PORTSMOUTH It won't change the city overnight, but a new zoning ordinance that received final approval Tuesday should slowly but surely leave its mark for decades to come. The changes, approved after more than two years of staff research and public input, mark the first major rewrite of the rules that govern local development in more than 20 years.

PORTSMOUTH City Council members expressed shock Tuesday night over a plan for a liquor store across the street from I.C. Norcom High School and said they would lobby the state to find another spot.

PORTSMOUTH Anthony Riddick was still 17 last February when he pulled a gun on a clerk at the Family Dollar store on Greenwood Drive, robbing the business of about $2,700. Three months later, he committed the same crime at a BP station on High Street. On Tuesday, Circuit Judge James C. Hawks sentenced Riddick, 18, to serve 10 years in prison.

PORTSMOUTH Gary Fletcher is trying to do what some might think impossible: get a $900 refund from the city. The 51-year-old contractor wants back the money he says he paid over two-plus years for a trash can he never had. His quest is now in its fourth month. "It's not that complicated," he said. "It's just frustrating."

PORTSMOUTH City Council members demanded faster action Monday on an ambitious economic development plan that they had asked staff to begin drafting in November. So far, the plan involves a list of goals with deadlines ranging from 45 days to six months. The timelines didn't thrill council members, who were briefed in a presentation from economic development director Patrick Small.

NORFOLK

A judge has set a May 25 date for a new sentencing hearing in the federal capital murder case against Richard Thomas Stitt.

A jury will be asked to decide whether Stitt deserves the death penalty for leading a violent Portsmouth drug gang in the 1990s. His first death sentence was overturned and an appeals court ordered a new hearing.

PORTSMOUTH Before selling a trash-burning power plant to a private company, SPSA is trying to fix a lingering health and environmental problem at the facility: too much carbon monoxide polluting the air. State regulators issued a notice-of-violation to the Southeastern Public Service Authority in April for excessive carbon monoxide emissions at the Portsmouth waterfront plant dating to 2005.

PORTSMOUTH A 29-year-old man awaiting trial in the strangling of an Olde Towne man found in a freezer last April has been indicted on a murder charge in a second, previous death. Ernest L. Elliott was already in Hampton Roads Regional Jail awaiting a Feb. 16 trial in connection with the killing of Mark A. Tyler.

PORTSMOUTH For years, a tiny fraction of the city's population has paid for curbside recycling while others dri ve their papers, bottles and cans to drop-off sites. Now, as the regional trash authority eases out of the recycling business, a private company is hoping to expand it across Portsmouth.

PORTSMOUTH The city and a church are close to a land-swap deal that would give a new home to a congregation displaced by fire, find a use for a former Superfund site and open a prime piece of downtown to redevelopment. Under the proposal, the city would get the vacant lot near the corner of High and Green streets where Zion Baptist Church stood before a fire destroyed it in December 2007.