It's almost back to Square One for lawmakers responsible for solving the commonwealth's transportation woes. Now that even Gov. Bob McDonnell's slapdash combo of tolls, general fund diversions and naming rights for highways, byways, bridges and tunnels appears all but doomed, lawmakers are again facing the prospect of doing this year what they've done for so many others: Nothing substantial.

Norfolk residents had an opportunity this week to tell the School Board what they want in a new superintendent. Although about 170 people attended a meeting Tuesday to discuss the division's goals, including how to engage the community, only nine people showed up that night at two meetings to discuss the superintendent. A little more than 900 people completed an online survey.

This week, as Virginia’s lawmakers debated whether to expand the death penalty, the state prepared to exonerate a 56-year-old man who has spent his adult life being punished for a 1978 rape in Williamsburg that he didn’t commit.

Short-term lending companies will have at least another year to ply their destructive wares in Virginia, offering quick cash and an endless and destructive cycle of debt. Senators this week shelved a proposal from Hampton Roads' Mamie Locke and John Miller to rein in practices that have allowed companies to charge 300 percent or more in interest on short-term loans.

Religious institutions receive extraordinary protections under the Constitution. Government must be exceptionally careful that its mandates don't impinge on the freedom of a religious institution to pursue its mission.

The garbage truck that killed sanitation worker Jerry Holton sits unused in a warehouse, a sinister reminder of an unanswered question.

Closing the U.S. embassy in Damascus is the clearest sign yet of how utterly and repeatedly international diplomacy has failed the people of Syria. But the alternative to diplomacy is worse.

President Bashar Assad has shelled and shot civilians and rebels in an attempt to put down an 11-month-old uprising.

Virginia has started on a path to improve the lives of its citizens with intellectual and developmental disabilities, planning to close four out of five state institutions by 2020.

It must continue to improve those lives by making sure the money that previously paid for institutional care follows those leaving state facilities to the communities they will call home.

For people accustomed to driving wherever they wished on the beach at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the restrictions imposed by a court order four years ago and by a new, and long-awaited, off-road vehicle management plan may seem unreasonable.

Not even Sheriff Bill Watson, who runs the place, thinks it’s a good use of real estate to keep a jail on Portsmouth’s waterfront. But apparently it’s a fine idea to house prisoners there.

As The Pilot’s Dave Forster reported recently, something odd has been going on in the numbers at the city jail.