The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:
DC TRAFFIC FINES UP
Drivers who speed, litter, don't use their turn signals, blow past loading school buses or break dozens of other rules of the road will be subject to fine increases of up to several hundred dollars starting Tuesday. Mayor Adrian Fenty approved increasing 71 traffic fines as wells as raising various business fees as part of an effort to balance the city's budget. The increases are projected to generate about $7 million this fiscal year, which ends in September. The traffic fine increases include raising the penalty for following another car too closely from $25 to $100. The hit for swerving in your lane rises by the same amount, and the price for getting caught driving through a barricaded or closed street will climb from $25 to $500. (Washington Examiner)
VIRGINIA TUITION INCREASES
The governor calls the spikes in tuition "unsustainable." University presidents use similar language to talk about cuts in state support that they blame for those increases. Left holding the tab are students at the state's 15 four-year public schools, who next year will pay increases that range from $1,700 at Virginia Commonwealth University to $355 at Norfolk State University. (Richmond Times Dispatch)
73-YEAR-OLD GRAD
Taking a break from college is not unusual for students. Usually the break lasts, at most, a few years, but for Marlene Metcalfe, it lasted more than 50. Metcalfe, 73, finally earned her associate's degree in general studies Tuesday from Frederick Community College, after starting school in the 1950s. The Frederick resident dropped out of the University of Wisconsin at the age of 17 and went back to the classroom about four years ago to finish what she had started. (Gazette)
SNOW REMOVAL ORDINANCE
When County Board members consider and, likely, enact a snow-removal ordinance later this month, they may benefit from state requirements that - members of the General Assembly say - give Northern Virginia localities a degree of autonomy in setting rules for the removal of snow and ice. But the Code of Virginia section that gives localities the ability to enact such rules also is written in a way that could open up any snow-removal ordinance to a legal challenge. (Sun Gazette)
BATTLE OVER CELL PHONE TOWER
In late January, T Mobile filed with Prince William County for permission to build a 150-foot cell phone monopole one-half mile from the Turn The Mill Around Campaign property around Chapman/Beverley Mill. Mill volunteers oppose the monopole because they say it will adversely affect the entire view shed of the Battle of Thoroughfare Gap, which extends two miles north Chapman’s Mill to Hopewell Gap on Bull Run Mountain and almost a half-mile south of Chapman’s Mill. The Battlefield also extends three miles east into Prince William County and nearly two miles west of the Gap into Fauquier County. (Gainesville Times)
