4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review
Worst bike accident: UVA grad student Matthew King is killed the morning of April 19 on West Main at 4th Street in a collision with a Charlottesville Public Works truck.
Worst day for cyclists: Another rider is struck that same evening by a cab at the intersection of University Avenue and Emmet Street. Sherwood Richers is hit at 11:53pm, taken to UVA Medical Center with minor injuries, and released the next morning, the Daily Progress reports.
Worst fire: Two trailers at Triangle Trailer Park are destroyed following an electrical panel failure in one of the mobile homes early April 15. The residents escape, but four dogs perish in the blaze.
Worst bullying: Harrisonburg Commonwealth's Attorney Marsha Garsh and police officers storm the office of the JMU student paper, the Breeze, April 16 and demand photos of the Springfest riot, threatening to take all the paper's computers, cameras, and equipment, which would prevent publication.
Latest in a grisly murder: The Virginia Tech grad student who decapitated a classmate in January 2009 receives a life sentence without possibility of parole April 19 in Montgomery County Circuit Court. Haiyang Zhu pleads guilty to first-degree murder for killing Xin Yang, 22, a fellow Chinese student, while having coffee.
Latest George Allen sighting: The former governor, U.S. senator, and Earlysville resident appears at tea party rallies April 15 in Staunton, Harrisonburg, and Prince William County, the News Virginian reports. Allen has lain low since his 2006 loss to Jim Webb after the infamous "macaca" incident.
Saddest event to turn violent: An April 19 vigil at Gypsy Hill Park in Staunton, for 14-year-old Jason Panzino, who died over the weekend while camping in George Washington National Forest, runs amok when Staunton police show up, the Newsplex reports. Five mourners, including the dead boy's brother, are arrested.
Most crabs: Governor Bob McDonnell and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley announce that the Chesapeake Bay blue crab population has surged 60 percent over last year to 658 million crabs, the most since 1997, thanks to a re-stocking program.
Best news for pit bulls: Governor McDonnell amends a bill to prohibit euthanasia of dogs based solely on breed in public animal shelters.
Best news for travelers who gotta go: The last seven of the 19 rest areas closed in 2009 reopen April 14.
Best news for Yancey, Scottsville, Red Hill, and Murray elementaries: Albemarle School Board decides not to pare two principal positions, which would have made the four schools share two principals.
Best news for Advance Mills: The bridge that has been closed since 2007 for safety reasons reopens April 16.
Best get: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks at UVA Law School April 16 at the 12th annual Henry J. Abraham Distinguished Lecture, an event sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Freedom of Expression. Scalia was a UVA law prof from 1967 to '71.
Swankiest new digs: The Jefferson Scholars Foundation unveils its 32,700-square-foot, $21 million green facility April 16 at the former site of the 1913 Eugene Bradbury-designed Beta House on Maury Avenue, which the Foundation razed over the Christmas holidays in 2007.
Highest paid: University of Virginia faculty salaries are tops in the state at an average of $103,900, followed by University of Richmond paychecks, according to an American Association of University Professors report.
Biggest fall in rankings, while still being incredibly rich: In 1989, John Kluge was the richest man in the world, according to Forbes. This year, he ranks number 109 on the magazine's list of world billionaires, with an estimated worth of $6.5 billion. Last year, the 95-year-old Kluge ranked number 76 on the list with $6 billion in estimated assets.
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