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Nearly 150 counties and cities across the commonwealth have installed automatic license plate readers, scanning millions of vehicle trips every year.

In July, a new Virginia law tried to rein in the use of ALPRs, requiring law enforcement officers to document the reason they conduct searches on the vast databases.

But a VCIJ at WHRO analysis of searches on Flock Safety systems found widespread gaps and omissions in documenting police queries.

Read our full coverage here: https://www.whro.org/virginia-center-for-investigative-journalism/2026-04-02/virginia-police-often-search-alpr-surveillance-data-for-vague-reasons

Each summer for nearly four decades, scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center have tethered some baby blue crabs along a Chesapeake Bay tributary.

Then they watched, hoping to learn more about which marine creatures prey on crabs. Turns out, their biggest predators were their own kind.

Adult crabs accounted for about 97% of juvenile crab deaths at the study site in Maryland’s Rhode River, just east of Washington, D.C.

Read more here: https://www.whro.org/environment/2026-03-17/a-new-look-at-blue-crab-cannibalism-in-the-chesapeake-bay