Author: Angela Woolsey

Angela Woolsey is the site editor for FFXnow. A graduate of George Mason University, she worked as a general assignment reporter for the Fairfax County Times before joining Local News Now as the Tysons Reporter editor in 2020.

Countywide

FCPS: Independent investigation finds no deliberate wrongdoing in merit award notice delays

By Angela Woolsey
Fairfax County Public Schools (file photo)

An independent investigation found no basis to claims that notices of National Merit Scholarship commendations were intentionally withheld from students, Fairfax County Public Schools announced last night (Wednesday).

Conducted by the law firm Sands Anderson, the review confirmed that eight schools didn’t notify students designated as “commended” by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) until after Nov. 1, 2022, but it “found no evidence that this was intentional or reflected any policy decision by FCPS” or any of the individual schools, according to FCPS.

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Around Town

Retailer selling ‘modest’ fashion for women sets up shop at Tysons Corner Center

By Angela Woolsey
The New Jersey-based fashion retailer Moda Natty has opened a temporary store at Tysons Corner Center (courtesy Tysons Corner Center)

(Updated at 3:20 p.m.) A New Jersey store that specializes in full-length dresses and other clothes for women has expanded its reach into Tysons Corner Center.

Moda Natty opened a pop-up store next to Nordstrom on the mall’s first floor in early February, according to an Instagram announcement.

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News

Vertical farm built by Luther Jackson MS students grows crops to feed local families

By Angela Woolsey
Luther Jackson Middle School student Vivian Nguyen is among 15 students who designed and built a vertical farm for their engineering class (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

In its quest to minimize waste, the vertical farm housed in a shed behind Merrifield’s Luther Jackson Middle School will one day be sustained by fish feces.

Barely the length of a fingernail, the larval tilapia swimming around a small tank in the shed will soon grow large enough to be transferred into a bigger bucket with a filter that separates fish poop and other solids from water.

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News

Richmond Highway barricaded for hours as police negotiate with armed woman

By Angela Woolsey
Police have shut down Richmond Highway for a woman with gun who has barricaded herself in a vehicle (via Google Maps)

Richmond Highway (Route 1) has been closed off to traffic in the Hybla Valley area for over eight hours now due to a woman who has barricaded herself in a vehicle with a handgun, police say.

Crisis negotiators and officers in the Fairfax County Police Department’s Special Operations Division are still working to resolve the situation in the 7400 block of Richmond Highway peacefully, the department said in a 7:33 p.m. update.

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Countywide

Here’s where Fairfax County ranks among the ‘Best Counties to Live’ — and the neighbor it couldn’t beat

By Angela Woolsey
Fairfax County is the healthiest county in Virginia, according to the data platform Niche (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

Fairfax County fared well overall in recently released rankings of the best places to live in America, but it couldn’t quite compete with neighboring Loudoun County.

Fairfax County was named the 25th best county to live in nationally and the third best in Virginia by Niche, an online data platform that reviews localities with the goal of helping families choose schools and neighborhoods.

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News

Merrifield recommended as priority for redevelopment, but one proposal raises displacement concerns

By Angela Woolsey
A concept plan to redevelop the Merrifield at Dunn Loring Station apartments (via Fairfax County)

Redevelopment proposals in the Merrifield area will likely get high-priority consideration by Fairfax County planners, as the county nears the finish line of its reconfigured site-specific plan amendment (SSPA) process.

After a nearly four-hour-long workshop on Thursday (March 23), the Fairfax County Planning Commission gave its support to staff’s recommendation that the pitches for Merrifield and an AT&T office site in Oakton be designated as “Tier 1” in the SSPA work program.

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News

Vienna among first Metro stations to get taller gate doors in crackdown on fare evasion

By Angela Woolsey
Metro is retrofitting its new fare gates with taller doors intended to prevent fare evasion (via WMATA)

Saloon-style doors are coming to the Vienna Metro station’s fare gates.

The Orange Line terminus is one of nine stations in the first phase of Metro’s fare gate retrofits, which will install taller, glass doors on all of the transit agency’s recently modernized gates to deter people from jumping over to avoid paying to ride the rails.

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News

Virginia Tech’s proposed expansion near West Falls Church Metro will require change to county plan

By Angela Woolsey
Virginia Tech's Northern Virginia Center in Idylwood (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

Less than two years after overhauling its plan for the West Falls Church Metro station area in Idylwood to allow more development, Fairfax County needs to make a relatively limited but critical revision.

During its meeting last Tuesday (March 21), the Board of Supervisors authorized a study of an amendment to the comprehensive plan for the West Falls Church Transit Station Area (TSA) that would allow more office on Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center at 7054 Haycock Road.

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Countywide

UPDATED: Some FCPS students stay inside as burnt smell reported across D.C. area

By Angela Woolsey
A Fairfax County Fire and Rescue truck (file photo)

(Updated at 2:05 p.m.) Many D.C. area residents who have ventured outside today (Monday) have reported a smoky or burning smell from a wildfire unfolding in North Carolina.

The scent has been reported from D.C. to Arlington and into McLean. The Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department confirmed that it has gotten calls from around the county, as previously reported by FFXnow’s sister site ARLnow.

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News

Teen arrested in Merrifield after fatal shooting in Fairfax Village

By Angela Woolsey
Fairfax County Police Lt. James Curry discusses a fatal shooting in Oakton (via FCPD/Facebook)

An 18-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder in connection to a fatal shooting in the Fairfax Village Apartments on Saturday (March 25).

Fairfax County police officers were called to the apartment complex in the 10400 block of Viera Lane in Oakton at 7:47 a.m. by a family member of the victim who reported the shooting to 911.

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