Shannon Butler didn’t know what it was when she first found one in York High School last school year. “I thought it was a USB drive,” the principal said. Someone had to explain to her that it was a Juul, one of the sleek, discreet, nicotine-delivering vape devices that was designed to help smokers quit tobacco but has become a fixture in youth culture.

Allen Iverson couldn’t help but offer pointers to the kids dribbling down the court Friday at the Boys and Girls Club in Newport News' Southeast Community — a court in the gym he once played in and a court that now bears his name. Telling the kids to slow down and focus on not picking up their dribble, Iverson channeled some of the same guidance he received growing up in the area, years before he made his name as a star athlete at Bethel High School, All-Star in the NBA and, eventually, a Hall of Famer. But, beyond basketball, Iverson said the Boys and Girls Club was a major factor in his learning to give back and help the community.

As the temperature in Newport News climbed toward triple digits Tuesday, so did the temperature inside units at Aqua Vista Apartments, where many residents submitted complaints to the city about not having air conditioning. The complaints prompted city codes compliance officials to learn the extent of the problem and hand out citations to the apartment management to ensure it would be fixed.

The Bargain Box is celebrating 50 years of service in York County, and it’s proven to be much more than a thrift store. It’s quietly helped people and groups in the York County area at a large and small scale, contributing to both sweeping initiatives and to individuals in need. “People don’t realize the impact of the Bargain Box,” said Chuck Eldred, a volunteer of 15 years. “We’re not trying to hide it, we just don’t keep a super-high profile.”

A sea of people flooded Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg Saturday while another group marched down Jefferson Avenue, all charged by a sweeping, national attention on gun control that’s rippled out from Parkland, Fla., in recent weeks. The Peninsula marches were two of more than 800 demonstrations, large and small, across the country that saw people carry signs with messages like “Protect people not guns,” and broke into chants of “Enough is enough” as they marched in solidarity with the national March For Our Lives event in Washington, D.C., which drew hundreds of thousands.

Virginia’s leading role in the earliest years of the nation’s history gives the state so many claims to fame that some things get overlooked. A notable example that’s a current hot topic in Virginia is gerrymandering.

Newport News City Council chambers erupted in cheers and applause Tuesday after the council voted to designate City Farm, a former jail site, “park” in the city’s comprehensive plan. During the council meeting, 43 people advocated for a riverfront park at the site, free of residential development. They saw the council’s vote as a step toward their goal. The council split the vote 5-2 in favor of the designation.

A barricade situation at an auto shop. The ongoing search for missing boaters in the James River. Crowd monitoring at the August white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville that turned violent. York County’s ROVER Team has been there for all of it, providing an eye in the sky from one of its drones.

“The important stuff survived,” said Lynda Smith Greve, one of the partners of the business who does a little bit of everything for the Opry. When the roof of the theater caved, it went in like a half-pipe, saving signed memorabilia on the walls, the old equipment from when Donk’s was a movie theater and the hand-painted backdrop. From the wreckage, a contractor also retrieved a wireless microphone — the one that Greve got in the ’90s and made her think, “I’ve got a wireless microphone. I’m really somebody.”

After learning crews from the AMC Revolutionary War television show "TURN" would be filming in front of her house in Yorktown, Teri Hodson thought she'd make a treat for the actors and crew who passed by. "I made homemade bread and homemade quiche and thought I would invite them over," Hodson said. But to serve all the people who transformed current-day Nelson Street into an 18th-century battleground, she would have needed a loaves-and-fishes-caliber miracle. "It turned out to be thousands of them," Hodson said with a laugh.

For Ken and Shirley Ketterman, life on the water is perfect 98 percent of the time. The retired couple has lived on the Hampton River in Pasture Point for 11 years, and Ken Ketterman said most days, it's exactly what they want. Through a wide set of windows and glass doors at the rear of the house, they can see the sunrise over the peaks of the widow’s walks of the old houses across the water. Ken Ketterman docks his boat out back and can go fishing whenever he pleases. Their grandchildren visit often, swimming in a pool and playing in a yard that overlooks the river. The 2 percent of days that aren’t idyllic directly involve the water. Since moving in, the couple has faced challenges with flooding in their garage and increasing costs of flood insurance. And in recent years, assessments of their property have taken a hit. The average drop for their neighborhood since they moved in is 15 to 20 percent, according to city records.

Michele Murray was driving past the Fort Eustis interchange on I-64 on her way to Williamsburg one day in 2007 when a tractor-trailer rammed into her rear bumper. "Rubberneckers stopped traffic cold right at the top of the hill before the exit," she said. "I was able to stop, but the tractor-trailer behind me couldn't." The tractor-trailer turned her car and pushed it into two other vehicles before running it over, demolishing it. Murray escaped with only minor injuries, she said, but that day remains the most frightening of her life. Murray is one of hundreds of drivers who have been in accidents on I-64 near the Fort Eustis interchange. In fact, that portion of road includes the most crash-prone mile on the Peninsula's interstates, according to a Daily Press analysis of data from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. The data encompass 7,395 accidents that occurred between Jan. 1, 2011, and June 30, 2015. The accidents occurred on a 70-mile expanse of interstate that contains 33 exits and begins at the mouths of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and Monitor-Merrimack Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, up through I-664 and I-64 to the Henrico County border.