With a proposed baseball stadium now apparently dead before arrival, the latest big idea for Shockoe Bottom entails a state-of-the-art medical complex. Several members of the City Council have lined up in support of at least studying the concept, as has former councilman and current Del. Manoli Loupassi. Advocates—chief among them Paul Goldman, who also was a force behind the city’s current elected-mayor system—say the economic benefits could be huge. That’s an open question, which an ad hoc study commission presumably would answer. Other open questions concern what, if any, role VCU would play, how the business proprietors of Shockoe Bottom feel about the idea, and what state regulators would have to say about the public need for such a facility.

Howard Lederer, a/k/a “the Professor,“ is a professional poker player, not a gambler. If Congress will acknowledge this distinction, it will rectify one of its recent mistakes. In 2006, Congress, cloaking cunning with moralizing, effectively outlawed Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks or credit-card companies to process payments to online gambling operations. This was more than moral pork for social conservatives. It also blocked online competitors from poaching gamblers from the nation’s most aggressive promoters of gambling—state governments. They are increasingly addicted to revenues raised by lotteries—the 42 states that have lotteries spent $520 million in 2007 promoting them—and from taxation of other legal gambling. The law exempted Internet state lotteries and two powerful and vocal interests—online betting on horse racing and some fantasy sports betting online.

My husband’s mother will be 90 in October. She grew up on a Wisconsin farm less than 50 years after the Ingalls family lived in their little house in the big Wisconsin woods. Industrious, hard-working, and always cheerful, she personifies the Midwestern work ethic. Hers has been a life dedicated to family, church, and career. Now that she is older, she has slowed down a bit. She no longer volunteers with the health department, but she still lends a hand at the local hospital and a nearby senior center.

A land swap between Hopewell and Prince George County is closer to being a done deal. The Hopewell City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved an agreement with the county to adjust the boundary line along Interstate 295, a decision that had been postponed for two months. Under the plan, Hopewell will receive about 30 acres of land east to the interstate. The city’s soccer complex is on that land, which is inside the current Prince George line.

Why Tout New Drugs Before Research is Done?
Editor, Times-Dispatch: When biotech drug company Human Genome Sciences recently announced its new lupus drug, Benlysta, showed promise, millions took notice. In a single day, every major national newspaper ran the story, which the Lupus Foundation of America also trumpeted. With only this positive publicity the company itself put out, HGS stock skyrocketed.

ARLINGTON, Texas—All-star outfielder Josh Hamilton wasn’t even slightly nervous about facing the home crowd for the first time since revealing he slipped one night in January in his struggle for sobriety. Hamilton started in right field for the Texas Rangers in last night’s game against the Boston Red Sox. He was near the stands where the former No. 1 draft pick inspired hundreds of fans last year with his story of recovery from drug and alcohol addiction that almost ended his career before it really started.

Richmond Ford has sold 74 cars and trucks thanks to the federal government’s wildly popular cash-for-clunkers rebate program. But so far the dealership has received zero dollars due it from the federal auto-sales promotion, according to Richmond Ford President Ron Kody. “Until the government pays the dealers,“ Kody said yesterday, “we’re burning through a lot of our cash to make these deals work.“

The tragic death of Andrew Joseph Johnson, a toddler who baked to death in a van after he was left in it by a careless day-care worker earlier this summer, has refocused attention on the question of child-care safety. The news is good. A review of state records by The Times-Dispatch found children were left behind in vehicles 11 times in Virginia during the past two and a half years—and with the exception of 13-month-old Johnson, no child was seriously hurt.

Xiona Solis, a 56-year-old widow from Honduras who lives in Chesterfield County, has spent the past nine months looking for a job. “The little money I had in the bank went to pay rent,“ she said. Solis, who had been working for a cigarette-packing factory in Chesterfield for eight years until she was fired, said her son-in-law has been paying her rent and bills.

Wide receiver Billy McMullen, a former star at Henrico High and the University of Virginia, was waived yesterday to make room on the roster after the signing of rookie linebacker Aaron Curry. LATROBE, Pa.—Pittsburgh Steelers nose tackle Casey Hampton left practice yesterday with a knee injury, although coach Mike Tomlin said the four-time Pro Bowl player is expected to be fine.

MYSTERIES
Finding a fresh premise for a serial-killer tale must be the hardest part of writing thriller mysteries. But Linda Castillo has come up with a story of striking originality in Sworn to Silence (321 pages, Minotaur Books, $24.95). When she was 14, Kate Burkholder was living with her Amish family in northeastern Ohio when she was raped. The attack came after four gruesome sex murders and left Kate traumatized. The horrific assault played a major role in her decision to leave the Amish life four years later for Columbus, where she became a patrol officer and eventually a homicide detective.

A Richmond woman was killed and her passenger seriously injured Thursday after a pickup truck’s tire blew out in Florida, authorities said yesterday. The crash killed Shirley G. Ricks, 58, the driver of one of three vehicles involved in the wreck, and seriously injured Joseph Ricks, 63, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The wreck occurred about 1:45 p.m. in Suwannee County in northern Florida west of Jacksonville and east of Tallahassee.

A group of car and truck dealers have banded together to offer their own sales incentives in hopes of getting drivers who don’t qualify for the “cash for clunkers” program to buy vehicles. The privately funded Automotive Stimulus Plan, which currently involves about 40 dealers from across the country, is designed to help fill in the gaps left by the government’s program, said Brian Benstock of Paragon Auto Group in New York City.

GREEN BAY, Wis.—An online weapons dealer who sold guns and accessories to those who carried out massacres at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University also sold accessories to a man who killed three women and wounded nine other people at a Pittsburgh-area health club. TGSCOM Inc. last year sold an empty Glock 9 mm magazine and magazine loading apparatus to George Sodini, who shot up a Collier Township, Pa., health club Tuesday. TGSCOM owner Eric Thompson said yesterday that the sale was legal and his company did nothing wrong.

ASHBURN—While giving a rundown of the good, bad and ugly from his offensive linemen this week, Washington Redskins assistant Joe Bugel dropped a line about guard Randy Thomas that had red flags all over it. “I am concerned about Randy,“ Bugel said. “His knee’s aching right now.“ The usual list of training camp ailments—hamstring strains, sore knees, aching groins—have started to hit the Redskins after a dozen or so practices, and it’s not hard to guess which ones could be long-term concerns and which aren’t. As fate would have it, the two positions that need the most practice time—receiver and offensive line—are the ones most affected.