Del. Phil Hamilton, of Virginia Beach, was one of the most powerful legislators in the General Assembly. He was chairman of the powerful Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee in the House of Delegates. He was the No. 2 Republican on the omniponent Appropriations Committee, chaired by Del. Lacey Putney, of Bedford. He also was a House budget conferee who, each year, played a key role in developing the state’s budget. Behind Speaker of the House Bill Howell, of Stafford County, and Putney, he was arguably the third-most powerful person in the Assembly.

Twenty years ago, Virginia high school students with good grades and extracurricular activities had little trouble gaining admission to their choice of the state’s top colleges and universities.

It makes no sense. Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and illness in the United States. It also causes cancer, heart disease and other fatal conditions.

Rep. Frank Wolf, a Northern Virginia Republican congressman who represents the 10th District in the House of Representatives, is not a politician who’s prone to hyperbole.

There is a far greater issue at hand, though, and that is a growing fear within the American Muslim and American Arab communities that the rest of America views them all as potential traitors and as laying-in-wait jihadists poised to take down the U.S., one non-Arab, one non-Muslim at a time.

The region took an important step toward a university-level research facility for engineering last week. The Center for Advanced Engineering and Research, a Region 2000 initiative, broke ground on a research campus at New London Business and Technology Center on U.S. 460.

Redeveloping an old part of Lynchburg — or any city — always raises these questions: Do you tear down the old, often damaged, buildings and start over? Or do you try to salvage the old buildings and give them a new life?

While the decision to lay off nearly half the staff at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford didn’t come as a big surprise, it could be a portent of the memorial’s future beyond the coming winter.

In the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, to say that Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell faces a challenge or two as Virginia’s 71st chief executive would be to put it mildly.

What business wouldn’t like to have its business license tax reduced? Businesses, like individuals, would be only too happy to see a reduction in the local tax, a reduction that would put more money in their pockets.

If the latest study of the U.S. 29 corridor — including a bypass around Charlottesville — was intended to build consensus, someone dropped the ball.

The long journey on the road to federal recognition of Virginia’s Indian tribes may be nearing its end.