Richmond Va

For years, Joseph "Baybay" Bullock feared no one, least of all the law. He packed a gun even during casual basketball games--and no opponents dared beat him. His drug-buying customers feared that a wrong look or a dispute over payment would prompt an on-the-spot execution. At a busy Richmond intersection in broad daylight in 1994, Bullock pumped 13 bullets into a pair of rival drug dealers.

Will Junior make it? Whether Dale Earnhardt Jr. can qualify for NASCAR's Chase for the Cup title playoff is a key question as the Sprint Cup Series holds the last race of its regular season in Richmond, Va., on Saturday night. Earnhardt is clinging to ninth in the Cup standings, and the top 10 drivers in points make the Chase. So do two wild-card drivers who have the most wins so far this season among those 11th to 20th in the standings. If Earnhardt finishes 20th or higher at Saturday's race at Richmond International Raceway, the popular driver would clinch a Chase berth.

In an old shade-tree neighborhood well on its way to threadbare, along a boulevard where commuters sweat their way into and out of downtown, on a corner near an empty bus stop, stands an iron signpost: "Here ran, east and west, the intermediate line of Richmond's defenses during the Civil War. . . ." Now there is only blacktop, sidewalk, heavy trees, everyday houses, thick green lawns, litter and dog droppings.

Reporting from Lexington, Va. The meandering path to the cabin where Sally Mann once photographed her young children is through a forest of towering oak, maple and hickory. It's on the Maury River, a mile and a half from the house and studio she designed for herself, and as she walks loudly through a thick layer of leaves and branches, she mentions something about bears. She saw a couple of black bears here just the other day while on horseback. "They're perfectly harmless," she insists, still crunching through the leaves, her dogs barking around her in the fading afternoon light, "but they shake you up a little bit. " The cabin is empty now and her three kids grown, each the subject of ongoing curiosity whenever spotted at one of their mother's openings, art stars by birth.

Arthur Ashe's death cut short his reacquaintance with the city of his birth, where strict segregation he experienced as a child left him bitter as an adult. "Just when Arthur was starting to reinvolve himself with Richmond, we lost him," said Archie Harris, who supervised the building of the Arthur Ashe Center, a youth sports arena in Richmond. Ashe died Saturday in New York from pneumonia related to AIDS. Ashe will be buried in Richmond on Wednesday, after a service at the Arthur Ashe Center.

Investigators are looking into whether two men arrested and charged in the robbery and killings of seven people in their Richmond homes were involved in similar crimes elsewhere, a police spokeswoman said. Ray Joseph Dandridge and Ricky Gray, both 28, were captured Saturday in Philadelphia and charged in the killings. Rock musician Bryan Harvey, who lived in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, and his family were among those slain.

More than 30 gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles have been vandalized in the Richmond area over the last few months, many with an acid-like chemical, and authorities are investigating whether a radical environmental group is responsible. Police and the FBI want to know whether the attacks are the work of the Earth Liberation Front, an international underground organization that uses economic sabotage. Although the culprits left behind notes saying the vandalism was the work of the ELF, Sgt.

Police and fire officials escorted Richmond residents and business owners into their flood-ravaged homes and shops Wednesday, but only to allow them to retrieve pets and essentials such as prescription drugs. Flooding touched off by the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston on Monday left at least seven people dead in Virginia and devastated a historic Richmond district that was the heart of the Confederate capital during the Civil War.

Ten years ago, a spunky sprite with a 1,000-watt smile and a girl-next-door name, Mary Lou Retton, vaulted from the Los Angeles Olympics across television screens into the homes of millions of Americans who fell in love with her. Sweet 16, 4-feet-9, a red-white-and-blue, stars-and-stripes ball spinning through the air, she made an entire country cheer on Aug. 3, 1984, when she landed firmly on her feet and flung up her arms, absolutely sure of a perfect 10 that gave her the first U.S.

The rain-swollen James River surged over its banks into the historic state capital Saturday, flooding 24 square blocks of waterfront restaurants, shops and warehouses with up to six feet of muddy water. The National Guard, called out Friday under a state of emergency, directed traffic around more than 50 streets closed by the flooding and cordoned off swamped areas to keep out thieves who might try to loot businesses after dark.

Hospitals make the healer nervous, and before her lies a long hallway. But she pushes forward -- as she always does -- because she must. The man who needs her is waiting. Never mind the countless bodies she's seen, the bits of human flesh she's cleaned off the streets, the shattering screams of those she consoles after their loved ones have been slain. To the germ-phobic Alicia Rasin, today's hospital mission is scary. Her goal, as always, is to heal. The hospital setting is incidental; the wounds she salves are not physical but emotional.

Investigators are looking into whether two men arrested and charged in the robbery and killings of seven people in their Richmond homes were involved in similar crimes elsewhere, a police spokeswoman said. Ray Joseph Dandridge and Ricky Gray, both 28, were captured Saturday in Philadelphia and charged in the killings. Rock musician Bryan Harvey, who lived in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, and his family were among those slain.

Yellow tape cordons off the back of historic Hebrew Cemetery, where workers moved 15 graves dating from the 1920s to the 1940s after heavy rains washed away part of the grounds. Recent rains -- including more than a foot from the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston on Aug. 30 -- loosened the earth at the cemetery, causing its north edge to erode and slide to railroad tracks below.

Police and fire officials escorted Richmond residents and business owners into their flood-ravaged homes and shops Wednesday, but only to allow them to retrieve pets and essentials such as prescription drugs. Flooding touched off by the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston on Monday left at least seven people dead in Virginia and devastated a historic Richmond district that was the heart of the Confederate capital during the Civil War.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether cities can close off streets and sidewalks in public housing complexes and arrest loiterers and trespassers who have been warned to stay out. A case from Richmond, Va., will test the constitutionality of an aggressive new policy that seeks to rid the areas around public housing of drug dealers and gangs. Lawyers told the court that at least half a dozen cities have recently adopted so-called trespass-after-warning policies.

More than 30 gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles have been vandalized in the Richmond area over the last few months, many with an acid-like chemical, and authorities are investigating whether a radical environmental group is responsible. Police and the FBI want to know whether the attacks are the work of the Earth Liberation Front, an international underground organization that uses economic sabotage. Although the culprits left behind notes saying the vandalism was the work of the ELF, Sgt.

Pasadena Police Chief Jerry Oliver, credited with implementing a community policing program, on Monday resigned his position effective April 21 to become police chief of Richmond, Va. The move represents a sizable jump in responsibility for Oliver, 48, who has headed the Pasadena Police Department since 1991. Richmond has about 700 sworn officers, while Pasadena has about 230. City officials on Monday lauded Oliver for implementing a community police program in Pasadena.

Controversial Santa Ana City Manager Robert C. Bobb took a timely bow out of city affairs with his announcement that he had accepted a similar--and substantially better-paying--post in Richmond, Va. Bobb's ouster was at stake in the hotly contested ballot proposition, Measure C, which would have replaced the appointive city manager post with a directly elected mayor and seven council members elected by wards.

For years, Joseph "Baybay" Bullock feared no one, least of all the law. He packed a gun even during casual basketball games--and no opponents dared beat him. His drug-buying customers feared that a wrong look or a dispute over payment would prompt an on-the-spot execution. At a busy Richmond intersection in broad daylight in 1994, Bullock pumped 13 bullets into a pair of rival drug dealers.

Donnie Gillespie was a typical 1970s teenager who camped out at the drive-in to watch campy B-movie horror films and eagerly awaited weekends when he could catch the golden age of horror in the 1930s. But unlike most of his peers who forgot the movies and moved on to careers and office jobs, Gillespie turned his passion for society's forgotten films into his life's work.