Courts and municipal offices Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach City offices and courts will be closed Monday. Financial institutions Most banks and credit unions will be closed Monday. Contact specific institutions. Garbage collection Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk and Virginia Beach No regular trash collection scheduled Monday.

VIRGINIA BEACH The plan to preserve a major undeveloped tract of waterfront property in northern Virginia Beach has hit an obstacle. Wayne McLeskey Jr., who once owned the 122 acres of wetlands, sandy beaches and forest near the Chesapeake Bay, has asked a judge to temporarily halt the sale of the land for environmental preservation.

NORFOLK A 21-year-old pleaded guilty to first-degree murder Thursday in a shooting that left a man dead outside a pizza shop. Terry Ryan Robinson admitted to shooting and killing Drew Lodge last year near a Delvecchio's restaurant in the 7500 block of Virginian Drive. Robinson also pleaded guilty to a felony weapon charge.

A weaker Hurricane Earl was still heading north at 8 p.m. Thursday, 160 miles from Cape Hatteras, but was forecast to turn toward the north-northeast on Friday, the National Weather Service reported.

By Rex Bowman The 2.5 million-member American Legion expressed its displeasure Thursday with the placement of a bust of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, saying the site has the "notorious distinction of probably having the only bust or statue of Stalin in America."

VIRGINIA BEACH A Virginia State Bar subcommittee has publicly reprimanded a Virginia Beach attorney for misconduct, according to a news release sent out Thursday. The subcommittee found that Robert Charles Neeley Jr. violated State Bar rules governing diligence and communication with a client.

Click the photo at left to view a full gallery of Hurricane Earl images from The Virginian-Pilot's award-winning photography staff. You can order copies of these and other Pilot photos and pages through the online service Pictopia. The pictures are available framed or unframed, or printed on gifts. Order photos here. Requests: Ask about any Pilot photo seen online or in print.

By STEVE SZKOTAK

VIRGINIA BEACH A rich tourism weekend hung in the balance Thursday for Virginia Beach, as officials and emergency planners tried to gauge Hurricane Earl's impact on the city's 12,000 hotel rooms and the dozens of fluorescent-colored shops and restaurants lining Atlantic Avenue.

The closing file for Hurricane Earl has moved.

OUTER BANKS, N.C. Close to 100,000 people evacuated the Dare and Currituck Outer Banks on Thursday with only minor incidents, according to estimates from officials.

In Dare County, about 40,000 people departed the barrier islands to escape the effects of Hurricane Earl, expected to pass off the coast of Hatteras at 2 a.m. Friday.