Slade Woodson, 19, of Afton, was arrested shortly after 5 a.m. by Albemarle County and Virginia State Police in connection with a string of shootings on Interstate 64 and two shooting incidents in Waynesboro, authorities announced this morning.

Thursday’s roadside shootings along Interstate 64 are not the first of their ilk in Central Virginia: For 10 days in 1991, an armed assailant kept motorists watching and worried as 17 drivers were fired upon with no apparent rhyme or reason in a series of drive-by shootings.

At least one person has been arrested in connection with the Interstate 64 shootings that injured two motorists yesterday morning, according to a police source.

Nelson County fire damages Taylor’s Creek Road home as units from Wintergreen and Albemarle County and other neighboring fire stations help battle the blaze. The fire is in the same general Albemarle County-Nelson County-Augusta County area as Thursday’s Interstate 64 shootings and this morning’s wounding incident on Yonder Hills Farm Road.

Pegasus Medical Transport takes at least one to the hospital as county, state and federal authorities investigate a wounding at a western Albemarle County home. The home is located in the same general area of the county as Thursday’s highway shooting events. No word on whether the shootings and this morning’s incident are related.

Karon, one of the Charlottesville area’s best-known and most popular writers, was one of the biggest draws of the 14th annual book festival. She spoke over lunch at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel before hundreds of elegantly attired women mostly of a certain age, with just a few husbands in tow.

Indio Martinez pleaded guilty in Charlottesville Circuit Court to two counts of malicious wounding and one count each of conspiracy to commit malicious wounding and for recruiting others to join a criminal street gang.

By Thursday afternoon, life had essentially returned to normal for most residents of Crozet and other communities close the scene of the overnight highway shootings. Yet the so-called “sniper,” they said, was the topic of everyone’s conversation.

Several shots were fired at the Dupont Community Credit Union on Lucy Lane in Waynesboro early Thursday morning, hitting a window and exterior wall, as well as a sign and a repossessed van parked in front of the building, police said.

“To increase security in the area, we plan on increasing our presence through the county police and help from the Virginia State Police,” said Lee Catlin, county spokesman. “How that takes place, we’re not willing to say right now.”

In the midst of today’s breaking news we are springing yet another, but more pleasant, surprise - we launched the new Dailyprogress.com. We have worked hard developing this new Web site and it has many new features that I would like to introduce to you.

Virginia State and Waynesboro police are working to see if a shooting in Waynesboro around the same time as the Interstate 64 shootings early Thursday are linked, police said.

The tranquil life along this stretch of country road in western Albemarle county turned into a flurry of police activity early Thursday morning as police continued to search for the person or persons that fired bullets into four cars along Interstate 64.

Police from at least five agencies are searching for two people seen at the time when shots were fired at vehicles traveling on the interstate. Shots came from the overpass at Route 690 - Greenwood Station Road - and the Ivy exit on the interstate at exit 114.

• I-64 Travelers are cautious, shocked

• Slideshow: Today’s events

• I-64 reopens after shooting-spree closure

• Shootings have Greenwood residents on edge

The Virginia State Police shut down more than a 20-mile stretch of I-64 in either direction after shootings wounded two people shortly after midnight.

Closings related to the I-64 shootings. POST YOUR CLOSING OR CHANGE

At least two people were injured early this morning when their vehicles were shot on I-64 near an overpass on the east side of Afton Mountain, state police told The News Virginian. A 20-mile stretch of the interstate was closed from milepost 96 in Augusta County, near Waynesboro, to milepost 118 in Albemarle County.
• List of closings - Post your closing or delay
• I-64 Travelers are cautious, shocked
•  Slideshow: Today’s events

Albemarle County school officials are starting to consider ways to move about 90 pupils from Crozet Elementary to Brownsville Elementary by the 2009-10 school year.

After spending the night in Hope Community Center, more than 50 homeless people met Tuesday morning with employment counselors to craft resumes and get advice on finding a job.
Since a local winter shelter closed earlier this month, the community center, on 11th Street Northwest, has been inundated with men, women and children looking for a cot and a warm meal.
“They are in transition in life. They want to do better, but they need a place to call home,” said Josh Bare, who runs the center’s homeless shelter on behalf of his father, Harold L. Bare, a pastor at Covenant Church.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s Commission on Climate Change will hold its second meeting today at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
The 40-member commission is developing a plan to curtail Virginia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions in the state rose by 34 percent from 1990 to 2004 — a rate nearly twice the national average.

Driven by steady winds, a fire spread across 1,000 acres of isolated, steep, rocky terrain Wednesday in St. Mary’s Wilderness near Steeles Tavern as federal park officials and anxious residents looked on.
“I stayed up all night last night watching it,” said Lawrence Phillips, 62, who lives along Spy Creek Lane in a residential area near the blaze. “When there’s a fire nearby, you’re always worried.”

Virginia high schools are generally safe and serious acts of violence are rare, according to a study released Wednesday by the University of Virginia.
The study, conducted by Curry School of Education professors Dewey Cornell, Anne Gregory, Xitao Fan and Peter Sheras, represents the first statewide effort to gauge student attitudes toward their school environments.

Dick Mountjoy, one of the most popular morning voices in the history of Charlottesville radio, died Wednesday afternoon at his home in Albemarle County.
Mountjoy, 61, spent the past two years battling throat cancer prior to his death from complications of his struggle.

The problem with all these newfangled TV journalists, veteran newsman Roger Mudd says, is their look-at-me mentality and their emphasis on soft news about subjects like health, dog training and lifestyles.

Rebecca Dowdell, 31, was part of a Ponzi scheme that raised about $200 million in investor funds through a sham investment company between April 1998 and April 2002.

The Virginia Festival of the Book kicks off today with events featuring veteran TV newsman Roger Mudd, photographs of Earth from outer space, Irish-American gangsters and poetry by 258 feminists.

A grand jury on Tuesday indicted a former facilities management employee of the Albemarle County schools, accusing him of using text messages to entice a Nelson County teenager to have sex with him.

The University of Virginia Student Council unanimously condemned the college gossip Web site JuicyCampus.com on Tuesday, saying its postings about UVa students are “insensitive,” “malicious” and violate the university’s principles of honor and respect.

The Albemarle County Planning Commission turned a cold shoulder Tuesday night to a proposed development on east Pantops that, according to a developer, would include the biggest indoor sports complex in the state.

Construction is nearly set to begin on a new 25,265-square-foot complex for elite University of Virginia graduate students.
The “Jefferson Fellows Center” of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation will offer its graduate, doctoral and post-doctoral fellows a place to congregate, perform research, exchange ideas and teach classes.