Unsolved mystery: how Wal-Mart helps biz
The Daily Progress offered a puzzling ending to this morning’s story about the growing local presence of Wal-Mart: a Darden’s prof’s statement that the Arkansas empire might actually help local businesses. Unfortunately, the Progress reporter and editors, apparently so tickled by the provocative quotation, immediately terminated the story without explaining how Wal-Mart helps nearby businesses. (1)

Dave boggled
What does Dave Matthews think of his band’s success? Remember, the DMB is second only to the Stones in ticket sales. “It boggles my mind,” says Matthews in a Billboard/Reuters story published in the Sunday Washington Post, which waxes nostalgic about the band’s beginings in Carter Beauford’s mother’s basement. In the end, though, Dave appears to be an old fashioned family man. “Just come to work as often as there’s work and then go home and try to raise my kids right,” the singer says about his job. (1)

$ crisis pushes WVPT to ax shows
Harrisonburg-based public TV station WVPT, which fights a never-ending battle with WCHV for Charlottesville’s hearts and minds (and money), announced yesterday that it was dropping several long-time shows, including “Pop Quiz,” to remedy a fiscal crisis. This was first reported by The New Dominion; later by the Daily Progress. (Monticello High won this year’s “Pop Quiz” championship.) (1)

Monticello borrows $30 million
A Bloomberg news columnist lauds the managers of Monticello (which borrowed $14.8 million in 2004 to get Montalto back) for again tapping the municipal bond market– this time for $30 million, at around 3.7 percent interest, to fund its planned visitors center at the base of the mountain. (0)

He needed money for a new pair of sneakers
So he smashed car windows and stole merchandise. That’s what police say the 15-year-old Buford Middle School student incarcerated for a string of auto break-ins allegedly told them. (2)