That’s an eye-popping story the Albemarle County Planning Commission has there: a developer who won a rezoning some 30 years ago and only recently started building — based on standards that are decades old.

No doubt about it: Virginia’s high school graduates must be more technologically competent than ever, if the U.S. workforce is to keep up with emerging nations such as India and China.

Amid the staggering market losses and the frightening prospects of life with an economy that has no $700 billion lifeline, we’re left with many more questions than answers, and a surplus of anxiety.

Matinee idol or cinema tough guy?

“We’ve just sort of been winging it.”

When it rains, it pours.

OK, so rumble strips get great reviews for keeping sleepy drivers awake and preventing wrecks. But as musical instruments they leave much to be desired.

Truckers may want to keep the hammer down. We’ll keep hammering away at the need for long-distance drivers to get enough sleep.

Charlottesville’s Sister Cities Commission seems to be taking both a creative and a common-sense approach to relationships with overseas cities. That’s a wise balance.

How money is parceled out to road and bridge projects is only part of Washington’s problem.

Last week, a convoy of police and rescue vehicles led the first convoy over the new Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis, not much more than a year after the old bridge collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145.

Out of your cube and into the street.

It’s heartwarming — but not unexpected — when an assistance dog saves a life. After all, that’s what they’re trained to do.

Currently, Albemarle County homeowners cannot erect private wind turbines to generate electricity for their homes or farms.

Kids should be outsiders.

What happens when a company defies conventional thinking, puts people first, and takes risks with their trust?

Three hundred opportunities to get help with housing.

This tempest in a teapot over whether Sarah Palin was called a pig shows just how low politics has gone.

Talk about living with danger…

With a nationwide mortgage crisis and overall general malaise afflicting the U.S. economy, Americans may be forgiven for ignoring economic events beyond our own borders.

It was risk that got us into the mortgage crisis.

The University of Virginia may have the right to ban all signs from inside its athletics facilities.

By the time you read this, we should know if Hanna will prove a damaging invader or a meek visitor.

“Weed fought the law and Weed won!”

School is back in session. Do you know where your child is?

In 2005 and 1993, our own Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression gave its satiric Muzzle Awards to both the Democratic and the Republican national conventions.

More jobs suggests a healthier tax base. Certainly the state would receive more revenue in income taxes, but job growth also indicates that healthy businesses are generating other revenues, such as sales taxes, that come back to the locality.

Consumers around the world hungry for grain.

Who says there’s no good news?

Shame on Mark Warner.