Residents scream a lot about high taxes, but they scream louder when they believe they're going to lose some of the services they've come to expect, even demand, from Virginia Beach. So when City Council members began warning a few months ago about the straits of this year's budget - the worst since the early 1990s - and identified the vulnerable services and programs, they got an earful.

A new state law that takes effect this summer will allow the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to revoke or suspend liquor licenses of bars and nightclubs that serve as hangouts for gang members.

IT SEEMS wrong, on its face, that a school division might help raise athletes' academic achievement by lowering standards. But there is a serious case to be made that easing classroom requirements for freshmen might in fact help students make better grades in the long run.

THEY'RE CREEPY and they're skanky. They're odious and icky. They make us really cranky. We all love to hate spam. Few people get the warm First Amendment fuzzies as they're deleting dozens of promotions for anatomical enhancements and erotic limericks from their e-mail inbox.

BOSSES KNOW that to motivate high-flying employees, it pays to give them goals that force them to spread their wings, to stretch for what's possible. Then there's the Navy. Since the earliest days of the nation's space program, Navy folks have been among NASA's best and brightest. Alan Shepard, the first American in space, came out of a Navy jet.

For three and a half hours Wednesday, 30 lawmakers from Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia had the audacity to put problem-solving ahead of politics in a remarkable gathering motivated by their regions’ shared transportation crisis.

Here’s an idea for filling all those empty seats at Portsmouth’s nTelos Pavilion: Book an exorcist to try to rid the place of its bad mojo. OK, so maybe evil spirits aren’t to blame for the amphitheater’s history of bumbling calamity. But, as spectacles go, a rollicking demon roundup seems likely to draw bigger crowds to the waterfront venue than it’s been attracting lately.

A FEDERAL JUDGE in Norfolk has struck a powerful blow against employers who hire illegal immigrants. His sentencing in a case last week, coupled with the unrelated arrest of a man who allegedly sold license plates to illegal immigrants on the Eastern Shore, indicates how law enforcement officials can use current laws to attack the issue roiling the country.

CITY LEADERS are trying to make a case for a pedestrian bridge spanning Virginia Beach Boulevard by saying it would alleviate a serious safety hazard for people trying to cross the 10 lanes of traffic between Town Center and Pembroke Mall.

It's about time for the presidential campaign to get down to actual issues, the real differences that separate Sen. John McCain from his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama. Tuesday's results in North Carolina and Indiana effectively erased the fading hopes animating Sen. Hillary Clinton's last spasms.