Route 616 in the Keswick area of Albemarle County will be closed to through traffic early Monday morning for bridge work, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Due to decreasing revenue projections, Albemarle County school officials are scrambling to find ways to pare down Superintendent Pam Moran’s $152.3 million budget request.

Until a hearing scheduled for March 17, two 20-year-old Kents Store men will remain in the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange without bond after being charged in a vandalism spree in their hometown.

Despite protests from open government advocates, a House of Delegates subcommittee on Thursday endorsed a bill that would allow the University of Virginia to withhold the identities of financial donors who demand anonymity.

Students in the Charlottesville city school system will not have to make up the early dismissal that occurred two weeks ago, a schools spokeswoman said Thursday.

An additional 6,900 acres in Albemarle County were put into a conservation easement in 2007, the Piedmont Environmental Council has announced.

3:40 p.m. The system, expected to move through the area tonight, is predicted to bring periods of freezing rain with the possibility of higher winds west of Charlottesville.

Johnson, who won Nelson County’s South District supervisor seat in November by three votes, heard his win confirmed Wednesday after a series of legal challenges by runner-up Larry Saunders.

Authorities confirmed Wednesday that 46-year-old Gregory Edward McMullan died in a townhouse fire Saturday.

After five straight years of scorching double-digit growth, most Charlottesville homeowners will see mild increases in real-estate assessments in 2008.

A bill in the House of Delegates would allocate nearly $150 million to the University of Virginia for construction projects.

RICHMOND - With Virginia’s presidential primaries approaching on Feb. 12, supporters of the two candidates who dropped out of the race Wednesday were quickly finding new presidential hopefuls to endorse.

A proposal to offer homeowners a sizable break on their property taxes is sailing through the General Assembly over the objections of business advocates, local government officials and a University of Virginia economist.

“There was too much smoke and too much heat. I couldn’t get in. … I wish I could have been there just a few minutes earlier. I just feel so empty.”

The average assessment of existing houses increased by 4.2 percent, compared with 16.2 percent last year.

12:50 p.m. Authorities confirmed today that 46-year-old Gregory Edward McMullan died in a townhouse fire Saturday.

10:40 a.m. Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters’ sympathies.

11:51 a.m. Two people died in a house fire in Lovingston early Wednesday morning.

The situation is getting back to normal at Hollymead Elementary School, after a week during which more than 150 pupils were stricken with the symptoms of a norovirus.

Monticello officials hope to create between eight and 10 apartments with kitchens. Because the “little mountain” is zoned in a rural area, the foundation must obtain permission from Albemarle County to renovate the buildings for apartments, and change the zoning to Monticello Historic District, which the rest of Monticello has.

RICHMOND - A bipartisan redistricting bill designed to increase the numbers of competitive elections in Virginia picked up a head of steam Tuesday and shot out of a Senate committee on a unanimous vote.

An Albemarle County man who fatally shook his girlfriend’s baby will serve seven years in prison, a judge ordered Tuesday.

As it finalizes the funding request for fiscal 2008-2009 over the next week, the Albemarle School Board will be faced with the choice of sending a needs-based budget versus an expense-revenue balanced budget to the Board of Supervisors on Feb 7.

For some Albemarle County residents who last year got a dose of sticker shock when they received their property reassessments, this year will be a pleasant surprise.

Bleak revenue projections have taken a turn for the worse in Albemarle County, and both school and local government officials are grappling with an economic picture that continues diving southward.

The population of the Charlottesville region grew by 11.4 percent over the past eight years - an increase of nearly 20,000 residents, according to estimates released Monday by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.

Charlottesville officials are holding two public meetings today to discuss the upcoming renovations to the Downtown Mall.

The Virginia Department of Transportation will activate a new traffic signal around 10 p.m. Wednesday at U.S. 33 and Celt Road in Greene County.

Medical examiners have not yet completed the autopsy of a man who died in an Albemarle County townhouse fire Saturday.

RICHMOND - A pair of bills that could curb some abortions in Virginia won approval Monday in a House of Delegates committee.