News

Virginia needs 30 new judges to keep up with the current caseload.  That’s according to a new study. 

Brian Ostrom with the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg helped conduct the study which was ordered by the General Assembly.  It took 18 months, cost the Commonwealth 240 thousand dollars, and looked at the number of court cases plus the amount of work involved.  Ostrom says judges are especially needed in juvenile court.

State Police continue their investigation of a crash that claimed the life of one Washington and Lee University student and injured seven others. 

Three remain in the hospital, and the university held a vigil Tuesday evening.

The tragedy occurred on a rural road outside Lexington.

“Around 1:30 this morning, on Turkey Hill Road, which is in Rockbridge County, a 2006 Tahoe was traveling southbound when the vehicle ran off the left side of the roadway, hit a tree stump and overturned," said Sgt. Robert Carpentieri.

The Virginia State Crime Commission is recommending a package of legislation that would provide authorities with additional tools to investigate and prosecute child sexual abuse. 

The proposals followed a lengthy study that revealed the difficulties that law enforcement and Child Protective Services encounter as they try to unearth the facts about allegations.

Although the Crime Commission has recommended the legislative package, it still must pass the General Assembly before it could take effect.

These days, there’s no shortage of information available on the Internet. Everybody and anybody can offer an opinion.

But how do you determine what’s valuable and what isn’t?

For an increasing number of people, the ‘go to’ site for online info is Wikipedia, a huge compilation of information where content is maintained by users.  While many Internet sites have no controls for the accuracy of user posts, Wikipedia does. But it recently did a study of the quality of the information on its site and found 99.9 percent does not meet its own standards.

It is most common at this time of year for scientific weather instruments to be found in the woods and forests.

Phil Hysell of the National Weather Service says what goes up-in this case miniature weather stations known as radiosondes-does come down.

Radiosondes are launched into the atmosphere twice a day across the country and can reach heights of over 100,000 feet. During their ascent, these devices send back valuable measurements of temperature, humidity, pressure and wind direction and speed that go into weather forecast models.