Week in review

Virginia dog takes WKC

A Scottish deerhound from Virginia won best in show Tuesday night at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. In a huge surprise, 5-year-old Hickory bounded away with the title of America's top dog at Madison Square Garden. Judge Paolo Dondina of Italy picked Hickory from a best-of-seven final show ring that included a Pekingese, Portuguese water dog, Chinese shar-pei, smooth fox terrier, bearded collie, and black cocker spaniel. Hickory is the first of her breed to win the purple-and-gold ribbon and shiny silver bowl. Her handler tossed in a steak dinner. "People who own, breed, show dogs dream of this day," handler Angela Lloyd said.

First woman

Cynthia Kinser was sworn in Wednesday as the Virginia Supreme Court's first female chief justice. Kinser's colleagues elected her as the court's 25th chief justice in August, and she took over on Feb. 1. Speakers at the ceremony remembered Justice Leroy Hassell Sr., who still had three years left on the court when he died a week ago at age 55. Senior Justice Elizabeth Lacy, the first woman named to the court, said Kinser's elevation to the chief justice position "shows justice favors no gender, no age or vocation."

Home sweet House?

Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith (R) was one of 30 congressmen targeted by a government watchdog group for spending the night in his office. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) alleges that living in a House office violates the prohibition on using taxpayer resources for anything other than the performance of official duties.

"House office buildings are not dorms or frat houses," said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. "If members didn't want to find housing in Washington, they shouldn't have run for Congress in the first place."

"And really," Sloan said, "who wants to run into a member of Congress in need of a shower wandering the halls in sweats or a robe?" ABC reported that some members of Congress defended the practice, stating that sleeping on office couches showcased their dedication to the job.

Just can't leave

Some Virginia Tech alumni love the school so much that they want their final resting place to be on campus. That's why the university now has a columbarium for alumni, staff, students and friends of the school. Made of Hokie Stone, the columbarium was built last fall and has 60 niches that hold up to two urns. Each niche costs $5,000. "A lot of people come by and dump their ashes on the drill field or in the duck pond," Josh Burnheimer, assistant director of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, told WSLS-TV. "This actually gives you somewhere to go back and visit."

"Members" porn case

A Virginia man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a federal judge in Pittsburgh for his role in a social networking site that enabled dozens of members to share child pornography online. Fifty-nine-year-old Fred Woolum, of Lexington, Va., is one of eight people charged by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh in November 2009. He is the third to be sentenced after pleading guilty to one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise. Woolum will be on probation for life after his release from prison.

Craigslist capture

Fairfax County police say a man found on Craigslist two GPS devices that had been stolen from his car last Thursday, arranged to meet the seller at a doughnut shop, and then called police to arrest him. Twenty-year-old Patrick Hayward was charged with receiving and buying stolen goods.

A pen is a gun

A civil liberties group is challenging the suspension of a 14-year-old Virginia high school freshman who used the casing on a pen to shoot small projectiles at his classmates during lunch last December. Charlottesville's Rutherford Institute filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Spotsylvania County Circuit Court on behalf of Andrew Mikel II.

The classmates whom Mikel hit "flinched" and "looked annoyed," but as part of the federal Gun-Free Schools Act, the school expelled Mikel for bringing a "projectile weapon" to class. Mikel was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault, but they would be dropped if he completes a yearlong diversion program. Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead said Mikel is the latest in a line of victims of school zero-tolerance policies that defy common sense.

True love?

In Virginia Beach, some couples are resorting to lie detector tests to determine the viability of their relationship. The Virginian-Pilot reports that Virginia Beach polygraph examiner David Goldberg tested over 100 couples last year from all walks of life. Most of them sought to answer questions about finances, addictions, and fidelity. For some, the test results marked the end of a relationship; others gained closure and restored trust. The article reports that polygraph tests, if properly administered, are accurate at least 96 percent of the time. The Associated Press contributed to this report.