Briefs

LOCAL & VCU

VCU’s IHOP opening pushed back

 VCU Dining Services has pushed back the opening date for the dining locations at the Laurel Street parking deck to Oct. 24.

IHOP, Raising Cane’s and Croutons, Salads & Wraps were slated to open on Oct. 17, but after re-evaluating construction progress, Aramark director Michael Martin said Aramark and Dining Services decided to take more time to make sure everything was finished as completely as possible.

Oct. 17 is also right before Fall Reading Days, and although Martin said this was secondary in the decision to push back the opening, he said this was also considered when picking a new date.

Brief by Mechelle Hankerson

Drivers could be paying tolls on Interstate 95 in two years

In two years, drivers on Interstate 95 could be paying tolls to use the state’s most heavily traveled road.

The Federal Highway Administration has given the state tentative approval to place tolls on portions of I-95 under a federal pilot program, Gov. Bob McDonnell said Monday.

Based on tolls of $1 to $2 per axle – or $2 to $4 per car and $10 or more for tractor-trailers – early VDOT estimates indicate the tolls could generate $30 million to $60 million a year during the first five years and larger annual amounts later.

The tolls would be on for at least 10 years, and perhaps indefinitely, officials said. Tolls ended on I-95 from Richmond to Petersburg in 1992 after 34 years.

The revenue from the proposed tolls would have to be used for projects in the I-95 corridor. It would focus on projects – initially the ones to improve safety – from the North Carolina line to milepost 126 at Massaponax in Spotsylvania County.

The state wants to use the money to pay for expanding the road capacity, operational and safety improvements, and pavement and structure rehabilitation, the governor’s office said. Building those projects would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Virginia Department of Transportation told the Federal Highway Administration.

Brief by The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Richmond picked to host World Road Cycling Championships

Richmond has been selected to host the 2015 World Road Cycling Championships, a nine-day event that will draw hundreds of thousands to the region and pour millions of dollars into area coffers.

The decision to award the race was made this morning in Denmark by Union Cycliste Internationale, the Swiss organizing body.

Oman, on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, was also in the running, but UCI announced this morning that the nation had withdrawn its bid.

The World Road Cycling Championships is a nine-day event that could bring more than 450,000 people from 70 countries and $135.3 million in estimated economic benefits to the Richmond area, while showcasing the city on TV to millions of cycling fans around the world.

The race will be held in September 2015.

Brief by The Richmond Times-Dispatch 

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

Trial opens against scientists for Italy quake

Seven scientists and other experts went on trial on manslaughter charges Tuesday for allegedly failing to sufficiently warn residents before a devastating 2009 earthquake that killed more than 300 people in central Italy.

The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the globe who insist it’s impossible to predict earthquakes and dangerous to suggest otherwise, since seismologists will be discouraged from issuing any advice at all if they fear legal retaliation.

The seven defendants are accused of giving “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” about whether smaller tremors felt by L’Aquila residents in the six months before the April 6, 2009 quake should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.

Manslaughter charges are not unusual in Italy for natural disasters such as quakes, but they have previously focused on violations of building codes in seismic regions.
In 2009, for example, an appeals court convicted five people in the 2002 quake-triggered collapse of a school in southern San Giuliano di Puglia that killed 27 children – including the town’s entire first-grade class – and a teacher. Prosecutors had alleged that shoddy construction contributed to the collapse of the school.

Brief by The Associated Press

Americans freed from Iran prison begin trek home

After more than two years in Iranian custody, two American convicted as spies took their first steps toward home Wednesday as they bounded down from a private jet and into the arms of family for a joyful reunion in the Gulf state of Oman.

The families called this the “best day of our lives,” and President Barack Obama said their release – under a $1 million bail-for-freedom deal – “wonderful news.”

The release capped complicated diplomatic maneuvers over a week of confusing signals by Iran’s leadership on the fate of Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer.

Although the fate of the two gripped America, it was on the periphery of the larger showdowns between Washington and Tehran that include Iran’s nuclear program and its ambitions to widen military and political influence in the Middle East and beyond. But – for a moment at least – U.S. officials may be adding words of thanks in addition to their calls for alarm over Iran.

For Tehran, it was a chance to court some goodwill after sending a message of defiance with hard-line justice in the July 2009 arrests of the Americans along the Iran-Iraq border. The Americans always maintained that they were innocent hikers.

Brief by The Richmond Times-Dispatch

12 more U.S. troops sent to Libya

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the Pentagon has sent another dozen troops to Tripoli to help the State Department lay plans for reopening the U.S. Embassy.

Panetta told a news conference that it remains U.S. policy not to send combat troops to Libya. But he disclosed that after having sent four military personnel recently to assist the State Department in Tripoli, another 12 were deployed for the same purpose. He said no others would be sent.

The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli was heavily vandalized during the fighting between rebels and pro-government forces.

Brief by The Associated Press