As Fredericksburg city grows, the local bicycling community grows along with it.

This article is for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade and Become a Locals Only Member today! Make the smart choice for staying informed about your community. Thank you!

There’s a war on plastic grocery bags, and the folks at the Fredericksburg Food Cooperative are fighting that battle with the t-shirt grocery bag.

This article is for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade and Become a Locals Only Member today! Make the smart choice for staying informed about your community. Thank you!

A torrential downpour enveloped the City of Fredericksburg on Tuesday, January 9, 2024, flooding streets and soaking yards, affecting residents on several fronts where area schools closed early and roads were blockaded with cones.

This article is for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade and Become a Locals Only Member today! Make the smart choice for staying informed about your community. Thank you!

Fredericksburg is hosting Winter Restaurant Week from January 12 to 21, with 45 restaurants from all over the city participating. It’s an opportunity for the chefs to showcase their talents to new and returning customers.

This article is for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade and Become a Locals Only Member today! Make the smart choice for staying informed about your community. Thank you!

When Michael Smith dug into the box of chicken he had bought at Popeye’s Chicken on Route 234 in Dumfries, he found a fried piece of “something” and felt it required a closer look before he bit into it.

He examined it and said he was shocked to see that it was what he thought was a chicken head. Not a juicy drumstick, succulent thigh, or even a breast packed with white meat like many other Popeye’s chicken eaters have experienced. No, this looked like a chicken head, beak and all.
So he did what everyone else does today – whipped out his cell phone, took a picture, and posted it to social media.

“I sent it to their general manager so they could see what’s going on; she never got back to me,” he said. This didn’t sit well with him.

It all started on Tuesday, December 19, when Smith stopped by the Popeyes Restaurant with his son to get something to eat. He had been to the drive-through window at this store, but it was the first time he got out of the car and went inside.

Once his order came, Smith looked at one piece and felt he could see the beak and the rest of it was shaped like a head, so he became alarmed. He got a second opinion on the picture and then sent it to the manager.

Not so fast, said “Thi,” the manager at that Popeye’s store in Dumfries. She looked at the picture of a fried glob of batter and saw that the head Michael pointed out was just “a piece of bone that looks like a chicken head,” she said. “We know that it was not a chicken head,” she added, but just in case, she took it further in the process. “We forwarded it to our HR,” she said.

It’s not a done deal for Smith, though. He called the health department and consulted an attorney.
A chicken head discovery at the Popeye’s chain is not new. In September 2023, another apparent chicken head was found in another Popeye’s meal, and it turned out that the image used to back up the claim was a 2021 image.

“A Popeyes spokesperson told USA Today it has since been recirculated and mistakenly attributed to Popeyes,” said a post on the USA Today site under “Fact Check.” In 2019, a chicken head was found in a Popeye’s dish in Livingston, Texas, and another “chicken head” was found in a box of chicken in Williamsport, Penn., but this was at a pizza restaurant, and it turned out to be a real chicken head—lots of question marks on that one.

Mike Salmon is a freelance reporter for Potomac Local News.

Occoquan artist Vicky Somma has created many works of art throughout the years, but when she made Occoquan’s Mamie Davis Park into a Christmas ornament, she reached Hallmark Christmas Movie fame.

This article is for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade and Become a Locals Only Member today! Make the smart choice for staying informed about your community. Thank you!

This is the year for the James Madison University Dukes football team, and it all comes to fruition on Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, when JMU plays Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl in Texas.

This article is for our Locals Only members. Please Sign In or upgrade and Become a Locals Only Member today! Make the smart choice for staying informed about your community. Thank you!

Fredericksburg area commuters have three more options for the trip up Interstate 95, including launching three new OmniRide Express buses to the Pentagon, Arlington, and the State Department in Washington, D.C.

The buses are fully funded by the Department of Rail and Public Transportation, and they will provide a commuting option for residents south of the newly extended I-95 Express Lanes. It’s the first time since OmniRide’s founding in 1986 that it has provided service to Spotsylvania County and southern Stafford County, bolstering the agency’s status as a regional bus operator.

“Today is a great example of DRPT’s mission in action,” said Todd Horsley, the Alternate PRTC Commissioner at the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Commonwealth Drive Commuter Lot in Spotsylvania County.

For the next month, riders may use the new bus lines for free. After January 12, there will be a $9 one-way fee.

The I-95 E-Z Pass Express Lanes helped make it all possible, said Perrin Palistrant, the director of planning and service delivery at OmniRide. “Without the express lanes, it would have been difficult to facilitate this.”

The express lanes on I-95, I-495, and I-66 are toll lanes that are free for vehicles with three or more passengers. This is to facilitate carpooling and buses, reducing the overall number of cars on these roads.

Officials looked at the growth in the Stafford and Spotsylvania counties and Fredericksburg, so they put in an overall order for 29 new buses to serve those counties.

Some of those buses were replacing older buses. They were paid for as part of a $21 million funding arrangement with Virginia’s Commonwealth Transportation Board.

The buses each have 57 seats, and each set of seats has access to a set of plugs so the riders can charge their electronic devices or work during the ride.

The Commonwealth Drive lot is one of several park-and-ride lots in the I-95 corridor that commuters use to catch buses or carpools. The park and ride lot at Horner Road in Prince William County is the most popular VDOT lot, followed by the lot at Route 234.

Officials expect this Fredericksburg area lot to get a lot more use soon.

Here are the new lines:

• Bus 541 – Stafford to Washington (State Dept) express
• Bus 923 – Spotsylvania – Navy Yard express
• Bus 932 – Falmouth – Pentagon/Rosslyn/Ballston/ Crystal City express

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported HOV rules for the I-66 E-ZPass Express Lanes.