When Chesterfield County prosecutors last week halted their prosecution of a Virginia Beach megachurch pastor accused of attempting to pay for sex with a teenage girl, there were at least a few people upset by the move. Among them was the countyâs top cop, Police Chief Jeffrey Katz, who helped his officers conduct the October 2021 âonline chatting stingâ that resulted in the arrest of Rock Church International Senior Pastor John Blanchard and 16 other men. Katz, whoâs led the department since 2018 and also serves as president of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, said in a phone interview this week he was taken aback when he learned prosecutors were abandoning Blanchardâs case. The Commonwealthâs Attorneyâs Office asked Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Judge David Rigler to dismiss the pastorâs charges at an Oct. 11 hearing and the judge granted their request. Read more in the Sunday Main News section 
A Virginia Beach urgent care doctor has noticed a trend that has gotten worse over the years and is putting patients in dangerous positions. âItâs a daily occurrence,â said Dr. Glenn McDermott, of Minor Emergency and Family Care Center said. âPeople come into the emergency room and [providers there] say âFollow up with your PCP and they canât get in to see the PCP.â One of McDermottâs recent patients, an octogenarian, had been hospitalized with pneumonia in August. She was told to see her primary care provider soon while there for a day and given antibiotics. After she struggled to get an appointment sooner than a month away, she came to Dr. McDermott. After that, she still needed to see specialists, but over the following weeks, she was rehospitalized twice for multiple days as her pneumonia got worse and she was ultimately diagnosed with lung cancer. Situations like this womanâs show how important it is for some patients to be able to access care quickly and the grievous repercussions of potentially long waits to get seen by overloaded providers. Read more in the Sunday Main news section Wetlands Watch is preparing for its fifth Catch the King â mapping king tides, some of the biggest tides of the year â and wants the publicâs help. King tides, also called perigean spring tides, occur throughout the year when a full or new moon, the sun and Earth are nearly aligned and produce a greater gravitational force. Skip Stiles, executive director of the Norfolk-based Wetlands Watch, said the tides will be about 3 feet higher than normal on Oct. 29, and low-lying areas will flood. Volunteers can map between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. that day. Registration is required. In 2017, more than 700 people participated, and the event made it into the Guinness World Records for most contributions to an environmental survey.
Read more in the Sunday Main News section Decorative and folk art works by Black artists from the 18th through 20th centuries are the focus of an exhibition opening this weekend. Itâs the first such exhibition mounted by the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. ââI made thisâ: The Work of Black American Artists and Artisansâ goes on display in the Miodrag and Elizabeth Ridgely Blagojevich Gallery of the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and will remain through 2025. âColonial Williamsburg has long sought to acquire objects that illustrate the diverse nature of early American society,â said chief curator Ronald Hurst, senior vice president for education and historic resources at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, in a news release. âThe documented works of gifted Black artists and artisans have long been included in our exhibitions, but we have rarely had the opportunity to mount an exhibition that looks solely at this rich body of material. Read more in the Sunday Break section As slave ships crossed the Atlantic with their tragic cargo of bodies, they also carried okra, black-eyed peas, yams and rice. Africans who survived the journey planted their staples and eventually mixed them with maize and oysters from Indigenous people and sugar cane and swine from the colonizers. The stew of ingredients and cultures produced different types of cuisine, one often referred to as âSouthern foodâ (fried chicken, hoppinâ John, pecan pie) and the other âsoul foodâ (chitterlings, ham hocks, collard greens) â and a delicious debate: Is there a difference between Southern food and soul food? Read more in the Sunday Break section
When the pandemic brought Jim Weiglâs business to a screeching halt, he returned to school and started another business. For the past 25 years, Weigl had provided toys, novelty and gift items to family entertainment venues worldwide through his business, Virginia Toy and Novelty Co., in Virginia Beach. âEvery single one of our customers closed,â he said. An auction enthusiast who has bought and sold at some of the worldâs largest auction houses, Weigl decided to pivot and go full throttle into his hobby. âRather than be the guy thatâs going to find the gold nuggets, I will be the guy that sells the shovels,â he said. Weigl enrolled in a 10-day class, totaling 100 hours, at the Reppert School of Auctioneering in Indiana in July 2020. In spite of COVID-19, the school was held in person, and Weigl said all of the necessary precautions were in place. Read more in the Sunday Work & Money section
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