You may think you’re surfing when you walk into the library at Tidewater Community College’s new Portsmouth campus. 

Student in the wood shop class at Deep Creek High School — watch out for the sawdust — have built a sleek kayak and a sturdy shed. As likely as not, their craftsmanship will end up painted in purple and white, the Chesapeake school’s colors.

Along Truxton Street in South Norfolk, a road sign reads “Jordan Bridge, Weight Limit 3 Tons.”

If only. Any car or truck turning from Truxton onto Poindexter Street, toward the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, is going to need  wings.

Ogranizers in Chesapeake are holding a community event today featuring career opportunities, mentoring for teens, drug prevention tips and other useful programs. More, please.

Editor's note: Beginning Monday, June 15, 2009, editorial writers' columns will appear only in The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. Read more about this decision.   Six of Virginia's Indian tribes may - finally - get the federal recognition that should have been theirs decades ago.

Jackie Davis, one of my fellow church members, contacted me the other day with a request: Could someone at the paper write about the marching band at Booker T. Washington High School, which has been invited to perform at the Pro Football Hall of Fame parade in Canton, Ohio?

Would the jurors  talk now? Would the 12 people who had decided Ryan Frederick's fate, who said he was guilty of manslaughter - but not capital murder - finally discuss their deliberations?

Bishop Francis DiLorenzo's pitch for cash this week had to be one of the worst-timed solicitations in recent memory, given the economy, job layoffs and the credit crunch. Then again, when you're trying to provide life-changing education for children who otherwise couldn't afford to attend Catholic schools, is there ever a bad time?

Marvin Knight Jr. "testified he was a fool for having the gun" that he used to kill a popular football player and Oscar Smith High School graduate, his attorney told me this week. He'll get no argument from me about the "fool" part.

INSPECTOR GERALD Stewart, the longtime head of the Detroit Police homicide section, had a bittersweet sense of humor, befitting a man who had the misfortune of overseeing thousands of murder investigations. But he found one group of murderers especially maddening.