here. Richmond is well known among train enthusiasts for the rare triple-decker crossing of rail lines along Dock Street.

What’s happening: I’ve identified a new triple crossing, courtesy of VCU Health.

Squint at this picture with me and imagine it…

• The new skyway between downtown hospital buildings (top) intersects with an existing skyway (middle), which, of course, passes over the street-level sidewalk (bottom).

What’s next: I am going to try to convince hospital administrators to stage patients in gurneys on all levels to fully recreate the train photos.