Three and a half years after a Chesterfield woman filed a lawsuit against the county, challenging its handling of a public records request, her lawyer has accused the county of destroying many of the records at the very center of the ongoing legal battle. The case dates back to 2022, when Charlotte Carter filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for incident records involving her arrests including body camera footage, 911 calls, radio recordings and incident reports. … According to court filings, the county gave her a $24,000 cost estimate to review and produce the files. The county argued that fee reflected the volume of Carter’s request and the time it would take to fulfill it. However, Carter thought it was an unreasonable price. She filed her petition in November 2022. … The legal battle, though, has dragged on for years and is now hitting a contentious point in that Ramsingh is asking the court to sanction — or formally penalize — Chesterfield and/or its counsel. In a motion filed in late March 2026, Ramsingh claimed the county destroyed police radio recordings, which accounted for the bulk of the $24,000 fee Carter’s lawsuit aims to dispute. Some of the records were allegedly destroyed even after the FOIA petition was sent to the county, according to the motion. Despite that, Ramsingh said Chesterfield never informed Carter, her counsel, or the court that the records she sued over no longer existed. She alleged the county continued to litigate the case for more than three years while knowing the files were gone.

At the end of every Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors regular meeting in 2026 lies a historical renaissance. Most people miss it. The votes are done, the public hearings closed, the real estate tax rate argued over for the last time that evening. The audience thins. And then Chairman Tim Taylor starts talking about dead patriots. Taylor has spent the first three months of his chairmanship closing every meeting with a history lesson, a one-man observance of America’s 250th anniversary delivered from the dais to whoever is still in the room. The lessons run five minutes at most. These mini lectures have covered colonial pamphlets, frontier massacres, a royal governor fleeing Virginia on a warship and a dead cat that saved a Bible.

A globe-spanning law firm leads the independent review of a deadly shooting inside Old Dominion University’s Constant Hall in March. “Our current reality is that true healing requires real answers,” university President Brian Hemphill said in the message addressed to the campus community. Cooley LLP was selected to conduct the independent review of the shooting itself as well as campus safety and security measures. … Hemphill said the review would span the spring semester into the summer. He said the process would not be rushed. ODU’s administrators are to “be guided” by the review’s findings and recommendations. Details of the review would not be shared until it was deemed completed, a university spokesperson said previously.

A King George woman who submitted timecards for the same hours at multiple federal government jobs pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria. Nehemie Almonor, 41, will face the possibility of up to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced July 22. According to court documents, from May 2022 through April of last year, Almonor electronically submitted timecards claiming that she had performed full-time work during overlapping hours for multiple entities. She defrauded her employers out of at least $291,905 during that time, court records show.

An Illinois lawmaker and law enforcement officer says a controversial proposal to change how police records are handled under the state’s public records law could help agencies manage growing workloads – while still maintaining transparency. State Rep. Patrick Sheehan, R-Homer Glen, said House Bill 5733 would ease the burden on police departments handling large volumes of requests under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. Supporters say it protects sensitive information, while critics warn it could reduce transparency by expanding exemptions and delaying access to records. Sheehan called the measure “a step in the right direction” for departments managing time-consuming redactions. … The bill would give agencies more time to respond to records requests, helping departments with limited staff manage the time-intensive review process. While critics worry it could shield body camera footage, Sheehan said he does not believe the measure broadly exempts those records. “I don’t believe anything is going to be exempt,” he said. “I think all this information is still FOIA-able. This is about giving departments more time and support to process requests.”