Cash for Clunkers is scheduled to end today. The program provided a financial incentive to the owners of older, inefficient, polluting vehicles to trade in at a time when the nation’s car manufacturers and dealers were struggling.

Before the program started, the conventional wisdom was that only a few Americans would be able to buy a new car during this recession.

‘Congress shall make no law …” we’re told in the First Amendment, “… abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

That sounds a lot like a Danville Tea Party event.

Dogs die. They get hit by cars. Sometimes they run off, chasing their noses — never to be seen or heard from again.

Pittsylvania County’s high schools will be ready for students next week. The renovation of the four Kennedy-era buildings is far from finished, but students will be able to get back into the buildings in time for classes to start.

Danville’s economy is changing — and that will make it tough for this year’s gubernatorial candidates to sell their economic development plans.

While the Dan River Region still has the state’s highest unemployment rate, the community has the potential to quickly grow when the economy finally picks up.

A large and unusual piece of Danville’s history was carefully removed from the Danville Register & Bee’s Monument Street building Friday for a trip to its new home in the Municipal Building.

The painting depicts the introduction of Lady Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor to the British House of Commons by David Lloyd George and Arthur James Balfour.

Welcome to Compassionville. Here in Compassionville, we worry about a lot things that don’t make a lot of sense.

Take that 73-year-old woman who had the gall to wonder why the shopping center that Compassionville spent $7.8 million to make a reality won’t let the city set up bus stops.

Danville’s taxpayers spent $7.8 million to make Coleman MarketPlace a reality.

Since the state didn’t give incentives for retail developments, the city had to come up with that money in a package that included the construction of a new bridge.

The debate over Coleman MarketPlace was a spirited one, but at no time did it ever include any discussion of whether Danville’s buses would be allowed to establish stops in the shopping center. The assumption was that Coleman MarketPlace would become a part of Danville’s public transportation system.

That assumption was wrong.

Bradley S. Rees was the first candidate to announce that he was running for the Republican nomination for the Fifth District congressional seat.

The parents of two-thirds of the babies born in Danville in 2007 were not married. In Pittsylvania County last year, 45 percent of the babies were born out of wedlock.

Virginia used to require car owners to have their vehicles inspected every six months.

Nestle has enjoyed a stellar reputation in this community over the past two decades. The company is a good corporate citizen that has expanded numerous times since its arrival. Nestle jobs are coveted by the local work force.

It didn’t hurt that the pasta and cookie products made here in Danville were the best on store shelves.

Hank Davis told more than 100 people at the “Tom in Your Town” community meeting at Chatham Middle School the Board of Supervisors never sees as many citizens at its public hearings.

That’s true, of course.

The crowds that greeted Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Fifth District, in Danville and Chatham this week were large compared to most government meetings. But they were also loud, passionate and concerned about health care, the biggest political issue in America today.

Seward Anderson attacked Delegate Danny Marshall this week because Marshall voted against putting more money into the Governor’s Opportunity Fund.

The implication of that attack is Marshall is somehow — through his Governor’s Opportunity Fund votes — working against economic development in the commonwealth.

God’s Storehouse has outgrown its Westover Drive location. Storage, parking and even privacy are sometimes tough to find there.

When the “cash for clunkers” program was first announced, some thought the program’s $1 billion might last until November. With the economy in recession, even offering $4,500 to people to trade in their older gas guzzlers wouldn’t matter if they didn’t have any money to buy a new set of wheels.

When is a parking lot more than just a parking lot?

For most of the 20th century, the massive White Mill towered over the Dan River, a giant among the oversized industrial buildings in the historic, commercial and cultural center of Danville.

Virgil Goode’s supporters were looking forward to 2010. Last November, Goode lost the closest congressional race in the country. Next November, many of his supporters hoped they could help Goode win the Fifth District seat back.

Sports are sometimes about a lot more than simply playing games. Sometimes, they’re about ideas that are so powerful that athletic competition becomes a form of expression that goes well beyond the boundaries of the playing field.

A Yanceyville, N.C., man recently received a $170 bill from the city for cutting the grass at a house he owns here in Danville.

It was surprising to hear that members of the Danville Tea Party Committee had attracted the attention of law enforcement during last weekend’s visit by two Obama administration officials.

Virginia gun owners who hold a permit to carry a concealed weapon know its limitations. Unlike a Virginia driver’s license that’s good in every state in the nation, a Virginia-issued concealed carry permit isn’t.

Fred Ingram doesn’t sell beer and wine at the restaurant he owns in Gretna. But Ingram thinks all the stores and restaurants in Pittsylvania County ought to be able to sell beer and wine on Sundays.

For Ingram, it’s simply an issue of economic competition. The Callands-Gretna district supervisor believes Pittsylvania County stores and restaurants are losing customers to surrounding counties and Danville, where people can shop for beer and wine seven days a week.

Where was Uncle Sam 40 years ago? America had just put two astronauts on the moon’s surface and was within days of bringing them safely back home to Earth.

Coming at the end of a dreary decade of assassination, war, domestic strife and eroding social mores, the Apollo missions to the moon proved how the technology of the day could be stretched to match the challenge of the times.

The Dan River Region’s second Tea Party took place Friday under dark storm clouds. But those in attendance were clearly more concerned about a stormy future with the federal government more involved in the American health care system.

We share some of their concerns.

The Worsham Street Bridge has been dying a slow death for decades. This weekend, more pieces of the 1928 bridge were pushed into the grave.

River Street has been closed to traffic this weekend so that more sections of the Worsham Street Bridge could be torn down. The demolition project has been decades in the making.

Crack cocaine’s arrival in the Dan River Region was announced by two spikes in Danville’s crime rate during the 1990s. The city had been one of Virginia’s safest, but crack-related crime soon changed the streetscape. We live with that scourge today.

What does the shooting of Killer the miniature dachshund tell us about the Danville Police Department?

It tells us police officers are fallible human beings who sometimes make mistakes, although we already knew that. It tells us public pressure can bring about changes in the way the police department looks at its own actions, but that’s always been true. Most of all, it tells us that a department willing to continually monitor its own work stands a better chance of getting to the proverbial truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Danville has a homeless shelter, and in a few months, it could have two. But for now, both House of Hope and The Homeless Shelter exist in legal limbo.