Dirty diapers: Daycare provider will go to grand jury

A local daycare operator who was arrested last month on a felony charge of cruelty and injuries to children after 16 youngsters were found in her Forest Lakes home will go before the grand jury in February. A Juvenile and Domestic Relations court judge ruled January 8 that there was enough probable cause to certify […]

Tuel Jewelers owner dies

Frances Elizabeth Gibson Loose, who bought Tuel Jewelers in 1975 and who worked in the store for 65 years, passed away January 5 at age 86. She was a familiar sight on the Downtown Mall, always professionally dressed for work, even in recent years, when her daughter Mary Loose DeViney pushed her to the store […]

Split decision: Shooter gets bond, alleged assailant doesn’t

  Two ponytailed Unite the Right participants represented by the same Blairs, Virginia-based lawyer had different fates in their January 4 bond hearings in Charlottesville Circuit Court. Judge Humes Franklin granted 52-year-old Baltimore resident Richard Preston, an imperial wizard of the Confederate White Knights of the KKK who was filmed firing a gun during the […]

Independent Nikuyah Walker elected first black female mayor

  The first meeting of the new City Council January 2 went into uncharted territory with formerly behind-the-scenes decisions—the new mayor and vice mayor—made publicly, and for some on the dais, uncomfortably. New councilors Nikuyah Walker and Heather Hill were elected mayor and vice mayor, respectively, while the airing of the grievances allowed some rebukes […]

Winter at Wintergreen:  Snow, Slopes and Fun

By Ken Wilson – Skiing, snowboarding, skating or tubing: on your feet or on your rear, straight or in circles, down the hill or up and over the obstacles—however you like to slide and however you like your winter sports, Wintergreen Resort in Nelson County’s Rockfish Valley has a hill, a park, a rink, and […]

Nelson County: Come Play and Stay

By Ken Wilson – You can spend a day driving Route 151, the “Brew Ridge Trail,” sampling beer, wine, cider and whiskey. You can spend the night at a bed-and-breakfast and make it a weekend. You can ski down Eagles Swoop at Wintergreen, hike up Spy Rock in the George Washington National Forest, or wax […]

Fast track: Faculty and students want in on Alderman renovation planning

UVA has long desired a makeover of its 1937 research library, and with General Assembly funding for the $160 million project likely in 2018, plans are surging ahead—leaving some faculty and students uneasy about whether Alderman’s 2.5 million book collection will make it back to the library once renovations are complete. And while plans are […]

Transfer rate: Are Charlottesville schools leaving city kids behind?

By Natalie Jacobsen Recent Charlottesville City Schools data suggests a trend among its elementary schools: Non-resident students, typically from Albemarle County and colloquially referred to as “county kids,” are surpassing resident students in transfer rates across the school system. And that’s putting city kids in standalone modular classrooms to handle the excess capacity, says a […]