An Arizona family is pleading with burglars to return a wooden music box containing the ashes of their 5-month old son.

Cyrus was not aboard the bus, which was one of four traveling in a caravan to the pop star’s next concert in Greensboro, N.C.

In what he described as an “unconventional” campaign announcement, one Republican candidate running for the 5th District GOP nomination pledged to 10 goals Thursday in Danville.

A man charged with raping and killing a 5-year-old North Carolina girl was expected in court Friday, a day after authorities revealed what they believed happened to her in her final days.

Local governments aren’t likely to escape the pain when the General Assembly attempts to eliminate an estimated $3.5 billion hole in the next two-year budget.

JARRATT — Shortly before Larry “Bill” Elliott was put to death for killing a Woodbridge couple in 2001, he wrote that the justice system “failed me.“

Low- and middle-income families pay a disproportionate share of taxes in Virginia, a study by a tax policy institute concluded Wednesday.

Virginia and its localities should stop building more prisons and jails because a decade-long building program has led to undercrowding, a state budget analyst said Wednesday.

RICHMOND —Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s term expires in less than two months, but that doesn’t mean he’s leaving behind his concerns about the future of the commonwealth.

A problem with the FAA system that collects airlines’ flight plans caused widespread flight cancellations and delays nationwide Thursday. It was the second time in 15 months that a glitch in the flight plan system caused delays.

The five correctional officers charged in October with animal cruelty for fondling a K-9 dog and videotaping the incidents will not be prosecuted.

Setting up a historic year-end debate, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid revealed his long-awaited version of legislation to reshape the nation’s health-care system last night, a measure designed to extend coverage to 94 percent of eligible Americans and bar private industry from denying insurance because of pre-existing medical conditions.

Virginia transportation officials say they will have to slice $851.5 million out of Virginia’s six-year transportation plan, which has already been hit with $3.7 billion in cuts since the spring of 2008.

Virginia is doing better at reducing premature births, but the state still gets a grade of D because too many babies are born before full term, according to the March of Dimes.

With little hesitation, the Albemarle County Planning Commission sent a formal recommendation to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that called for wind turbines to be allowed in the county.

President Barack Obama says he’s worried that spending too much money to help revive the economy could undermine a fragile U.S. recovery and throw the economy into a double-dip recession.

Construction of new homes unexpectedly plunged last month, as builders waited to see whether lawmakers would extend a tax credit for homebuyers.

Police say the drowning of a Halifax County toddler in a pond near his home appears to be an accident.

Last week’s torrential rainfalls have caused damage and delays to some Virginia farm crops, but the extent of losses is unknown, some agriculture experts said Monday.

The authority of Virginia’s juvenile-court judges is being usurped by prosecutors and higher courts in a process that too often mixes juvenile offenders and adults and that helps transform juvenile lawbreakers onto career felons, according to a study released today.

The University of Virginia on Friday gave its highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award, to the university’s president, John T. Casteen III, and the chairman of the Department of Microbiology, J. Thomas Parsons.

Del. Phillip A. Hamilton, R-Newport News, under an ethics cloud and defeated for re-election, has resigned from the House of Delegates seat he has held for 21 years.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine told Virginia Board of Education members this morning that if he could run for governor again that he “definitely” would have and continue his efforts to improve education for the state’s 1 million-plus students.

The Virginia House of Delegates’ Democratic and Republican caucuses each elected their leadership for the 2010 General Assembly session during the weekend.

Larry “Bill” Elliott is scheduled to die in the electric chair tonight, a month after Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine delayed his execution.

Delegate Philip Hamilton, a 22-year legislator dogged by a federal investigation and defeated in a re-election bid earlier this month, resigned Monday.

A new nonprofit medical research institute will create 415 jobs in Fairfax County.

Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and Virginia gubernatorial candidate, is lending his name to a tax-credit plan co-authored by Republican George Allen and a Democrat.

An airplane towing a banner depicting the hand of a human fetus lying on top of a dime flew for three hours over Lynchburg on Monday and is expected to return today.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., joined a leading Republican senator Monday in sponsoring a bill that, they said, would double nuclear-produced electrical power in 20 years and support other forms of clean energy with “mini-Manhattan projects.“