| Per pupil expenditures at Newport News middle schools is shockingly low, according to state numbers. A look into why and what those numbers mean.  Read more in this Sunday's Main News section During the time when she was undergoing radiation treatment for cancer, Leah Marshall was calling the Virginia Employment Commission. She had filed for unemployment benefits two days after becoming unemployed in August 2020. Six months later, she still had not heard a decision. Marshall ran out of savings and began the process of filing for bankruptcy. One month later, she got an award letter and began receiving weekly payments. Marshall, a 47-year-old resident of Virginia Beach, said she used the money to get through that period and pay for health insurance. About two months later, the benefits were cut off without notice. Sheâs not the only one struggling through a system so dysfunctional it now faces legal action. The Virginia Employment Commission faces a court order mandating it to process all 92,000 backlogged unemployment insurance claims by Labor Day and an executive order by Gov. Ralph Northam to fix staffing and technology issues by Oct. 1. Until then, thousands of Virginians are still waiting for desperately needed aid. Read more in this Sunday's Main News section Shot in the face, stabbed in the head and nearly drowned with bleach, Brianna Arrington had been dying for about nine hours by the time someone found her. It had been a gang hit, and the 20-year-old mother was supposed to die early in the morning on April 24, 2020, prosecutors said. Presumably, her would-be killers thought theyâd finished the job after shooting her in the right eye, sending a bullet into her skull and out her right ear. Arringtonâs attackers then drove her 2-year-old son more than five miles and abandoned him on the street, according to police. A garbage collector found the toddler wandering alone about an hour before dawn in West Ghent. Somehow, Arrington lived. She spent weeks in the hospital in a coma, lost her eye, and is deaf in her right ear. When she testified at a December court hearing, eight months after the attack, she still had a slew of scheduled surgeries and was taking dozens of pills every day. Read more in this Sunday's Main News section At the mouth of Rudee Inlet, a majestic Old Glory waves in the wind, greeting mariners who enter the safe haven from the ocean. The 15-by-25-foot American flag is flown from an 80-foot tall pole at Southside Marina. It can be seen from land, too, with some of the best views from the southern-most point of the Boardwalk. Virginia Beach businesswoman Cheryl McLeskey, who owns the marina, installed the flag pole in 2019 in the center of a grassy plot of land to honor her late husband, Wayne, and her father who fought in WWII. Read more in this Sunday's Main News section Blood donors reclined in chairs basked in natural light at a recent American Red Cross blood drive. Mobile phlebotomists moved between trees strung with fairy lights, preparing blood bags in the lobby of the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Off to the side, a table presented free snacks for donors to replenish blood sugar. Next to them were gift bundles of stadium cups, koozies, ballpoint pens and informational material â all splashed with the TowneBank logo. As a sponsor, Suffolk-based TowneBank partnered with the local Red Cross to organize the drive and provide promotional items. The company also encouraged about 25 employees to sign up. These partnerships have supported the Red Cross coming out of the pandemic, a time when the baseline of need for blood donations is higher than normal. The lack of elective surgeries and scarcity of travel-related car crashes during the height of the pandemic meant that fewer people needed the lifesaving units of blood that donors provide. Now that the United States is creeping back to ânormal,â the need for blood has skyrocketed.  Read more in this Sunday's Main News section So you have friends and family who are vaccinated and rolling in like a hurricane-whipped tide to visit. What to do with them beyond the typical dip at the beach? Plenty. We have a list of unique travel stops, fun to-dos and experiences that can be had only in our neck of the Eastern Seaboard. Our list isnât inclusive, and the items are not in any particular order. Why 51? Because itâs more than 50. Read more in the Sunday Break section     Â
     A full-time human resources administrator for a Norfolk ship repair company        was eager to become an entrepreneur, although she didnât think olive oil would      be in her wheelhouse.      But when Chasity Pritchett, who works at Auxiliary Systems Inc., tasted            jalapeño-infused olive oil that a co-worker drizzled on his fresh homegrown         produce, her taste buds and interest were piqued.      âIt sounds crazy, but I said, âI think I could get into the olive oil business,ââ            Pritchett said.       The Chesapeake resident researched the product, the industry and the health       benefits of olive oil and delved in.
      Read more in this Sunday's Work & Money section
Note to Readers: Parade Magazine WILL NOT publish this coming Sunday, July 4th. Below is a special preview of the July 11th edition!
Let The Games Begin: 2021 Tokyo Olympics Parade Picks - Space Jam: A New Legacy Books We Love - Cover to Cover | 