When the Rev. Claude Charles Vaché became diocesan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia in 1978, he was seen as “high church” or very traditional in his views, according to clergy colleagues. However, “he prayed a lot over issues, always asking for guidance,“ said his “foster son,“ Valdeir France of Portsmouth. Unequivocally opposed to the ordination of women, he surprised his diocese by changing his mind. “He began to think and talk about it and thought it was the right thing to do,“ France said.

Virginia Beach police say red-light violations have declined at intersections that have been monitored by cameras since March. Officer Brian Walters, coordinator of the PhotoSafe Program, says violations are down at all 11 intersections that have received cameras in the program’s first six months. The declines are as great as 69 percent.

A Virginia Beach soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan this week, less than three weeks after his 26th birthday. Army Pfc. William L. Meredith died on Monday in Kandahar from wounds suffered when his vehicle was blasted by an improvised explosive device, the Department of Defense said yesterday. Meredith joined the Army in April 2008 and was deployed to Afghanistan a year later after a two-month stint in Iraq.

A Virginia Beach DUI enforcement officer is appealing his conviction on drunken driving and hit and run charges.

Federal agents say they have cracked a 10-year, $33 million cocaine distribution ring in Virginia Beach.

Prince William County has once again been singled out for bad traffic. On the heels of a report that said area commuters have the worst trek to work of any spot in the nation, the authors of a new study have also noted the area for having some of the worst bottlenecks in the Washington region. INRIX—a Washington state-based company that collects traffic data for the Virginia Department of Transportation, the I-95 Corridor Coalition, Ford Motor Company and various GPS providers—issued a report that marked Washington as having the fourth-worst traffic in the U.S.

But on the 20th anniversary of a Labor Day weekend of notorious unrest here in Virginia Beach, the oceanfront of this resort city could hardly have been more placid. Time seems to have salved the wounds of Greekfest, a festive gathering of black sorority and fraternity members that erupted into violence, looting, arrests and damage totaling about $1.4 million in 1989.

VIRGINIA BEACH—A man accused of decapitating his 5-year-old son will remain in state custody for at least a year. Joseph Henry Hagerman III was found not guilty by reason of insanity in May. Hagerman, 34, has been in custody at Central State Hospital near Petersburg since he was arrested in February. He was charged with murdering his son and slashing his wife when she tried to save the child.

The Butterfly Society of Virginia will host Butterfly Festival 2009 on Sept. 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Virginia Beach. The festival is free and will feature speakers, walks in the butterfly garden, a tent filled with local butterflies, and crafts, including tips for raising a caterpillar. Butterfly-related books, novelties and plants to attract butterflies will be available for purchase.

For details, call (757) 412-9734 or visit http://www.segwayhr.com.

VIRGINIA BEACH Hoofing it through a state park can get you blisters and aching muscles. At First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach, the going gets easier when you see the changing landscape—woods, swamp, boardwalk, wildflowers and beach—from a Segway Personal Transporter. Segway of Hampton Roads uses the electric personal transporters to give 90-minute guided tours of the 2,900-acre state park and its osprey trail. It also offers tours in the historic Freemason area in downtown Norfolk and off season at the Virginia Beach oceanfront.

Former Navy SEAL trainee Dustin Allen Turner says he has sought forgiveness from the family of a young woman he watched die even as he’s been unable to forgive the actual murderer, a man who may win Turner his release from prison. Cautiously eyeing his freedom after serving 14 years in prison for a Virginia Beach murder of which a court has ruled he shouldn’t have been convicted, Turner said he recognizes the pain of the victim’s family.

The Virginia Court of Appeals yesterday overturned the first-degree murder conviction of a former Navy SEAL trainee in the 1995 slaying of college student Jennifer Lea Evans in Virginia Beach.

The ear-arresting sound of metal crashing into metal filled Squire Recreation Center in Danville as men in Mad Max-style wheelchairs slammed into one another during quad rugby games over a July weekend. “It’s a mix of basketball, football and bumper cars, because we do run into each other quite a bit,“ said Greg Taylor, a quadriplegic rugby player.

When Jeremih first contemplated a career in music, it was rap, not silky soul, that intrigued him the most.  “I had so many beats on my computer, [and] people were telling me I sounded like I could be the next so-and-so,“ said Jeremih (pronounced JEHR’-uh-meye). “But after all the beats and rhymes, I felt like everybody around me was rapping, and so I was like, ‘I got to do something to stand out.‘  . . .  So I started singing.“