Waynesboro City Councilwoman Lorie Smith this morning formally announced her bid for re-election as the city’s Ward D representative.

An Afton man turned himself over to police today, after a pipe bomb hoax situation on Delphine Avenue led to a felony charge.

PORTSMOUTH — Local governments aren’t likely to escape the pain when the General Assembly attempts to eliminate an estimated $3.5 billion hole in the next two-year budget.

That estimate does not include the losses faced by local school districts to replace federal stimulus money that will dwindle next year and then disappear entirely in the second year of the budget.

A top Shenandoah Valley economic development official plans to meet with state leaders after Thanksgiving to address immediate and long-term job needs in Waynesboro.

Robin Sullenberger, CEO of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership, said Thursday that he had already discussed this week’s announcement of 110 layoffs at Invista’s Waynesboro plant and other recent job losses in the city with the Virginia Manufacturers Association.

Kate Collins students get ‘once in a lifetime’ history lesson

n Authorities charged Kimberly Anne Knight, 45, and John Timothy Swearengin, 45, with trespassing after Staunton police found them in an abandoned house in the 300 block of Green Street. Authorities also charged Swearengin with two counts of defrauding an innkeeper and one count of obstruction of justice. Almost a month before his arrest, Swearengin ate a meal at the Mill Street Grill without paying, authorities said.

Judge hands down sentence for starvation, abuse

RICHMOND — Virginians are taking home less pay, spending less in stores and are still getting hit on their investments, new state tax collection statistics show.

Business profits are up sharply, according to the statistics, but with retail sales lagging, when that will translate into new hiring and investment is still unclear, economists say.

Authorities in Staunton are looking for an unidentified white male suspected of stealing a credit card at Wal-Mart Nov. 14.

For seven months Billiejo Marie King trapped a teen girl in a room and deprived her of food.

The man charged in Waynesboro’s largest mushroom bust pleaded guilty in circuit court Wednesday to possessing and distributing the psychedelic drug, which police found stored in more than 100 jars in his apartment.

An ongoing discussion of how to proceed with referendum-approved projects boiled over during a Waynesboro City Council work session Wednesday night.

Council members recently received legal advice about their ability to move bond money between projects that residents voted on in a 2007 city referendum.

Mayor Tim Williams proposed that $1.2 million borrowed to create a West End fire substation instead be used for a Wayne Hills stormwater project that is moving along faster than the proposed station.

A Waynesboro man cried for mercy in circuit court Wednesday after pleading guilty to robbing a gas station.

“I know what I pled guilty to doing wrong,” Kenneth Marsella Reynolds told Judge Humes J. Franklin Jr. “I’m an addict – I’m not here to make anyone mad, I just pray to God. Have a little mercy on me today. Your honor, I will never be in your courtroom again.”

City to seek federal grant after session

Staunton police arrested Jeremy Kirk Pope, 29, of Staunton on charges he stole a television and printer from a city residence. Pope, described by authorities as one of their “Frequent Flyers,” has been arrested more than a dozen times in the past three years for various charges including: public intoxication, urinating in public and larceny. In March Pope pleaded guilty to charges of assault and batter and for assaulting a law enforcement officer

Both attorneys listened to the defendant and agreed. Krista Shay Chandler told her story and they believed her remorse. But consequences could not be ignored.

Chandler, 21, appeared before a Waynesboro Circuit Court judge Wednesday, ready to be sentenced for abusing her boyfriend’s toddler in April 2008.

More than 10 supporters attended her hearing, and uttered words of encouragement after Judge Humes J. Franklin Jr. sentenced Chandler to one year in prison and three years of supervised probation.

Housing slump dogging city industries

STAUNTON – Two veteran Shenandoah Valley legislators are prepared to sharpen the budget axe for the 2010 General Assembly.

The legislators discussed the sobering news that Virginia is facing a projected shortfall of nearly $3 billion over the next two years during an area legislative breakfast Wednesday at Bentley Commons in Staunton.

Invista announces new round of lay offs

A Waynesboro man cried for mercy in circuit court today, after pleading guilty to robbing a local gas station.

Unemployment fell in Waynesboro in September, but rose slightly in both Augusta County and Staunton, according to statistics released Tuesday by the Virginia Employment Commission.

Waynesboro’s rate dropped to 8.2 percent in September compared to 8.5 percent in August.

A Stuarts Draft man will serve three years’ probation for paying a teenage girl to perform oral sex on him as he videotaped the act.

Wayne Edward Gill, 39, pleaded guilty late Monday in a deal with Staunton prosecutors to avoid jail time. The court ordered Gill to register as a sex offender.

Gill paid a 17-year-old R.E. Lee High School student $300 to film her performing the act earlier this year in a Staunton auto body shop. The girl was seeking to pay drug debts, authorities have said.

Alarmed by the number of low-income workers missing out on income tax credits and paying for tax preparation, the area’s Community Action Partnership this week begins lessons that will lead to a free preparation program.

A three-vehicle crash along U.S. 11 and Captain Hizer Lane stopped traffic Tuesday morning after a Fort Defiance High School student braked for a loose dog, authorities said.

Daniel Whitson, 29, of Grottoes, smashed his vehicle into the back of the student’s car, jack-knifing the trailer he was hauling into an oncoming vehicle.

Buoyed by a wave of small-government enthusiasm after a march on Washington earlier this year, the region’s tea party movement is sweeping up new acolytes even as controversy swirls around a group deeper South, area organizers said.

A Stuarts Draft man who solicited a teen girl for oral sex avoided jail time as part of a plea agreement with the Staunton prosecutors office.

Authorities say they found a Staunton home inhabited by 100 birds with 19 more dead in a freezer, floors littered with piles of feces and carpets stained by urine.

Michael Mason killed his ex-girlfriend with a single gunshot fired at her head from close range.

John Franklin Myers shot his girlfriend in a gravel driveway outside the mobile home where they’d lived for seven tumultuous months.

Crews using four cranes swap old Delphine Avenue span for a new one as a crowd of onlookers watch the action.