10 years for a trash can

For $20 in damage to a trash receptacle, Curtis J. Hill received a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years for two counts of “attempting to destroy by fire.” Hill’s sentence came after a final attempt to withdraw a guilty plea was denied by Judge Norman K. Moon on October 18 at the U.S. District Court.    […]

Legal Aid fights loan scammers

Credit card debt and predatory lending don’t exactly sound like material for a riveting night at the movies. But on October 25, Legal Aid will host a film screening of Maxed Out, an exposé about the way credit card companies and high interest lenders do business. Apparently, the truth ain’t pretty.    Directed by James Scurlock, […]

Detail work

“God is in the details,” said German-born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. (Or maybe it was Gustave Flaubert…Nobody’s really sure.) The point is that the true miracle of creation lies not in the grand, showy works, but in the seemingly inconsequential details.

Morgan Freeman’s second coming

Here in Charlottesville, we’re just blessed. Not only will we be receiving his Hollywood holiness Morgan Freeman, who’s coming to town to screen his new movie…

Winging it

Dear Ace: I was running through the UVA campus recently and passed a statue of a naked man with wings I’d never noticed before. What’s his story? —Marc U. Ray Dear Marc: While Ace admires your commitment to fitness, he must say it’s a pity you didn’t stop! The particular bronze you breezed by is […]

Branching out

Deliver Us from Hollywood: Previewing the Virginia Film Festival When it went down back in 1993, the standoff between U.S. gov-ernment forces and David Koresh took 51 days, and immediately added the terms “Branch Davidian” and “Waco, Texas” to the national lexicon.     In Waco Resurrection, one of the most bizarre and thought-provoking computer game […]

ARTS CENTER STALLED OVER donor’s $22 MILLION

An arts center planned for the corner of Emmet Street and Ivy Road won\’t include a 1,600-seat theater originally slated and the project overall may come later than expected. The reason? A $22 million gift from now-deceased big-dollar donor Carl Smith\’s estate is “on hold,” says UVA Architect David E. Neuman.

School violence on decline

With national attention focused on several school shootings across the country, it’s easy to assume schools are less safe than ever before. But researchers such as Dewey G. Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist and professor of education at UVA, say just the opposite. Cornell, who has written on psychology and education for over 100 publications, […]

New Coach wants more fans, titles

New wrestling coach Steve Garland, at 29, has taken over a program that went 12-5 last year but hasn’t won a team ACC title since 1974.    “All that matters in wrestling is how many All-Americans you have, how many guys you’re bringing to the big dance, and did you win ACCs or not,” says Garland. […]