The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:
STAFFORD YOUTH MINISTER INDICTED
A youth minister at a Stafford County church was indicted yesterday on charges that she had sexual relations with a 15-year-old boy. Jennifer Michelle Brennan, 36, of Spotsylvania, was charged by a Stafford grand jury with 10 counts of taking indecent liberties with a child and 10 counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. According to court records and sources, Brennan met the boy through her position as youth minister at Saint Matthias United Methodist Church in Stafford. The boy's mother said that among other things, Brennan counseled her son and his girlfriend against premarital sex. An affidavit for a search warrant states that Brennan began holding and kissing the boy during counseling sessions, and the acts later escalated to sodomy and sexual intercourse. Court records list the dates of the alleged offenses as between Jan. 24 and March 30 of this year. (Free Lance-Star)
VIRGINIA LABOR DAY FATAL ACCIDENTS
Thirteen people lost their lives on Virginia's roadways during the long Labor Day weekend counting period, an increase over the seven deaths a year ago, Virginia State Police said today. (Richmond Times Dispatch)
PRINCE GEORGE'S ADULT STORE RESTRICTIONS
The Prince George's County Council is scheduled to vote on two measures Wednesday that would impose new restrictions on adult book and video stores in response to resident complaints that the establishments attract crime and ruin the character of their neighborhoods. (Washington Post)
NEW ROUND OF FORECLOSURES
The housing market faces the prospect of a new round of foreclosures as hundreds of thousands of risky home loans known as option adjustable-rate mortgages reset to significantly higher payments that could force borrowers to fall behind, according to a report released Tuesday by Fitch Ratings. About 70 percent of the $189 billion in outstanding option ARMs will reset by 2011, the report said, which would be another setback to a teetering housing market still struggling to recover from the mortgage meltdown that precipitated the financial crisis. (Washington Post)
WALTER REED/BRAC PROPERTY
Three years ago D.C. tried — and failed — to get some of the property at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for economic development purposes. Now it looks like the District will get a second crack at it. The federal government is making 61 acres at soon-to-be closed Walter Reed available to the city after the State Department said it won’t need most of the land it requested there. The General Services Administration was offered the 61 acres as well but also turned it down. Walter Reed’s D.C. campus, 6900 Georgia Ave. NW, is slated to close in 2011, when its operations are moved to Bethesda and Fort Belvoir under the Base Realignment and Closure plan. (Washington Business Journal)
FREDERICK ROBBERY 911 CALL
After a gun was pointed at his head, the co-owner of Kerrigan's Corner Deli on Clay Street told a 911 dispatcher he didn't want to get shot. In a 13-minute 911 phone call released Tuesday to The Frederick News-Post by Frederick County Emergency Communications, John Holden said he'd been hit in the head with a blunt object but was all right. Three young men came into the store brandishing guns about 3 p.m. Aug. 28. One of the men screamed and told them to get down on the floor. Holden provided some descriptions of the gunmen, but he was not able to answer all the dispatcher's questions. (Frederick News Post)
