Authorities seizing cash and property from citizens is a dirty business, even when the citizens in question are drug dealers, a group that resides already in society’s mire. Police say snatching ill-gotten gains from suspects deprives bad guys of valuable resources. Opponents argue that civil forfeiture programs like Virginia’s force people who have not yet been convicted of a crime to prove they have done nothing wrong.

The heart of any city is its downtown, regardless of whether other districts or neighborhoods are thriving. The heartbeat in Waynesboro is faint.

Asking whether to spend money on adding a fire station in a bustling area seems akin to asking whether firefighters should tap a hydrant as flames shoot out a second-story window. Isn’t the answer obvious- Well, not quite.

Our view of the human cost of war in Iraq will become increasingly more vivid, provided we are willing to look. Waves of soldiers maimed by bullets, bombs and improvised explosive devices are in the final stages of relearning such daily tasks as dressing and feeding themselves. Their next battle: preparing to return to the workplace.

A particularly feisty Gov. Timothy M. Kaine took verbal aim at the federal government Tuesday on the subject of illegal immigration, and he hit the bull’s-eye. Almost.

When school board races go uncontested, it is a fairly safe bet that the district superintendent is pleased. Effectively CEOs, superintendents wield considerable power running districts that are the equivalent of mid-sized businesses, with hundreds of employees and multimillion-dollar budgets. Still, these top administrators must answer to school board officials, who sometimes have altogether different ideas about the way things should be run.

Virginia Tech officials have formed a policy group to decide what to do about a series of recommendations made in the wake of Seung-Hui Cho’s April 16 rampage. Perhaps the group’s to-do list should include giving their counterparts at Delaware State University a call.

Black activists tell us that the case of the so-called Jena Six is evidence of how far America still has to go in realizing Martin Luther King’s dream, and maybe they are right. Prosecutors in the small Louisiana town charged five black teenagers with attempted murder in the beating of a white student. Juvenile charges against a sixth black teen were sealed.

In this era of leaving no kids behind, students at America’s elite universities and colleges are woefully behind on the subjects of civics and American history, according to a recent study.

Well, there she goes again. Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton is talking about health care, a subject the former first lady has, for the most part, judiciously avoided since an initial foray 13 years ago.

Not one to fritter away time when there’s a legacy to be polished, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine last week rolled out a pair of plans to slash Virginia’s energy consumption by 40 percent, reduce greenhouse gases and help the uninsured gain access to health care. Tack these ideas onto Kaine’s pet initiative to increase by two-thirds the number of 4-year-olds in state pre-kindergarten programs, and all that’s missing are proposals to end hunger and bring world peace.

Tucked in the basement of the Waynesboro Public Library is a children’s area, a large meeting room and cramped storage rooms where shelves are stocked, in part, with an overflow of books from the main collection and materials from a packed-to-the-gills genealogy room.

Hindsight in the wake of tragedy can be as distasteful as it is common. It’s easy for those of us far removed from a situation to dissect others’ failings when we have the benefit of knowing the results beforehand

There was a negative review for “Evan Almighty” in Saturday’s edition of The News Virginian, written by a Richmond Times Dispatch reviewer. I’ve also seen other reviews of the film that weren’t very complimentary.

Voters in Virginia’s 24th Senatorial District, which includes most of our readership area, face a difficult choice when they go to the polls next Tuesday to choose a Republican nominee for the November election.