February 12 - 18, 2015
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I����� T��� W��� 1�� F.C. R��������� W��� P����������� A�������� The first group of participants in the News-Press’ third annual edition of Falls Church Restaurant Week, taking place March 23 – 29, has been announced. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
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Officials gave the all clear Monday after a suspicious package that caused a three-hour evacuation and shutdown of Falls Church City Hall and Community Center was determined to be a training tool for bomb-sniffing dogs.
Boom! Tysons Begins Take Off As ‘Next Great American City’ O ��� �� F.C.
News Analysis: Huge
Spillover Effect on F.C. As Tysons Explodes BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
avoided. Saslaw, a highly-respected veteran legislator the head of the Democrats in the State Senate, launched into his heated comments as a father who had a daughter who graduated from U-Va. His daughter, he said, told him that it was well known on the campus that cover ups of such rape inci-
“Welcome to Tysons, America’s Next Great City!” Just up the road, Route 7 to be exact, from the City of Falls Church, a new sign suddenly showed up last week identifying the already-imposing Tysons Corner area as “America’s Next Great City.” The slogan is no joke, as anyone examining the jaw-dropping assemblage of plans for the development of that area can see, now that the four Metro Silver Line stations are complete and operational there. It is also turns out quite fortuitous for the City of Falls Church. Less than two miles down the shared Route 7 corridor, Falls Church had already settled on its own slogan, thanks to the efforts of the creative talents at the local Smith-Gifford firm about four years ago. As much as some in Falls Church haven’t warmed to it yet (it’s in the nature of such things), the Falls Church slogan, or logo, as “The Little City” now perfectly sets the City apart, juxtaposing it to the emerging Tysons behemoth as “America’s Next Great City.” While Falls Church has now attracted the interest of developers eager to erect a series of their own large-scale mixed use projects, that is undoubtedly due in large part to what’s now clearly coming in Tysons. It is a common tactic for developers to nibble around the edges of a big new boom area to sew up adjacent lands and political approvals for construction.
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SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
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This was a bomb that had been ticking for a while. NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was constantly inflating his biography. SEE PAGE 15
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Dave Lang and his band mate Scott Stanton, who formed Current Swell in 2005, tried something for their latest album, Ulysses, that they haven’t tried in a long time: writing songs together. SEE PAGE 25
WASHINGTON CAPITAL STAR Alex Ovechkin was in Falls Church Monday, receiving a car from Bill Page Honda on Arlington Boulevard which he then donated to the American Special Hockey Association for a raf�le. Ovechkin, who lobbied for a car prize during the National Hockey League’s All-Star weekend last month, stands with 10-year old Ann Schaab of the Washington Ice Dogs. Ovechkin was gifted the car this week by Honda after the company heard his widely publicized pleas. See News & Notes, page 12 for more. (P����: N���-P����)
Sen. Saslaw: Campus Rape Bill ‘Not As Strong as I Would Like’ BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
INDEX Editorial.................6 Letters...............6, 8 News & Notes 12-13 Comment .......14-17 Calendar ........20-21 Food & Dining ......22
Press Pass .........25 Sports ................27 Classified Ads ....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........29 Critter Corner......30
It was not as strong as Falls Church’s State Sen. Dick Saslaw wanted, but a modified bill to address the issue of sexual assault on college campuses sailed unanimously through the Virginia Senate Tuesday, and is expected to fare just as well in the House of Delegates.
A video of Saslaw’s angry comments before the Falls Church City Council in December went “viral” statewide in the wake of the explosive article in Rolling Stone magazine about a rape at the University of Virginia, as he vowed to introduce legislation that would require the university to report such an incident to local police within 24 hours, with stiff criminal penalties if