Charlottesville Breaking News
GOP convention: 'Laborious process' to nominate AG, LG
Delegate Rob Bell and state Senator Mark Obenshain will know after the first ballot Saturday whether they're the GOP candidate for attorney general.PUBLICITY PHOTOSYou've got to be pretty serious about your political party if you're willing to spend an entire Saturday in Richmond nominating candidates for attorney general and lieutenant governor.
Yes, lieutenant governor. Seven people want this mostly ceremonial job that used to be a stepping stone to governor, before attorneys general like Bob McDonnell started using that office to launch a gubernatorial run.
Moments in the spotlight for the lieutenant governor occur now when there's a tied vote in the evenly split state Senate. Or when they denounce the whole convention process, threaten to run for governor as an independent, bow out of the race, and say they're not coming to the convention because it's too exclusive, too strident, and disenfranchises the mainstream voter, as current Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling has done.
About 300 delegates from Charlottesville and Albemarle are slated to go to Richmond May 18, and with Ken Cuccinelli already the presumed Republican nominee for governor, the major race will be between local Delegate Rob Bell and state Senator Mark Obenshain over the hill in Harrisonburg for attorney general.
"From Albemarle, I'd assume Rob Bell has the lion's share of the delegates," says Cindi Burket, chair of the county GOP.
Bell, 45, announced he was seeking the AG job almost as soon as Cuccinelli elbowed LG Bill Bolling aside and said he was running for governor more than a year ago. The six-term delegate for the 58th Dis...
Get Out! events, shows, things to do
Hometown girl Mariana Bell returns to play at The Southern on May 23.Kelly Elaine Photography
Bateville Store Facebook page"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." – Robert Frost
Bell returns to her roots
After playing in Europe this spring, Charlottesville native Mariana Bell returns home for a show at The Southern on May 23. Bell will be showcasing her latest release, The Carolina EP, a five-song acoustic meditation on a fictional character's life from various angles, with a duet featuring Ari Hest on the title track of the "story." Bell will perform this album as well as several full-band songs from her CD Push.
"I love the idea of coming home to play," says Bell, "but honestly, I worry if anyone remembers me."
Bell says another hometown musician first inspired her to play.
Shock and awe: Inside the Rugby Road raid
Armed and dangerous: Virginia State Police officers 18 hours after raiding a fake ID operation on Rugby Road.photo by lisa provence
Who is that masked man? A Virginia State Police tactical team member directs a tow truck into the driveway at 920 Rugby Road.photo by lisa provence
Alan McNeil Jones before and after his arrest.U.S. attorney/U.S. Marshals
Mark G. Bernardo is accused of making fake IDs.U.S. Marshalls
Some friends had concerns about Kelly McPhee's relationship with Jones.donated photo
John Whitehead's new book is "A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State."file photo by jen fariello
Some thought excessive the use of riot police to disperse a peaceful demonstration on the steps of the Capitol in Richmond in March 2012.photo by lisa provence
Kelly McPheeU.S. MarshalsAfter the entire city of Boston was shut down last month during a massive manhunt following explosions that maimed and slaughtered marathon bystanders, news that a block of Rugby Road was shut down last week for a multi-agency operation sparked ominous speculation. Was it a terrorist threat? A hostage situation? A murderous rampage?
Virginia State Police initially refused to say what nefarious activity had taken place that warranted closing off a stretch of one of Charlottesville's most prestigious streets.
The target of SWAT-attired state police and Homeland Security agents, who shut down Rugby Road between Preston and Rosser avenues around 9:30pm May 6? A fake ID ring, it turns out.
Even the next day, long after two residents had been hauled off to jail and a third mysteriously "fled custody" in a white Range Rover, according to authorities, combat-clad cops with assault weapons maintained a perimeter around 920 Rugby Road while an armored vehicle sat in the driveway with blue lights flashing, keeping curious flip flop-wearing students and well-heeled neighbors at bay.
"I heard lots of doors slamming and saw a million blue lights," says a resident who's lived on Rugby Road for 35 years and who demands that her name not be used. "I went over here and asked if there was a fire.
"I was ordered to go home, " she adds indignantly.
"Boston was the breaking point," says civil libertarian John Whitehead at the Rutherford Institute, a lon...
Elusive wonder: Director's bold vision gets last Ebert thumbs up
Ben Affleck stars in this dreamy film set in France and OklahomaMagnolia PicturesThis was the last movie review Roger Ebert filed.
Released less than two years after his The Tree of Life, an epic that began with the dinosaurs and peered into an uncertain future, Terrence Malick's To the Wonder is a film that contains only a handful of important characters and a few crucial moments in their lives. Although it uses dialogue, it's dreamy and half-heard, and essentially this could be a silent film– silent, except for its mostly melancholy music.
The movie stars Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko as a couple who fall deeply, tenderly, transcendently in love in France. Malick opens as they visit Mont St. Michel, the cathedral perched on a spire of rock off the French coast, and moves to the banks of the Seine, but really, its landscape is the terrain of these two bodies, and the worshipful ways in which Neil and Marina approach each other. Snatches of dialogue, laughter, shared thoughts, drift past us. Nothing is punched up for dramatic effect.
Marina, a single mother, decides to move with her little daughter, Tatiana, to America wi...
Probation violation: Kroboth gets six months
Kroboth was sentenced to six months for violating the terms of his probation.Courtesy ACRJAn extended vacation has turned into an extended jail term for convicted attempted murderer Kurt Kroboth, who was sentenced on May 2 in Albemarle County Circuit Court to six months behind bars for violating the terms of his probation.
It was Kroboth's decision to travel from his Arizona home to Oregon and attempt to see the younger of his two sons that landed him behind bars. His travel permit listed only San Francisco as a destination, something Kroboth described as a misunderstanding, claiming that he'd listed only that city since it was his intended final destination. On other trips while on probation, he previously testified, he'd made detours without incident.
In a March hearing in Albemarle Circuit Court, Judge Cheryl Higgins delayed ruling on the violation, citing a need for more information from Kroboth's Arizona-based probation supervisor.
As previously reported in the Hook, Kroboth's son, a student at the University of Oregon, called police when his father showed up unannounced outside his home in early January....
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