Birdie sent this in around 9:30AM.. any ideas?

monticello b/t 6th and avon shut down.  lots of cops and firetrucks.

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At around 7:15 on Friday night, a Lynchburg tower called the Virginia State Police to let them know that a plane had gone missing. Police tracked the plane crash to an area around the Red Hill Road in Albemarle County. Police used helicopters and bulldozers to search for wreckage. Nothing is known about survivors or the people on the plane.

 [thanks Outskirts] [via wcav]

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Are you having problems with AT&T again? You remember our multi-day outage from a few months ago?

It appears problems have hit the region again as of 4:45PM Today. Are you having problems?

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Watch a 11AM live broadcast from the Miller Center titled “Is Russia’s Foreign Policy Really New?”

Andrew Kuchins is a senior fellow and director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 2000 to 2006. He is working on a book titled China and Russia: Strategic Partners, Allies, or Competitors, and co-edited Russia: The Next Ten Years (Carnegie, 2004). Kuchins has taught at Georgetown University and Stanford University, where he was Associate Director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He also has served as a senior program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Executive Director of the Berkeley-Stanford Program on Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies.

Live video on front page!

[thanks birdie]

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We just got two interesting sad telling depressing rumors about Charlottesville food businesses that appear to be dying.

First rumor about the potential closing of a town staple Crozet Pizza comes from a trusted Villain:

A friend just told me that Crozet Pizza may be closing down.  I don’t know anything more than that, but it thought it was a worthy note.

We wonder about this one, especially considering all the growth that is happening in Crozet.

The second rumor comes from a very reliable birdie that has always been right.  This time it appears Java Java is up on the auction block:

Java-Java is for sale. The economy has sent many a latte drinker to traditional coffee and since the mall has much more reasonable priced coffee (fair trade/organic small cup for .95 less than a block away…) they have suffered. First they kicked the milkman out and began making Sams club runs and some other stuff.

Not sure of the price, but since The Bean (at 225 sq feet) sold for 50K cash recently, some money might change hands…that is if he is still not upside down on his upfit.

Sad times indeed. Do we have any more info?

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We got a pretty interesting tip from a birdie this morning:

Are the Flirtresses under investigation for solicitation… Get to the silky bottom of that one cVillain

It’s ludicrous that this would happen, but it wouldn’t surprise us given the discussions we’ve had.

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A little birdie lets us know…

You probably remember that Milano moved to South Street in place of Verity Blue. The former coffee shop/furniture store space in the Main Street Market had been empty for a while. A lot of restaurant owners checked it out, but apparently the cost of installing a full kitchen was prohibitive.

As it turns out, the owners of Orzo have decided to completely rebuild the space and install their own coffee shop. You can tell that they are doing a major overhaul of the space if you look in the windows. The birdie also explained that the other part of the space was being used for a “yoga shop.” When asked about how this worked, the birdie didn’t know if it was a studio or what.

Anyone have more details?

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You can go listen to this announcement at 1PM outside of City Hall tomorrow.

The City of Charlottesville is pleased to announce that Mayor Robin Gardner of Falls Church has accepted a formal challenge by Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris to compete for the highest voter turnout during the November 4th Presidential election. Earlier last month the City began the 2008 Get Out the Vote Drive to promote voter registration, civic engagement, public education, and ease of voting to all City residents. Since 2004 the City has added nearly 9,000 registered voters to the books with more still being added by the Office of the Registrar. As part of that effort Charlottesville’s Mayor issued a challenge to City residents during last Monday’s City Council meeting to exercise their right to vote and assist others who may need help getting to the polls.

In the 2004 Presidential Election Falls Church had the largest voter turnout of any city in Virginia with an impressive 81 percent of registered voters casting a ballot. The Charlottesville rate was 67 percent, less than the 71 percent statewide average. Although considered the underdog, a confident City of Charlottesville is putting up a souvenir bust of Thomas Jefferson from Monticello while Falls Church is offering a sapling of its 2008 Tree of the Year, the sassafras.

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We learned from our commenters about a shooting that happened over the weekend. We didn’t know details until Chalottesville put out the official release which explained that one person had been shot and killed and three injured on Saturday at midnight outside of Pacino’s Deli on the Corner.  Today, we learn that Darryl Andre Johnson (pictured above), who had previously been a fugitive, has voluntarily turned himself into police.

[via NBC 29]

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