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Ace Hardware Corp.’s new 336,000-square-foot import redistribution center on U.S. 58 is nearing completion and will open this summer. Construction of the facility in the CenterPoint Intermodal Center began last June.

VIRGINIA BEACH Band captain Bethany Miller was busy warming up her fellow band members before the start of another rehearsal at Young Musicians of Virginia. “Don’t be shy about playing your instrument,” Bethany said. “If you make a mistake, make it big. We can always correct mistakes if we hear them.”

GREAT BRIDGE It wasn't the hard concrete walls surrounding them on three sides. And it wasn't the heavy metal door closing behind them. When a gaggle of teenage girls walked into a holding cell last week in the bowels of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, they were most startled by the very public metal bowl sitting in the back of the tiny room.

Ceremonial elders, a libation ceremony and a history lesson. Those are the traditions of Portsmouth's annual Umoja Festival to be held this weekend at the waterfront. Along with music acts, children's activities and food, organizers hope to share the rituals of various African cultures in an effort to promote cultural understanding and community togetherness.

By Pamela Nichols FRANKLIN The 2012 class of Paul D. Camp Community College was the largest in the school's 41-year history with 235 graduates. The school, which opened in 1971, was named for Paul D. Camp, who along with his brothers, founded the Camp Manufacturing Company, later known as Union Camp Corporation, then International Paper.

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They’re missing limbs. Some have been shot several times. The men and women who will jump out of airplanes Memorial Day weekend have stared fear in the eye.

Now they’ll look to the sky for some fun.
 
The second annual “Jumping for a Purpose” skydiving event will celebrate America’s wounded warriors.
 

NORFOLK The cell phone task force recommended Wednesday that the school division allow phones in middle and high schools, but still prohibit them in elementary schools.

Current policy does not allow students to have cell phones with them while at school. If found during random searches or seen in use, phones are confiscated.

Disabled American Veterans, Chapter 4, is housed in an unassuming white building slightly larger than a trailer, but its members will tell you appearances aren’t everything.

“You would never believe the amount of services that come out of this building” on Ingleside Road, said Art Dlubala, the chapter’s senior vice president.

Students at Fairfield Elementary School are standing on their marks and taking aim at Standards Of Learning questions. The fourth- and fifth-graders aren’t arming themselves with pen and paper, but bows and arrows. A teacher displays SOL questions with multiple-choice answers on a screen, and the students answer them by shooting arrows at the corresponding letter on a target.

Volunteers are still needed for the 24th annual Clean the Bay Day from 9 a.m. to noon June 2. The event is one of the largest volunteer clean-up efforts in Virginia, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's press release. The annual project, managed by CBF, involves thousands of citizens working on foot and by boat to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay, its rivers, and streams.