First, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed a legal challenge to a key federal finding that greenhouse gases are public health threats, contribute to climate change and should be regulated.

By STEVE SZKOTAK

RICHMOND Intent on making Virginia a national energy power, Gov. Bob McDonnell is lobbying for an expansion of the 2.9 million offshore acres the government has designated for possible oil and gas exploration.

By Dena Potter JARRATT A man who killed a teen girl and then bragged about it to prosecutors once he thought he could not face the death penalty was executed Thursday.

Paul Warner Powell, 31, died by electrocution at 9:09 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. He chose electrocution rather than lethal injection.

VIRGINIA BEACH Budget cuts this year could have negative implications for Virginia schools for years to come, members of the State Board of Education said Thursday.

BLACKSBURG, Va. Nearly three years after a massacre that left more than 30 dead, Virginia Tech officials are urging calm as e-mails and Internet postings originating in Italy threaten another attack on campus.

A new report says counties and municipalities in northern Virginia are healthier than their counterparts in the southern part of the state.  The report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin researchers compiles rankings by health factors such as obesity, and health outcomes, like life expectancy.

RICHMOND
Dominion Virginia Power says it is upgrading 13 power plants to produce electricity more efficiently.
The state's largest utility says by 2013 it will add more than 400 megawatts to its electric-generation capacity, without adding fuel costs. 

RICHMOND Universities have doubled the reward for information leading to the location of a missing Virginia Commonwealth University student. Jonathan Dorey, a 22-year-old exchange student from England, was reported missing March 4. On Tuesday, VCU police released two new photos of Dorey and his home university in England raised a reward for information on his whereabouts to $10,000.

DINWIDDIE Gov. Bob McDonnell had the honors Wednesday, reopening a highway rest stop, and it couldn't have come at a better time for travelers Don and Darlene Hansen.

VIRGINIA BEACH Calling guns in bars a "recipe for disaster," the state's police chiefs have pleaded with Gov. Bob McDonnell to veto legislation that would ease Virginia's concealed weapon laws.