No foul play: Investigators say Lynchburg teen died of hypothermia

A Lynchburg teenager who disappeared last November and whose remains were found nearly a week later in a heavily wooded area died of hypothermia, investigators revealed at an afternoon press conference in Lynchburg. Eighteen-year-old Jamisha Monique Gilbert disappeared on November 29 and her 2002 Honda Accord was found crashed about two miles from the location […]

Ix Art Park gets funded

Four days before the Kickstarter campaign expired, the Ix Art Park project hit its $20,000 goal, unleashing promised matching funds from the Ix property developer Ludwig Kuttner and big smiles from the man leading the effort. “The success of the campaign suggests that the community wants this,” said Brian Wimer, who has been overseeing efforts […]

UVA increases tuition by 4.3 percent

The UVA Board of Visitors today approved a 4.3 in-state tuition hike, an increase the University plans to use to support a major faculty hiring push. The total cost of an in-state education at UVA—including tuition, fees, room and board, and books—will rise by $949 to $27,417, according to reports by Newsplex and The Daily […]

Education Beat: Albemarle school board begins cuts

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors last week adopted a tax rate of 79.9 cents per $100 of assessed real estate value—a 3.3-cent increase over the previous rate of 76.6 cents—but even with the hike, the county schools are $3.9 million short of their $164.3 million funding request. During a work session last week, the […]

Sleep on it: Charlottesville considers the science of school start times

For years, Charlottesville’s fifth- through eighth-graders have hustled to make a first school bell at 7:40am. But the city schools are now debating how to institute a schedule shift that would push their day later—largely because science shows such an early start time is bad for adolescent brains. Starting in middle school, kids’ rapidly developing […]

Deadlock in Richmond leaves local drug court judgeless

The General Assembly’s political dogfight over the state’s budget is threatening to neuter Charlottesville’s drug court. The Medicaid expansion stalemate in Richmond has left Charlottesville’s 16th Circuit Court without a designated judge to oversee the city’s drug court for the first time since it was created 16 years ago. “The longer it goes on, the […]

Former Western teacher arrested in sex sting

A former Western Albemarle High School teacher is being held in a Staunton jail after a sting operation caught him attempting to meet a person he thought was a 13-year-old boy he’d encountered on the Internet, according to Augusta County Sheriff’s Office. John Daniel Patterson, 66, was arrested April 15 after he showed up at […]