Northern Virginia

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has an early lead over businessman Terry McAuliffe in their race for governor , a new Washington Post poll shows, even as most voters in the commonwealth have yet to engage in the nationally watched contest. Six months before Election Day, Cuccinelli (R) has a slender 46 to 41 percent edge over McAuliffe (D) among all Virginia voters and a significant 51 to 41 percent lead among those who say they're certain to cast ballots in November.

For drivers seeking to break free of the congested D.C. region for their summer getaways, this year's trouble spot is likely to be Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia . "We're in for a very busy construction season here on I-95," said Kevin Ginnerty, an official with Transurban, the company working on the 95 Express Lanes project in the middle of the highway. Summer drivers know that I-95 doesn't need any help to be bad. On Friday and Sunday afternoons, volume can wreck the...

One of the tallest players in NBA history, now a youth basketball coach, Gheorghe Muresan is still unable to play the role of Goliath. He stands 7 feet 7, but at 42, he's still a quintessential basketball underdog, and every bit a David. Early on in Muresan's second career running the Giant Basketball Academy in Northern Virginia, he encountered a camper who struggled for an entire game to score a point. With seconds to the buzzer, the boy was in tears. Muresan stopped the game, took the boy aside, and stood...

SPRINGFIELD, Va. — The Virginia Department of Transportation again plans closures of the HOV lanes on Interstate 95 in northern Virginia. The lanes will be closed until 10 a.m. Saturday for their entire length, from the D.C. line to Dumfries in southern Prince William County. After that, the southern section of the HOV lanes are scheduled to open, but the northern section, from the D.C. line down to the Franconia-Springfield Parkway, will remain closed until 10 a.m. Sunday.

When another inmate was hassling Justice Green recently, Green didn't hit him. Instead, he tossed him the 19th-century Russian literature story he was reading at the time and said: Come back to me in a week after you've read this. Something strange is happening at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center. Residents are so eager to get into a Russian literature class led by the University of Virginia that prison officials use it as a reward. The youths are clamoring to read weighty books such as "War and Peace"...

In the first television ad of the Virginia governor's race, Republican Ken Cuccinelli II's wife peers into the camera and describes her husband as "standing up for the vulnerable and those in need. " Cuccinelli, she says while soft music plays in the background, has "worked the night shift at a homeless shelter. " On his campaign's Web site, Cuccinelli touts his opposition to human trafficking, his sensitivity to sexual-assault victims and his quest to improve Virginia's mental-health...

Correction: The editorial incorrectly said that Virginians pay the 43rd-lowest state and local taxes in the nation. They pay the seventh-lowest. The corrected version is below. SINCE WORLD WAR II, 10 of Virginia's 11 attorneys general have run for governor. Nine of those 10, Democrats and Republicans alike, resigned to do so, and for good reason: They were loath to politicize an office whose effectiveness and prestige depend on making legal judgments untainted by politics.

The Annandale Crop Walk , sponsored by the Annandale Christian Community for Action (ACCA), needs volunteers to walk, provide refreshments and sponsor walkers Oct. 15 at Lake Accotink Park. Camille Mittelholtz, 703-573-0074, kmittelholtz1@cox.net . The Literacy Council of Northern Virginia needs tutors to help adults improve reading and writing skills. Tutors are trained, matched with a student and encouraged to meet with the student weekly for 90 minutes. No teaching or foreign language skills are...

Get away to scenic Bull Run this weekend for this annual two-day fest, with a focus on Virginia wines. Pick your pleasures from more than 350 wines (from 50 wineries). A slew of party-starting bands, including Beleza Brasil and Big Sam's Funky Nation, perform and revelers can also check out crafts and food vendors who'll be hawking their goods on site. Advance tickets, $25; children and designated driver admission, $5-$16. At the gate, admission is $30; children and designated drivers, $8-$22.

Virginia lawmakers welcomed Teach for America to the state this year with a unanimous vote so that the selective teaching corps could obtain an alternative license and deploy its army of elite college graduates as rookie teachers to school districts in need. But Northern Virginia schools are unlikely to hire any of its members anytime soon. Officials from several of Washington's suburban school systems said they are only beginning to explore the possibility of partnering with the organization, which recruits and trains new...

GOV. ROBERT F. MCDONNELL (R) said it best when he signed his name the other day to Virginia's landmark transportation bill, a $6 billion leviathan that fixed a funding shortfall a quarter century in the making. "The only bad thing from this bill," the governor said at a ceremony in Richmond, "is people will be complaining about construction rather than congestion. " Mr. McDonnell campaigned four years ago on the premise that he could tackle the state's drastic transportation funding shortfall without resorting to tax increases ....

Northern Virginia housing advocates are worried that an unexpected decision by the Alexandria City Council last week to end a funding guarantee for affordable housing could result in fewer options for those who need it the most. The council, with little discussion, removed the guarantee that housing and open-space funds get a certain percentage of tax revenue when it voted on the fiscal 2014 budget May 6. Alexandria, which had once set aside a penny of its $1.038 tax rate for housing, and this year...

Liz Willis's commute changed after the Woodrow Wilson Bridge trail opened almost four years ago. First, she explored it on foot and by bike to experience the scenic views. Before long, she had started biking, one way, over the bridge to her job at Fort Belvoir. Now, she's commuting back and forth, nearly 40 miles in all, on workdays. "It has been an ad­ven­ture," Willis said. "I go very slow, I enjoy the ride and I meet people all along the way. " The paved...

THU 16 "Ghost-Writer" A dead writer's stories continue as long as his secretary keeps typing. Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 5 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 and 7 p.m. Through June 2. MetroStage, 1201 N. Royal St., Alexandria. 800-494-8497. www.metrostage.org . $48-$55. "No Man's Land" A poet and a stranger debate life in this show performed by WSC Avant Bard. Thursday-Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. Through May 25. Theatre on the Run, 3700 S. Four Mile Run Dr., Arlington.

AFS Intercultural Programs seeks host families for international high school exchange students for the 2013-14 school year. To apply, visit www.afsusa.org . jschmalzle@afs.org or 800-876-2376, Ext. 3310. Air Force Association Cycling Classic seeks volunteers for the race June 7-9. To apply, visit www.cyclingclassic.org . Arlington Food Assistance Center Plot Against Hunger Program seeks volunteers to grow vegetables for the center's pantry. Seeds are provided.

Virginia Board of Education President David M. Foster is bringing his around-the-state listening tour to Northern Virginia on Thursday, with a stop in Fauquier County. Foster's goal is to visit all eight of Virginia's educational administrative regions by the end of the year. He and board member Winsome Sears will host a forum on education issues Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Kettle Run High School in Nokesville . The Northern Virginia region is a wide-ranging, diverse area,...

The GED was designed to give high school dropouts a second chance at higher education and a good job. But every year, hundreds of thousands of teens take the test before their former classmates have graduated, prompting concerns that too many young people are pursuing a GED before they have exhausted their first chance at a more valuable diploma. Some economists and educators are calling for stricter limits on access to the GED for younger teens. A growing body of research shows that very few GED test-takers go on to earn...

The Carroll County School Board plans to end its partnership with the contractor that operates Virginia's largest full-time statewide virtual school , effectively shutting down a program that serves more than 350 students. The decision to close what was also the state's first online school deals a blow to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's goal of expanding virtual education options . It also leaves hundreds of families, including many in Northern Virginia, in the lurch for the coming school...

RICHMOND — Gov. Robert F. McDonnell on Monday ceremonially signed the landmark transportation-funding bill that will generate $1.4 billion a year for Virginia roads, highways and rail. McDonnell (R) had previously signed the measure into law. With about 100 state legislators, business leaders and staff assembled behind him on the steps of the Capitol, the term-limited governor used the event to celebrate what could be his greatest legislative achievement. The bill McDonnell signed was much larger and more laden with taxes than...

DOSWELL, Va. — A group critical of the Virginia burial of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect wants the body disinterred and sent elsewhere. The Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force is an activist organization that also opposed establishment of an Islamic school in northern Virginia. Task force chairman James Lafferty said at a news conference Monday that last week's burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev (TAM'-ehr-lun tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) in a private Muslim cemetery in Caroline...