Briefs

Local and VCU

Could Ellwood Thompson’s expand?

Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market has been approached about taking over the soon-to-be vacant Blockbuster Video space next door.

The video rental chain said last week that it is closing that store next month.

“The landlord reached out to us and asked if we were interested in the space,” said Paige Bishop, a spokeswoman for Ellwood Thompson’s, which is at Ellwood Avenue and Thompson Street near the Carytown shopping district. Bishop said there have been no follow-up discussions at this point.

The space being vacated could be a natural fit for Ellwood Thompson’s. The entire building once was an A&P supermarket.

The grocer has gone through several expansions since opening in that location in 1993. It has grown from 5,000 square feet to about 15,000 square feet.

In 2009, the grocer completed a 4,000-square-foot expansion and opened Ellwood’s Coffee Community Place across the parking lot from its store.

Asked if Ellwood Thompson’s was interested in expanding again, owner Rick Hood was noncommittal. “I’m not able to comment at this time,” he said in an e-mail.

A Maryland developer wants to convert the former Verizon building a block away at Nansemond Street and Ellwood Avenue into a retail project to be anchored by The Fresh Market.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Salamanders come a-courting

The South Side salamanders are on the march again.

Secretive but popular, the spotted salamanders emerged from underground last week and crawled to pools along Riverside Drive to breed.

“Pretty much a consistent stream of people came by” to see 20 to 40 swimming and cavorting salamanders, said Ralph White, manager of Richmond’s James River Park.

“I saw one of the largest salamanders I have ever seen,” White said. “It looked like a small Gila monster.”

More salamanders could crawl to the pools – providing a good viewing opportunity – if we get rain as expected Saturday night or Sunday night, White said.

The animals resemble shiny, dark lizards with yellow-orange spots, but they are more closely related to frogs.

Spotted salamanders, like licorice, have a small but devoted following. The animal is the mascot of the Friends of James River Park conservation group, in honor of the struggling population along Riverside just west of Pony Pasture Rapids.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Report shows immigration system failures

A once-secret federal examination of a volatile deportation case involving a Prince William County illegal alien concludes that Carlos Martinelly Montano likely would have been detained for deportation under current guidelines, avoiding circumstances that led to a fatal crash last year that killed a Richmond-based nun.

But a public interest group that made public the long-sought report from the Department of Homeland Security said it represents “a clear indictment of (the Obama administration’s) lawless approach to illegal immigration.

“An innocent person lost her life because local police officers and immigration officials couldn’t be bothered to enforce and obey the law,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which obtained the 35-page report and released it Friday.

Montano, 24, faces a Prince William County jury trial later this month on multiple felonies including murder, maiming and involuntary manslaughter stemming from his Aug. 1 collision last year with three Benedictine sisters traveling to a Prince William monastery from Richmond. He is accused of being drunk at the time.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

National and International

Romney seeks to address health care woes

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Saturday derided President Barack Obama’s health care law – modeled in some ways after one the ex-governor signed in Massachusetts – as a misguided and egregious effort to seize more power for Washington.

“Obamacare is bad law, bad policy, and it is bad for America’s families,” Romney declared. “And that’s the reason why President Obama will be a one-term president.” He vowed to repeal it if he were ever in a position to do so, and drew hearty cheers from his Republican Party audience.

Then, raising the Massachusetts law, Romney argued that the solution for the unique problems of one state isn’t the right prescription for the nation as a whole, and he acknowledged: “Our experiment wasn’t perfect – some things worked, some didn’t, and some things I’d change.”

“One thing I would never do is to usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover,” Romney said, again earning applause. “The federal government isn’t the answer for running health care any more than it’s the answer for running Amtrak or the post office.”

With that, he used his first appearance before New Hampshire Republicans since the midterm elections to start addressing head-on the issue that’s certain to be a hurdle in his all-but-certain presidential campaign.

Brief by The Associated Press

Turkish journalists jailed over alleged coup plot

A Turkish court on Sunday ordered two leading investigative journalists jailed pending the outcome of a trial into an alleged plot to topple the Islamic-rooted government, raising further concerns over media freedom in the country.

Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik were charged with links to the alleged conspiracy to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government in 2003, and ordered jailed, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

Police had raided their homes, seized hard disks and notes as evidence and detained them along with six other journalists on Thursday, drawing expressions of concern from Western governments and international media rights groups. One of the six was released without charge on Sunday, while the others were still being questioned.

About 400 suspects are already on trial for membership in the alleged hardline secularist network, called Ergenekon, which prosecutors say plotted to create chaos in Turkey and overthrow the government. The government insists the trial is strengthening democratic rule in Turkey by helping to unravel shady networks linked to state institutions that once operated with impunity in Turkey.

Critics contend that the government is using the Ergenekon case to jail Erdogan’s secular-minded foes and undermine Turkey’s secular legacy. They say there is no solid evidence against many of the accused and denounce their long detention periods.

The prosecutor’s office issued a brief statement saying the journalists were not detained because of their reporting.

Brief by The Associated Press

Kuwait awaits protests but no stranger to upheaval

The next scheduled stop on the Arab protest tour: Kuwait. This, however, is more of a return engagement.

Calls for anti-government rallies Tuesday are an extension of nasty political skirmishes in Kuwait that were under way long before the first glint of dissent that began in Tunisia more than two months ago.

Kuwait has the Gulf’s most powerful and combative parliament, and opposition lawmakers have already taken bold shots at the ruling emir’s inner circle, including twice staging no-confidence motions since December 2009 that nearly brought down the prime minister. The plan now is to take the demands for a political overhaul to the streets in the style of Egypt and nearby Bahrain.

But while the tactics may be similar, it also shows that each of the Middle East’s protest movements carries its own spirit.

“There’s a distinct personality to each place and each protest,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at The Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “That’s the challenge for policy makers trying to make sense of it all.”

Brief by The Associated Press