NORFOLK Blaming the difficult economic environment, Commonwealth Bankshares Inc. said Thursday that it lost more than $9 million in the July-through-September quarter after adding $20 million to its reserve for troubled loans.

By Josh Brown NORFOLK Ford Motor Co. has set an Aug. 27 deadline for companies to submit bids to buy its shuttered assembly plant. Real estate services company CB Richard Ellis, which is handling the sale, updated the plant's listing on its Web site in July to reflect the new deadline.

Here’s how 11 other former Ford Motor Co. employees are faring:   Ray Wicker left the seafood business in 1995 to work for Ford. Now he’s back. Maybe it’s in the blood.

Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the closing of Ford Motor Co.'s 82 -year- old plant off Indian River Road in Norfolk. Since then, hundreds of former Ford workers have negotiated the delicate transition to new jobs, some more smoothly than others. Many acknowledg e they haven't come close to matching the financial advantages they enjoyed at the truck assembly plant.

Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the closing of Ford Motor Co.’s 82 -year-old plant off Indian River Road in Norfolk. Since then, hundreds of former Ford workers have negotiated the delicate transition to new jobs. Here, you can read and listen to some of their stories.
 
CHRISTOPHER PEARSALL

NORFOLK Eleven months after the Ford Motor Co. plant shut down, the United Auto Workers union hall remains open across the street. But the UAW's high-profile local leader, who regularly flashed a stud earring, Hawaiian shirts and give-'em-hell wordplay, is leaving.

Today marks the six-month anniversary of the shutdown of the Ford Motor Co. plant in Norfolk. We revisited four former workers and two of their spouses. John Chappell transferred to Ford's Dearborn, Mich., plant in January. His wife, Vickie, stayed in Virginia Beach for three months, closing her jelly-making business and getting their house ready for sale.

Ford Motor Co. has already received four offers for its Norfolk plant and is likely to complete the sale next year, an executive with a local real estate company said Wednesday.

By Philip WalzerThe Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK About 4 1/2 months after the Ford Motor Co. plant stopped producing F-150 pickups, a few dozen employees trickled into the union hall Monday to vote on the proposed contract with the automaker.The vote wasn't close: 34 in favor, 7 opposed.The 41 voters represented half of the 82 people eligible to vote, said Chris Kimmons, the president of United Auto Workers Local 919. But he said that was still a decent turnout considering they don't have a plant to work in anymore.The vote is open to . . .

By Philip WalzerThe Virginian-Pilot
United Auto Workers local union leaders Monday overwhelmingly approved a proposed contract with Ford Motor Co., said Chris Kimmons, president of UAW Local 919 in Norfolk.Kimmons, in Dearborn, Mich., for the vote, said, "It's a little bit better than what I thought it was going to be" - though he didn't like plans to reduce pay for new workers. The contract now must be approved by Ford employees. Ford's Norfolk Assembly Plant ceased operations in June.