The Virginia Parole Board last year granted parole in less than 4 percent of the cases it considered. Even old men – prisoners in their 70s and 80s who have served decades behind bars – were routinely denied parole.

For the past two years, the Virginia Parole Board has granted less than 4 percent of the cases it has heard.

There are more than 400 dogs in the Virginia Dangerous Dogs Registry, a list of animals that have attacked someone or hurt or killed another dog or cat.

Human trafficking survivors and support groups are speaking out and working with state legislators to combat the problem of human trafficking in Virginia.

Lottery winners aren’t the only ones with any luck: The Virginia Lottery saw record ticket sales in the past year, as the economy continued its recovery and several big-name retailers began selling tickets.

Sales of Virginia Lottery tickets have risen steadily — and last year, they jumped by 9 percent.

Since 1999, the Virginia Lottery has generated more than $5 billion for public education.

Here is a map of the 25 outlets that sold the most Virginia Lottery tickets in fiscal year 2012.

A new state law to stiffen penalties for Virginians caught texting while driving will save countless lives, the head of a nonprofit driving safety organization says.

The spotlight continues to stay on Gov. Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli over their dealings with Star Scientific Inc., which has been accused of trying to curry favor with state officials.

The Virginia Commission on Youth gathered at the Capitol this month to discuss how to prevent the “fragmentation of families” by encouraging parents to stay together in raising their children in Richmond and across the commonwealth.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced Friday that he will be appointing outside counsel to the Star Scientific case.

Virginia is creating a new agency to support development of nuclear power – a move that has upset environmentalists and open-government advocates, because the entity won’t have to comply with the state’s Freedom of Information Act and other laws.

The Virginia General Assembly approved amendments to the state’s two-year budget Saturday that included education initiatives and Medicaid reforms.

A Senate committee voted 10-3 to kill the last bill this legislative session to let public bodies post their official notices on a government website instead of publishing them in a local newspaper

If Congress fails to meet its March 1 deadline on reducing the budget deficit, federal spending cuts will automatically take effect. That means Virginia could lose more than 207,000 jobs.

A House subcommittee has rejected the Senate’s proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Virginia governors to serve two consecutive terms starting in 2017.

Because of false information, Marvin Anderson spent 15 years in prison for a rape and other crimes that he did not commit. He recounted his ordeal Tuesday at a Black History Month lecture at VCU.

The Senate is poised to pass a bill to revoke the liquor licenses of bars and restaurants that file false tax returns or other financial information with government regulators.

Vice President Joe Biden held a round-table discussion about gun violence Friday at Virginia Commonwealth University, saying “we cannot remain silent” on the issue.

In January, Norfolk Democrat Kenny Alexander replaced the late Yvonne Miller in the Virginia Senate. On Thursday, Alexander finally got his committee assignments: He received seats on three of the four committees on which Miller served. But Miller’s most important assignment – a seat on the Senate Finance Committee – was given to a Republican, in what Democrats called partisan politics.

Virginia New Majority, a citizens’ group that supports “the progressive transformation of Virginia,” said Republican legislators are pushing bills that would suppress voting rights.

Students from Virginia Commonwealth University and colleges and high schools throughout the country were among the hundreds of thousands of spectators who heard President Barack Obama deliver his second inaugural address.

Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, and Sen. Emmett Hanger Jr., R-Mount Solon, are friends. And they’ll remain friends, Deeds says, even if a controversial measure Hanger voted for costs Deeds his seat in the Virginia Senate.

Democratic leaders are speaking out after a Republican-led Senate committee killed a bill that would allow for more convenient voting options, later hours at the polls and easier absentee voting.

Virginia’s legislators may not always agree on political issues, but they certainly agree on one thing: the power of prayer.

A group of activists has founded Cooch Watch to monitor and poke fun at Ken Cuccinelli, the state’s conservative attorney general and tea party darling.

Virginia officials recently celebrated the 225th anniversary of the arrival of the plaster-of-Paris model that was the basis for building the state Capitol. Thomas Jefferson, who designed the Capitol in the Roman temple style, commissioned Frenchman Jean-Pierre Fouquet to make the model and ship it to the newly independent United States of America. It arrived on Feb. 28, 1787, and is still on display for the public.

At this year’s legislative session, 29 college students from across the state took part in Virginia Capital Semester, an internship program run by Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. The students interned with members of the General Assembly, watching and even shaping how laws are made.

To save children from potentially fatal reactions to food allergies, Virginia last week adopted a law requiring schools to carry epinephrine auto-injectors, such as EpiPens.

During their recent session, Virginia legislators spent a surprising amount of time dealing with mundane matters – like telling slackers in four localities to mow their lawns. In Virginia, it takes a state law for local governments to order residents to cut their grass or remove trash from their property. That’s because Virginia follows a legal doctrine called the Dillon Rule.

Beekeepers across Virginia soon will be able to get government money for creating new beehives – a move legislators hope will resurrect the state’s dying bee population. During this year’s regular session, the General Assembly passed legislation to establish a $175,000 fund and award beekeepers as much as $200 for every new beehive, up to $2,400. Gov. Bob McDonnell recently signed the two bills, SB 354 and HB 300, into law.

It was a pretty good session for advocates of open government, according to a meeting this week of the Virginia Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

On issues ranging from tax credits for private school tuition to a homeowner’s right to kill an intruder, several bills before the 2012 General Assembly resembled model laws proposed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a politically conservative think tank funded by major corporations.

While campaigning for the House of Delegates, Randy Minchew heard about problems getting “Children at Play” signs installed near a school in Loudoun County. Two months after Minchew took office, Virginia has a new law authorizing towns and counties to erect such signs as long as VDOT agrees and local governments pay for them.

The Virginia Department of Transportation has awarded 18 communities a total of $5.9 million this year through the Safe Routes to School program. Funds awarded in the 2012 grant cycle are slated for projects designed to make bicycling and walking to school safer and more appealing for students at 28 elementary and middle schools.

At the start of the 2012 legislative session, momentum was building for the General Assembly to repeal Virginia’s so-called “Kings Dominion law,” which prohibits public schools from opening before Labor Day without special permission. Legislators had filed 13 bills to rescind the law and let local school boards decide when classes would start. Even Gov. Bob McDonnell weighed in, saying the current restrictions should be lifted.

Campus police officers across Virginia frequently put their lives at risk, just like members of any city, county or state police force. But in the eyes of the law, campus police are not considered law enforcement officers. A bill passed by the General Assembly would change this.

More than half of the protesters arrested during Saturday’s women’s rights rally at the Capitol will receive free legal representation from Wayne Powell; an attorney and Democrat who plans to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor. The first group of about 30 arrested activists were arraigned Monday and charged with trespassing and unlawful assembly.

Fathers’ rights advocates say they are down but not out after passage of a substitute bill originally aimed at giving both parents joint custody rights in divorce cases. Originally, it stated that in a divorce “in which custody or visitation is at issue, there shall be a rebuttable assumption that it is in the best interests of the child that the parents be awarded joint physical custody and that no parent’s share of physical custody shall be for a period of less than two-fifths of the child’s time.”

A House subcommittee Wednesday killed a bill that would have changed the Franklin City Charter and, among other things, would have required City Council members to resign their seats to run for mayor. Sen. Harry Blevins, R-Chesapeake, introduced Senate Bill 311 at the start of the legislative session. The Senate unanimously approved it on Jan. 23, sending it to the House for consideration.

A bill to help Virginians in appealing property assessments on wetlands is awaiting the governor’s signature. Property owners are already allowed to appeal assessments to their local board of assessors, but House Bill 80 would require that the National Wetlands Inventory Map be considered in the appeal. The Senate last week joined the House in unanimously approving the measure.

The House of Delegates has restored funding for Alicia’s Law, a two-year-old effort targeting sexual abuse of children, after Democrats said Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposed state budget shortchanged the program. McDonnell planned to transfer $1.3 million from the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, a police unit created by Alicia’s Law, to the state’s general fund. But in a unanimous vote Thursday, the House approved restoration of the ICAC funding.

Prince William County officials are upset that a Senate committee has defeated Delegate Richard Anderson’s bill requiring police to ask arrestees whether they are legal U.S. residents. House Bill 1060, which had passed the House earlier in February, failed on a 7-7 vote last week in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.

The General Assembly has passed a bill expanding the number of ABC stores that can open on Sundays.
Currently, state-owned liquor stores can operate on Sundays only in urban areas, such as cities with more than 100,000 residents. House Bill 896, sponsored by Delegate David Albo, R-Springfield, would allow the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to open any of its stores after 1 p.m. on Sundays.

Opponents of drunken driving are applauding the Senate for passing a bill to require even first-time DUI offenders in Virginia to install a device to prevent them from operating their vehicle while intoxicated. The Senate approved House Bill 279 on a 26-13 vote Wednesday. It would require Virginia drivers to have an ignition interlock installed after their first DUI offense. Currently, the devices are required only after a second or subsequent DUI conviction.

Both chambers of the General Assembly started revising legislation forcing women to get a fetal ultrasound before an abortion after Gov. Bob McDonnell persuaded lawmakers not to require a vaginal probe as part of the procedure. That change was reflected in the revised version of House Bill 462 that the Senate Education and Health Committee approved Thursday on an 8-7 party-line vote.

Democrats hope the U.S. Justice Department will intervene if the Republican-controlled General Assembly passes laws imposing more stringent identification requirements on Virginia voters. Two measures moving through the General Assembly – House Bill 9 and Senate Bill 1 – would prohibit prospective voters from casting official ballots if they can’t show proper identification. Republicans say the bills would help prevent fraud at the polls, but Democrats say the legislation would discourage elderly, minority and low-income people from voting.

While Virginia is moving to repeal its requirement that girls get vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, the federal government and a major medical association are urging just the opposite: that boys as well as girls receive the vaccine.

The House and Senate seem headed in different directions on whether to give businesses relief from the machinery and tools tax levied by local governments. The Senate has passed a bill to give businesses grants to offset the tax on newly purchased equipment for the first two years. Under the latest version of Senate Bill 549, businesses would pay the tax to their city, county or town but then get reimbursed by a state grant. The bill passed last week, 28-12.