LoudounNow LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
[ Vol. 2, No. 26 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
Antiquing in Loudoun
30
May 4 – 10, 2017 ]
Investigators Close Case on 2009 Leesburg Homicide BY CAROLINE BORAS
Perdue said his office wants to have time to study the impacts of the stricter guidelines and make a decision on whether to move forward with them or, more likely, reverse them. He noted that schools nationwide are reporting that more food is ending up in the trash and the number of students participating in school breakfast and lunch programs has declined. “We all know that meals can’t be nutritious if they’re not consumed—if they’re in the trash,” Perdue said. “We have to balance the sodium content, the wholegrain content with the palpability.” Speaking to members of the press, alongside Senate agriculture committee chairman U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS),
It has been more than eight years since Jammie Lane was found stabbed to death in his Leesburg home. On Tuesday, his family was offered a sense of closure. Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman announced in a press conference that Leesburg Police Department investigators believe Elias Abuelazam is responsible for Lane’s death. Lane was 44 when he died on March 26, 2009. Abuelazam had been a suspect in Abuelazam this case since 2011, when he was arrested at an Atlanta airport in connection to one homicide in Indiana, five homicides in Michigan, nine stabbings in Michigan, and one stabbing in Ohio. He also is suspect in a series of three stabbings that occurred in Leesburg in August 2010. Because of the severity of the cases in Michigan, Plowman said the Loudoun investigators and prosecutors deferred prosecution to Michigan. There, Abuelazam was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in June 2012. At the time of Abuelazam’s sentencing, investigators could not strongly link him to Lane’s death. “We were reasonably confident Mr. Abuelazam was connected to the Lane homicide, yet we did not have sufficient evidence to move forward at that time,” Plowman said. “After we determined that all reasonable means had been exhausted, detectives made several attempts to interview Mr. Abuelazam in the prison system up in Michigan.” The interviews with Abuelazam did not bring the detectives any new information, but Plowman said they kept the lines of communication open with Abuelazam anyway. Two weeks ago, Abuelazam reached out to detectives for another in-
PERDUE >> 6
HOMICIDE >> 7
Douglas Graham/Loudoun Now
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue eats lunch with students at Catoctin Elementary School on Monday. His visits to Catoctin Elementary and C.S. Monroe Technology Center were his first public appearances in his new position.
Ag Secretary Visits Leesburg to Announce Relaxed School Meal Regulations BY DANIELLE NADLER
E
xactly one week after Sonny Perdue was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, he pulled up a seat at a school cafeteria table in Leesburg to enjoy a chicken-nugget lunch with students. His stop at Catoctin Elementary School Monday was his first public visit in his new role and it was about more than chicken nuggets. After he chatted with students, he stepped in front of a podium and a dozen cameras to announce a plan to relax some of the federal guidelines that regulate school meals. He signed a proclamation that will delay the more stringent rules for
wholegrain and sodium levels that were set to go into effect next school year. The regulations are the “second tier” of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by Michelle Obama and signed into law in 2010 by President Barack Obama. The proclamation signed in the Catoctin Elementary cafeteria by Perdue also allows public schools to serve 1 percent chocolate and strawberry milk, instead of the current rule that permits only non-fat flavored milks to be served. “I wouldn’t be as big as I am today without chocolate milk,” said Perdue, who served as governor of Georgia from 2003 to 2011. “And the kids told me that the flavored milk limited to non-fat was not as tasty as they would like, so we’re allowing 1 percent flavored milk.”
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