The abrupt departure of the staffer in charge of implementing Charlottesville’s 2-year-old civil rights ordinance has set the volunteer Human Rights Commission (HRC) that worked with her office on the defensive, but some involved with the creation and oversight of the city’s anti-discrimination efforts say there’s reason to be optimistic. Zan Tewksbury resigned from her […]
Ever since Rolling Stone’s shocking November 2014 story on an alleged gang rape at UVA began to fall apart, media watchers have speculated whether the magazine would end up the defendant in a defamation suit. The local chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, where the story’s key figure, a student named Jackie, claimed to have been […]
The gunmetal gray 2013 Toyota RAV-4 sitting on a rotating platform under studio lights at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Vehicle Research Center north of Ruckersville last Thursday afternoon had not had a good day. A few hours earlier, it had been hurtled at 40 miles per hour at a semi-rigid barrier, which struck […]
The trial for the accused murderers of Waynesboro reserve police officer Kevin Quick was already one for the record books when it began May 4: Six defendants, 10 defense attorneys, three prosecutors, a jury panel of 134 and six weeks set aside for arguments in front of the Honorable Glen E. Conrad, chief U.S. District […]
The final chapter in a 4-year-old legal battle over a Charlottesville ordinance banning solicitation in certain areas of the Downtown Mall is playing out in favor of the free-speech advocates who challenged the rule. Last week, the City Council approved a nearly $126,000 settlement to the plaintiffs in the case, Albert Clatterbuck and Christopher Martin, […]
As the class of 2015 prepares to walk away from UVA, the University’s Board of Visitors is weighing whether President Teresa Sullivan will stay. Sullivan’s current contract ends next summer, and Rector George K. Martin has said the governing board will likely determine whether to extend it by the end of next month. Martin has […]
On May 12, the Charlottesville Planning Commission will chew over the next chapter in a decades-old development story as Charlie Armstrong, vice president of Southern Development, pitches the latest zoning amendment request for the company’s property at the corner of Ridge Street and Cherry Avenue at a public hearing. Plans for the still-vacant corner, eventually […]
Tuesday afternoon brought a major development in a local case that continues to grab national headlines: Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford announced that she would charge Jesse Matthew with capital murder in the death of UVA second-year Hannah Graham. That means Matthew, who was in court for a hearing to set his trial date on first-degree […]
A group of 55 Sweet Briar faculty members has filed yet another lawsuit attempting to block the planned closure of the 114-year-old college, claiming breach of contract. But the school’s leaders have fired back with a legal memorandum opposing the suit—the third filed against the school in a month—and have accused the faculty of trying […]
When Donald Trump and his son Eric bought former billionaire Patricia Kluge’s 45-room mansion in 2012, completing a $12.7 million takeover of her 776-acre county estate, the younger mogul hinted it could become a boutique inn for the adjacent Trump Winery. Now those plans are coming to fruition as the Trump Hotel Collection prepares to […]