Countywide

(Updated at 5:30 p.m.) The Virginia Department of Education has no clear timeline for when its new policies on the treatment of transgender students will take effect, leaving Fairfax County Public Schools and other local school districts waiting to see if the state makes any changes in response to vocal opposition to the proposal.

It has now been over a month since the state closed its public comment period for the draft “model” policies, which would require schools to identify students based on their sex assigned at birth and prohibit discipline for deadnaming or misgendering a student even if they get their official school records changed.


Around Town

The McLean Holiday Art and Crafts Festival will hit the 40-year mark this weekend, just as gift shopping kicks into full gear.

Featuring work by 80 artisans from around the region, the annual handmade crafts fair will be held Friday through Saturday (Dec. 2-4) inside the McLean Community Center. Hours will be 11 a.m.-6 p.m. on Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on Saturday, and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday.


News

A major redevelopment has been suggested for Fallfax Center, a retail strip anchored by El Tio Tex-Mex Grill on the edge of Idylwood near Jefferson District Park.

Property owner Schupp Companies has put forward a proposal to replace the existing shopping center with a residential and retail “donut” building.


News

A 20-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly burglarizing two Latino restaurants in Mount Vernon earlier this month, Fairfax County police announced last week.

Police say surveillance footage showed the man, a resident of the county’s “Alexandria area,” breaking into Mezcalero Restaurant three times and Mana Pupuseria once from Nov. 13-18.


Around Town

People will be talking about Bruno at Shipgarten in Tysons this Thanksgiving weekend.

Characters from the Disney movie “Encanto” will put on a live performance on Saturday (Nov. 26) as part of the biergarten’s Thanksgiving Barks & Brews Festival, which will run from 1 to 6 p.m. that day.


News

A 79-year-old driver who crashed into a motorcyclist in Fair Oaks last month, resulting in the biker’s death, is now facing criminal charges.

Detectives have determined that Fairfax resident Mazher Rajput did not yield to a 2018 Yamaha MT07 motorcycle when attempting to turn left from West Ox Road onto Ox Hill Road on Oct. 25, the Fairfax County Police Department said in a news release yesterday.


News

(Updated at 4:15 p.m.) Police have arrested a 61-year-old man from Arlington County who allegedly abducted and raped a Fairfax County woman multiple times over three decades ago.

Fingerprint and DNA analyses suggest George Thomas Jr. and his now-deceased brother, Gregory Allen Thomas, were the offenders in the 1988 rape of a 22-year-old woman who got attacked as she was leaving work in Bailey’s Crossroads, the Fairfax County Police Department said this afternoon (Tuesday).


News

A single-family house in the Wolf Trap area could be razed and replaced with three smaller homes under a development plan filed earlier this month with Fairfax County.

Caliber Development is seeking to rezone the 1.14-acre site at the corner of Creek Crossing Road NE and Ridge Lane so it can be subdivided into three lots that will range from roughly 14,700 square feet to over 16,200 square feet in size, per the submitted plan.


Countywide

(Updated at 10:40 a.m. on 12/5/2022) Even with one month left, 2022 is the deadliest year for Fairfax County pedestrians in more than a decade.

Through October, vehicle crashes have killed 22 people on streets and highways in the county — the most since at least 2010, the earliest year in Virginia’s Traffic Records Electronic Data System (TREDS). The previous high came in 2018 and 2019, when there were 17 fatalities each.


News

The McLean Community Center is on the lookout for local teens who are in tune with what kids these days enjoy.

The community center has launched a new MCC Youth Ambassador initiative that invites students from McLean and Langley high schools to provide input on and promote events at their schools and online.


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