News

Families are decrying new walk zones for Alexandria City Public Schools, saying the changes force their children off school buses to walk along unsafe roadways.

A number of parents denounced the walk zones during the public comment period at the Alexandria City School Board meeting on Thursday night (Aug. 27). ACPS provides bus transportation for students living more than a mile from their elementary schools and more than a mile-and-a-half from Alexandria City High School.


News

The Alexandria City School Board unanimously accepted $240,100 in donations to the city’s school system on Thursday night (Aug. 27).

Along with school supplies and donations for meal debt, the gifts include a $158,000 donation to buy phone pouches with magnetic locks for every student at Alexandria City High School. With more than 4,500 students getting accustomed to a new bell-to-bell phone ban, Principal Michael Burch told ALXnow that the donation will buy enough pouches to last the school for several years.


News

As a number of undocumented immigrants have been arrested in Alexandria this month, nonprofit affordable housing developer Housing Alexandria recently advised its residents to stay indoors due to ICE activity.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on Wednesday (Aug. 26), announced 1,328 “illegal alien offenders” were arrested throughout Virginia and Maryland between Aug. 1 and Aug. 14. Those arrested as part of ICE’s Operation Safe Community include at least four people in Alexandria. ICE said of the 1,328, nearly 400 had faced charges or been convicted.


News

An Alexandria man pleaded guilty Wednesday (Aug. 26) to transmission of national defense information to a foreign government.

Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 29, an IT specialist in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Insider Threat Division, was arrested on May 29, 2025, after making a dead drop at a prearranged location. The Federal Bureau of Investigation started its investigation into Laatsch in March 2025, after he sent an email decrying the Trump administration and offering to give classified information to a “friendly foreign government,” according to court records.


News

An Alexandria man was among nine men arrested last month as part of an online child exploitation sting by the Fairfax County Police Department.

Henry Flores Herrera, 39, was arrested on July 16 and charged with soliciting a minor for prostitution and using a computer to solicit a minor after allegedly soliciting a detective posing as a juvenile online. Herrera and other suspects believed they were going to meet a juvenile and instead met officers from the department’s Child Exploitation Unit in Fairfax County and were arrested, according to FCPD.


News

A driver was reportedly injured in a two-vehicle crash on southbound Interstate 395 near the Duke Street/Little River Turnpike exit Wednesday afternoon.

The crash between a black SUV and a tan Toyota sedan was reported just after 3:45 p.m. Alexandria police and fire responders cut off traffic in the third and fourth lanes near the righthand shoulder of the roadway. The crash occurred just before exit 3 on I-395.


News

Alexandria City Public Schools officials are touting improvements in standardized testing results from the Virginia Department of Education.

VDOE’s annual SOL standardized test results showed ACPS improved across all content areas divisionwide in the 2025-26 school year, increasing 9% in history (to 71%), 5% in mathematics (to 59%), 3% in science (to 56%) and 1% in reading (to 63%).


Around Town

Chadwicks in Old Town recently won a write-in effort to be named the winner in ALXnow’s Best bar in Alexandria poll.

With only 15 spots available, Chadwicks (203 The Strand) wasn’t listed in the poll, which was held July 31 to Aug. 14. Owner Trae Lamond says that what followed was a grassroots effort for customers to cast write-in votes. After duplicate votes were excluded, Chadwicks edged out the competition and won the poll.


News

No injuries were reported after a delivery truck driver hit a power line behind a shopping center in Alexandria’s West End on Tuesday night (Aug. 25), sparking a fire that destroyed a pickup truck, two dumpsters and fencing.

The fire was reported behind the Harris Teeter (4641 Duke Street) at the Shoppes at Foxchase just before 9 p.m. and was extinguished an hour later. The fire started after the driver of a tractor-trailer making a delivery in the rear of the Harris Teeter “accidentally struck an electrical service drop,” according to the Alexandria Fire Department. No buildings were damaged.


News

A 23-year-old Alexandria man faces felony charges after allegedly selling guns and marijuana on Instagram.

The suspect was arrested in May after a five-month investigation by the Alexandria Police Department, in cooperation with the U.S. Postal Service, according to a recently unsealed search warrant affidavit. APD found that multiple packages containing pounds of marijuana were sent from Arizona and California to the suspect at an address in the 1300 block of Cleveland Street in Alexandria’s North Ridge-Rosemont neighborhood.


News

Alexandria City Public Schools is increasing the cost of breakfast and lunch at the elementary and middle schools that charge for meals.

Starting this school year, the cost of breakfast will rise by 25 cents (to $2.35 for all grade levels), and lunch will jump 50 cents (to $3.75) for students in kindergarten to fifth grade, and will cost $3.95 for students in grades 6 to 8, according to ACPS.


View More Stories