Virginia

Volatile dust was blamed Friday in an explosion that leveled a sugar refinery, and crews pulled four bodies from tunnels beneath the mangled mass of metal and beams. At least four people known to be inside when the explosion occurred were missing. Savannah Police Sgt. Mike Wilson said no attempts would be made to search for the dead until today, when heavy equipment will be brought in to remove debris. Search efforts were slowed by the instability of what was left of the Imperial Sugar Co.

. -- Standing in a pulpit that inspired him in his youth, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. reminded a Baptist congregation that trouble is unavoidable but does not last forever and is not suffered alone. "I don't care what the prosperity preachers say . . . there is no such thing as a trouble-free life," Wright said in a sermon at Bank Street Memorial Baptist Church in Norfolk. Cautioning those in the audience who might repeat his words later, he added: "Don't quote Jeremiah Wright, quote Jesus."

Donna Moore did not need to glance at the big-screen television in her Virginia living room to make up her mind about California's great leap forward to the legalization of gay marriages. As one of the prime movers in exurban Spotsylvania County behind a 2006 state ballot amendment that outlawed gay marriages, Moore determined years ago that "same-sex marriage is something that goes against every principle I believe in.

Mark R. Warner is expected to reignite his political career with an easy election to the Senate in November in much-watched Virginia. But he already was viewed as a prime presidential contender at some future date. His selection as keynote speaker for the upcoming Democratic National Convention will only intensify such chatter. At Politico.com, for instance, Mike Allen rates Warner, 53, a "rising star" in the party with "a post-partisan message" resembling Barack Obama's.

The isolated towns of Virginia's Appalachian coal region are home to strong labor unions and Democratic political machines that date back generations. Yet voters here who eagerly pushed Democrats into the Senate and the governor's office are resisting Barack Obama. Some Americans say Obama's race and uncommon background make them uncomfortable -- here those people include Democratic precinct chairmen and get-out-the-vote workers.

In political campaigns today, digital video cameras and YouTube can be used as weapons. So can a good old-fashioned walking stick. After a candidate's forum at a Winchester, Va., hotel Friday, two young campaign workers for Democrat Judy Feder, who is challenging 14-term incumbent Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), learned this the hard way.

Bob Lawrence, a retired engineer, once counted on a majority of people in this state to vote just like him -- Republican. Presidential elections were rather uneventful affairs. So it comes as something of a surprise that in recent weeks, volunteers canvassing for Democrat Barack Obama have knocked on the front door of Lawrence's red brick home at least six times. He hasn't seen anyone from the other side. When an Obama ad comes on television -- which happens a lot -- Lawrence switches channels.

The place called Lumpkin's Slave Jail was indeed a jail, but it was much more than that. It was a holding pen for human chattel. In Richmond's Shockoe Bottom river district, the notorious slave trader Robert Lumpkin ran the city's largest slave-holding facility in the 1840s and 1850s. Tens of thousands of blacks were held in the cramped brick building while they waited to be sold. Those who resisted were publicly whipped.

A portrait of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee not publicly seen since 1868 is being displayed as part of the Museum of the Confederacy's commemoration of the iconic Civil War leader's 200th birthday. The gilt-framed oil painting, about 26 inches high and 21 inches wide, will be the showcase piece of the museum's exhibit marking Lee's birthday Jan. 19. American artist Thomas B.

The House of Delegates unanimously approved a resolution Friday expressing "profound regret" for Virginia's role in the slave trade, a significant act of contrition by a body that used to start its day with a salute to the state's Confederate heritage.