Headquarters: Abingdon (moving to Bristol)
  Employees: 6,200
  Top executive: Kevin S. Crutchfield, chief executive officer
  Founded: 2002, after the private-equity firm First Reserve Corp. bought the Virginia operations of Pittston Coal Co.
  Key products: Coal for steam and metallurgical uses

Coal producer Alpha Natural Resources chose to build a new corporate headquarters in Bristol for economic reasons and to stay close to its roots in rural Southwest Virginia, its chief executive officer said. The company said yesterday that it plans to open a new headquarters building in Bristol’s Sugar Hollow Business Complex by 2011, bringing 69 jobs to Virginia.

Three would-be bounty hunters face charges after they impersonated drug task force agents and nabbed the wrong woman, police said.

At 89, she’s still dreaming of landscapes, delicately arranged, and bushes blooming on hillsides freckled by farms and fences. Ruth Bentley Harper’s eyes sparkle, too, as she unveils her poignant portrait of a fishing boat, drifting on a lake somewhere. Pointing to another scene, Harper tells of her Uncle Joe, driving a wagon down a country lane near Wallace about 80 years ago.

A man being pursued by a sheriff’s deputy crashed his car and ran away on foot. But then he sped off in the deputy’s cruiser.

2. Huntington, W.Va.
  3. Mobile, Ala.
  4. Tulsa, Okla.
  5. Baton Rouge, La.
  6. Bristol, Tenn.
  7. Greensboro, N.C.
  8. Houston
  9. Atlanta
  10. Las Vegas
  11. Miami
  12. St. Louis
  13. Little Rock, Ark.
  14. Albuquerque, N.M.

Bristol police have arrested three people after a 6-year-old girl was tied up in her home and scared with rubber snakes and spiders as punishment for taking food.

President makes his case for health-care reform to a small audience at a Kroger supermarket yesterday, continuing a “conversation about change” he started in Bristol just over a year ago.

Rep,.Rick Boucher, D-9th, says recent turnout of thousands for free health care expo in Southwest Virginia puts an “exclamation point” on the issue.

If you borrowed a book from the Sullivan County Public Library but don’t remember where you left it, try taking a look in the kitchen cabinet. This week, the county’s public library system will accept canned goods, pet supplies and school supplies in lieu of lost materials such as books and videocassettes. “We’re trying to help people clean up their accounts and help the community at the same time,“ said Amy Lippo, the county library system’s assistant director.

President Barack Obama will bring his full-court press on health care to Virginia this week.

Jubilation has given way to determination a week after Virginia Intermont College officials learned the school’s two-year probation has been lifted. The June 25 notification that accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges remains intact gives Virginia Intermont a new lease on life, and plans are in the works to shore up the school’s future, President Michael Puglisi said.

Ten-year-old Madison Booth didn’t think people would be interested in what she had to say, but the editors of Discovery Girls Magazine are counting on just the opposite. Madison, a fourth-grader at Meadowview Elementary School, is one of six Virginia girls who will be featured in the December-January issue of the bimonthly girls magazine.

If you want a glimpse of the essence of Blakely-Mitchell, the city’s most enduring men’s clothing store, don’t ask the owner. Look at his sport coat.

With plans to form an independent governing authority at Tri-Cities Regional Airport grounded by uncertainty, city leaders plan to seek another source of financial protection. Bristol is one of six local governments sharing ownership of the Blountville, Tenn., -based airport, but the only one not covered by Tennessee’s tort liability insurance. In the event of a judgment in a catastrophic accident or other lawsuit, the city could be found liable for an unlimited amount of money. State insurance caps damages for Tennessee-based governments at $450,000.