Transportation is a pressing statewide problem one governor after another and one General Assembly after another has ignored for the past two decades.

In this day and age, Internet access — fast Internet access — is almost an economic necessity. That’s what makes a recent study on broadband penetration rates so disturbing.

Have the people in Northern Virginia — Fairfax County in particular — become so inured to the presence of guns in their culture that no one raises an eyebrow over the guy in a restaurant with a holstered pistol on his hip?

A regional plan for adequate future water supplies is taking shape exactly when it should — when supplies are relatively robust and the need for additional sources has not reached the point of a crisis.

In the days following a cyclone of apparent epic proportions, how do the government leaders of Burma move to help the thousands of homeless, starving people?

We’ve had presidents caricatured as baboons (Abraham Lincoln), bigamists (Andrew Jackson), B-class actors (Ronald Reagan) and country hicks (Harry Truman). You get the picture, and it’s not a pretty one.

In the wake of Tuesday’s City Council elections in Lynchburg, there are some things that will change and some things that won’t.

Although Gov. Timothy M. Kaine did not get all the money he proposed to the 2008 General Assembly to expand early childhood education across Virginia, he did get money to nurture early-learning programs around the state.

Most Virginians say they want a solution to meet the growing needs of the state’s beleaguered transportation system. But are they willing to pay for it?

With the cost of energy rising almost daily, it only makes sense to focus on energy efficiency in homes built for Habitat for Humanity families.

If public interviews for School Board members are good enough for other city councils, why not here in Lynchburg?

Tomorrow’s Election Day in the city of Lynchburg, and we hope thousands of voters in each of the city’s four wards will turn out to cast their ballots in the City Council races.

For years, whenever architect Hal Craddock looked at downtown Lynchburg, filled with empty warehouses from the city’s past manufacturing era, he saw the city’s future. His dream was of a downtown revitalized and rejuvenated, building on the literal foundations of the past an edifice for Lynchburg’s future growth.

Public education in America is replete with problems; there’s no use denying that fact. Public schools in Virginia — and, yes, right here in Central Virginia — have their share of problems, too.
But there are also success stories as was the case earlier this week.

In Virginia, guns rule. The most recent General Assembly session proved that. How else can you view a legislature that would seriously consider mixing deadly weapons with whiskey in a bar? How else can you view a proposal that would allow people without a concealed-carry permit to stash a loaded weapon in the glove box of the car?

How refreshing. A Charlottesville business group has offered its support of the long-needed U.S. 29 bypass around the city. Most officials in Charlottesville and Albemarle County have done nothing but resist the bypass for years.

If elected officials in the region are serious about adding an Amtrak daily passenger train from Lynchburg to Washington, D.C., they need to let the state know — and soon.

A critical need exists across Virginia for accessible, affordable housing for the disabled. But in Central Virginia, Rush Homes is meeting that need — as quickly as the nonprofit organization can refurbish homes for them.

As the national economy slows, the effect is being felt most acutely in state capitals across the nation. In a report released Friday, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NACL) paints a bleak picture of the situation the states are facing today.

A prisoner-education proposal by Liberty University is now the model prototype for a statewide program. The governor recently amended the state budget to expand the program to every public and private college in the state.

Lynchburg has one of the best trail systems for a city its size in the nation. That trail system for hikers and bikers could get even better if recommendations offered for the region by the 2007 Virginia Outdoors Plan are implemented.

Smith Mountain Lake is one of the natural, man-made gems of Central Virginia that makes the region such a great place in which to live and work.

In the upcoming City Council elections, one of the issues that has arisen as a dividing line among the candidates and, by extension, city residents is the worth of the ongoing efforts to revitalize downtown Lynchburg.

For more than a century, The Museum of the Confederacy’s home was in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

To function properly with a democracy, a law enforcement agency needs to have the trust, confidence and support of the community it serves.
The Amherst County Sheriff’s Department needs to remember that in the days ahead.

With a barrel of oil trading at more than $100, gasoline closing in on $4 a gallon and energy experts positing that production in the world’s oil fields has plateaued, you would think there would be a rush to new sources of power.
Think again.

Though they’ve sometimes talked at each in years past, Lynchburg and Liberty University officials are now talking to each other as LU continues its phenomenal growth.