Reporter James Cullum has spent nearly 20 years covering Northern Virginia. He began working with ALXnow in 2020, and has covered every story under the sun for the publication, from investigative stories to features and photo galleries. His work includes coverage of national and international situations, as well as from the White House, Capitol, Pentagon, Supreme Court and State Department. He's covered protests and riots throughout the U.S. (including the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol), in addition to earthquake-ridden Haiti, Western Sahara in North Africa and war-torn South Sudan. He has photographed presidents and other world leaders, celebrities and famous musicians, and excels under pressure.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has rocked Alexandria’s economy, Virginia’s oldest banking institution — Burke and Herbert Bank — has approved nearly 400 U.S. Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program loans to small businesses, and there are 600 still pending, according to bank president and CEO David Boyle.
“We’ve approved just about 400 loans,” Boyle told ALXnow. “We have about 1,000 applications, so we have 600 or so that are still pending in various forms and we started actually closing and funding loans this week. So the money’s actually finding its way into the borrowers’ checking accounts and such this week.”
