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"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." – Robert Frost   Bell returns to her roots read full story

This was the last movie review Roger Ebert filed. Released less than two years after his The Tree of Life, an epic that began with the dinosaurs and peered into an uncertain future, Terrence Malick's To the Wonder is a film that contains only a handful of important characters and a few crucial moments in their lives. Although it uses dialogue, it's dreamy and half-heard, and essentially this could be a silent film– silent, except for its mostly melancholy music. read full story

As a supporter of local music and a WTJU classical announcer, I thought that the recent edition of the Hook (April 25) did a superb job covering the local music scene and its support from the community. But the article ignored one essential feature– local classical musicians and ensembles. From orchestras such as the Charlottesville University Symphony Orchestra and the Waynesboro Symphony, ensembles such as Three Notch'd Road and Zephyrus, and many individual musicians, our area abounds in great classical music. read full story

Buttercups. Pretty but poisonous. Ingestion causes burning of the mouth, abdominal pain, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea. Skin redness, burning sensation, and blisters following contact with cell sap. ––NCSU~Commentator Bill Emory puts up a new photo nearly every day at billemory.com/blog. read full story

Donald Trump is aiming for a hole-in-one with reported plans to build a public golf course on the former Kluge estate in southern Albemarle, but several hazards stand in his way. For one, the 217-acre would-be golf course in the front yard of Albemarle House is under conservation easement– and it's also under litigation from the John Kluge Jr. Trust, which claims Trump stiffed it on the purchase price. read full story

Talk about a development vision that won't die. Despite some enormous setbacks, including the fiery plane crash on Bundoran Farm that killed one of the original developers and an associate, and a real estate market collapse that saw the 2,300-acre property auctioned off on the steps of the Albemarle County Courthouse, the original vision for the property as a "preservation development" appears to be intact. read full story

Nothing says May Day quite like a protest. Around 50 public housing residents and supporters, chanting, "C-R-H-A, stop evicting us today," marched the Downtown Mall on May 1 to deliver a message to the city housing authority– only to find that the agency had locked the doors, cut off the lights, and were pretending they weren't home. Related story Public housing fray: HUD says no Norris conflict of interest read full story

Even in jail, James Halfaday can't seem to stay out of trouble. The City Council candidate who didn't live in the city served two months for felony election fraud, picked up four months for probation violation, and, while serving that sentence in Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail, has been charged with a second probation violation. Related stories 4 months: Halfaday sentenced for probation violation read full story

Dear Tom and Ray: read full story

Due to a contagious and hopefully short-lived myopia that swept the Hook offices last week, our cover bore several errors. As most of you already know, and as the Hook staff has now learned the hard way, we are in the year 2013, not 2012. Furthermore, the Biscuit Run story so proudly touted on last week's cover and yet so noticeably absent from that issue's pages is, as you now will have seen, this week's cover story. A last minute story swap resulted in the error. And finally, the words "weigh in" should not be hyphenated when used as a verb. read full story

Cupcakes, cookies, macaroons, muffins, tarts, croissants…you can't swing a rolling pin these days without hitting a sweet shop somewhere in town. Come May 6,  you'll be able to sink your sweet tooth into goodies at Pearl's Bake Shoppe between Sweethaus and the Albemarle Baking Company on West Main in the historic ‪Peyton-Ellington Building at 711 West Main Street. The Richmond-based cupcake-centric bakery comes with an impressive resumé. read full story

A little over two years ago, UVA student Kyle Smalkowski founded the student organization START, Sustainable Transportation Advancement and Research Team, with hopes that the group would help fulfill a goal of his—to bring a publicly accessible electric vehicle charging station to Charlottesville. On Friday, April 26, that goal got charged to life with the opening of a 240-volt charging station next to the elevators on the second level of UVA Central Grounds Parking Garage at 400 Emmet Street. read full story

“Long you live and high you'll fly, and smiles you'll give, tears you'll cry, and all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.” ― Pink Floyd   Floydian experience read full story

Three years ago, lacrosse players George W. Huguely V and Yeardley Love were getting ready to graduate from the University of Virginia. That plan changed early May 3, 2010, when Love was found facedown in a pool of blood on her pillow in her 14th Street apartment. Now, on the anniversary of her death, Huguely sits in Keen Mountain Correctional Center serving a 23-year sentence for second-degree murder and waiting to see if an appeals panel will grant him a new trial.   read full story

Unlike his last appearance in court as a defendant, a freshly shaved Chris Dumler came before a judge April 29 seeking to have the petition for his removal from the Albemarle Board of Supervisors thrown out– to no avail. Judge Cheryl Higgins ruled against him in a case that has very little precedent in Virginia.   Related stories 9 days: Dumler goes in for chunk of jail time read full story

by Richard Roeper Born in 1945 in the shadow of Hiroshima, Ginger and Rosa grow up in a London of weary shortages of food, living space and cheer. Who could have guessed Swinging London and the Beatles were on the way? The girls become fast friends: Ginger, whose father Roland was a conscientious objector during World War II, and Rosa, whose father isn't in the picture.   *** Ginger and Rosa Director: Sally Potter read full story

When we think conservation easement, we think rural land and gracious farms, forever protected from subdividing, with the quiet broken only by the moo of cows. The roar of four-wheel drive vehicles climbing near-vertical terrain? Not so much. It turns out property owners who put their acreage under easement can four-wheel to their hearts content, say both Albemarle County zoning, and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, which holds 650,000 acres under easement in the Commonwealth. read full story

Latest tuition increase at a best-value university: UVA ups its in-state tuition and fees 3.8 percent to $12,458 a year, making a year there around $26,000. Out-of state students get hit with a 4.8 percent bump up to $39,844, and once room and board are added in, they're looking at about $53,800 a year, according to a release.  read full story

Transportation planner Brad Sheffield gathered about three dozen Dem supporters at the Albemarle County Office Building April 23 and announced a run for the Rio District seat on the Board of Supervisors now held by Republican Rodney Thomas. The self-described "planning nerd" offered his experience as what best qualifies him for the Board of Supervisors. Sheffield is an assistant director at JAUNT and has undergrad and master's degrees in planning from UVA. read full story