From a free all-day arts festival in Manassas and Bat Boy at the Workhouse in Lorton to a Slave Dwelling Project weekend in Fredericksburg and WWII living history in Woodbridge, here are things to do Friday evening through Sunday.
According to the Hylton Performing Arts Center, Arts Alive! runs Saturday, Sept. 12, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. across the Manassas campus at 10960 George Mason Circle, with free admission and no tickets required.
Fredericksburg City Council treated the Technology Overlay District as a political promise, not just a zoning map, when it voted 7-0 after midnight to keep a data center off the Hylton tract.
The Aug. 25-26 votes denied a rezoning and a height permit for 1500 Gateway along Interstate 95, between Plank Road and Cowan Boulevard. Council did not say the overlay text itself banned the site. Members who passed the TOD in 2025, and one who was not on the dais then, said they had already told residents where data centers would go.
Our family loves Dolly Parton. We’ve been to Dollywood. So on Friday morning, on the way to taking my 5-year-old granddaughter to Hazelwild Farm, I stopped by Paul’s Bakery on Lafayette Boulevard and bought two dozen Dolly Parton donuts — some for family, some for the staff at Hazelwild’s Country Day Preschool.
I was not the only one making the trip.
A modest frame house built for George Washington’s brother offers visitors an intimate window into the taverns that helped spark American independence.
As America celebrates its 250th birthday in 2026, the Rising Sun Tavern in historic Fredericksburg stands as a tangible link to the conversations and connections that helped forge a nation. Once the private home of Charles Washington, the site now welcomes guests to experience 18th-century life through costumed interpreters and preserved spaces that buzz with stories of rebellion.
After a hearing that ran past midnight, members kept data centers inside the Technology Overlay District — and left a $23.4 million tax projection on the table.
City Council voted 7–0 early Wednesday to deny a rezoning that would have put two data center buildings on the Hylton tract along Interstate 95, then voted 7–0 again to deny a special use permit that would have raised those buildings from 50 feet to 75 feet.
Dog Krazy marked 20 years in business on Saturday, Aug. 22.
We stopped by the downtown Fredericksburg location at 307 William St. to check in on the celebration.
The Fredericksburg City School Board on Monday appointed Dr. Stan Jones to fill the vacant at-large seat, with the longtime educator and nonprofit leader sworn in during a special meeting.Jones, CEO of Action in Community Through Service (ACTS) in Prince William County, will serve as an interim member through the end of 2026. Voters will elect a permanent representative in November to complete the remainder of the term left open by Jarvis Bailey’s resignation, which runs through December 2027.
The appointment followed a competitive process. According to reporting by the Fredericksburg Free Press, Jones was one of five applicants who interviewed with the board. The others were Justin Carter, Beth Flanagan, Jacob Parcell, and Anthony Watkins. The Free Press reported that correspondence sent to board members showed Jones was the only candidate to draw written public support from residents, with 15 people urging his appointment. Read the Free Press report here.
“Rep. Eugene Vindman faced a heated confrontation with transgender constituents and local Democrats in King George County over his May vote for Republican-backed H.R. 2616, legislation that would require parental consent before schools change a minor student’s gender markers, pronouns, or accommodations, leading to a profane hallway exchange and his abrupt departure,” The Advocate reported. Attendees challenged the first-term Democrat’s support for the measure, sharing personal accounts of being outed to unsupportive parents, while Vindman defended the vote as rooted in parental rights before later issuing an apology for failing to listen.
The clash occurred during a Tuesday meeting with the King George County Democratic Committee in the solidly Republican locality within Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, where Vindman has held no prior public town hall and where local LGBTQ+ students recently sued over the denial of a gay-straight alliance at the middle school.
