Skip to main content

Judge hits pause button on removal of slave auction block

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — A judge in Virginia has hit the pause button on a city’s plans to remove a 175-year-old slave auction block from a city’s downtown street corner.

The Free Lance-Star reported Monday that Circuit Court Judge Sarah Deneke has agreed to a 15-day stay of her order to remove the block in Fredericksburg.

Her order allows a business owner who is challenging the removal to ask the Virginia Supreme Court to take on the case.

The owner of a commercial building and the owner of a restaurant have claim they’ll lose business from tourist traffic if the auction block is removed.

School bus emergency? Fairfax County students have a plan to handle it

This story is part of WTOP’s 2026 Back to School coverage. The wheels on the bus will soon be going round and round again in Fairfax County, Virginia, and some of its young riders are learning what to do if there’s an emergency on the way to school. The annual Safety Patrol Training Camp, hosted by Fairfax County Public Schools' Office of Transportation Services, combined hands-on exercises with classroom lessons to teach students how to keep calm during emergencies on buses. The training can feel remarkably realistic, with overturned school buses on their side or completely upside down in the middle of the county bus depot. Other buses, right side up, fill with smoke that is water-based but mimics the intensity of a bus overheating.
Read Next Story