Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503090010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NORFOLK - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided not to penalize Hampton Roads for its lingering smog pollution - at least for now.
The reprieve effectively removes the region from a federal fast-track toward mandatory vehicle-emissions testing, more expensive gasoline at area pumps and new limits on industries that emit smog-causing pollutants.
The EPA is expected to announce in several months whether Hampton Roads will be pulled from the sanctions for good, said Ruth Podems, an agency spokeswoman in Philadelphia.
The decision represents a victory for local officials and Gov. George Allen, who have protested that penalizing Hampton Roads was unfairly harsh, given the region's relatively mild smog, and could damage the local economy.
Environmental and health groups have argued that the region needs tougher limits to diminish smog levels that still fail federal standards.
Smog is known to damage the human respiratory system.
Podems said the main reason the EPA has decided to reverse its downgrade designation, at least for now, is that the agency received so many negative comments from state and local officials.
- Associated Press
No retrial planned in murder case
FAIRFAX - The prosecutor who could not convince a jury last year that Ralph Shambaugh Jr. shot and killed a prominent Northern Virginia developer said Tuesday that Shambaugh will not face a second capital-murder trial.
Shambaugh avoided a possible death sentence by pleading guilty to taking part in the killing of Oakton builder John Kowalczyk. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder as an accessory before the fact.
Jurors at Shambaugh's first trial in December deadlocked on the murder charge but convicted him of conspiring with Kowalczyk's former father-in-law to kill Kowalczyk.
- Associated Press
Judge's promotion angers fraud victim
HAMPTON - A man who was among the victims in the nation's largest case of lawyer fraud has raised questions about promoting a judge to the Virginia Court of Appeals who had evidence of the attorney's misdeeds but didn't report him.
``It appears to us that we seem to reward the people who go along with the system, who go along with sidetracking justice,'' said Al Hauser, a retired jeweler whose family lost more than $2 million from estates that attorney David M. Murray Sr. was appointed to manage.
But Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews, who as the local commissioner of accounts was instrumental in getting Murray to repay money that had been improperly borrowed from a client's estate, believes the promotion given to Hampton Circuit Judge Nelson Overton was justified.
- Associated Press
Killer sentenced to 50 years in prison
FAIRFAX - A man convicted in the 1988 shooting of John Toland was sentenced Monday to 50 years in prison.
David E. Petruska, 30, could have been sentenced to as much as life in prison after a jury on Friday found him guilty of first-degree murder , but Fairfax Circuit Judge Michael P. McWeeney followed the jury's recommendation in sentencing Petruska.
- Associated Press
by CNB