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.

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."

RICHMOND Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles customer service centers will be open Sunday and Labor Day to help process the backlog in license applications resulting from a widespread computer breakdown over the past week, Gov. Bob McDonnell announced. Hours will also be extended the weekend of Sept. 11 and 12 .

RICHMOND A federal judge has declared the Virginia prison system's policy on inmates' access to literature unconstitutional.

RICHMOND Virginia is hoping a new website will help lure fall travelers to the commonwealth.

The Virginia Tourism Corp. says the site focuses on two-person romantic trips to wineries, historic inns and picturesque small towns.

RICHMOND State computer problems that have prevented the Department of Motor Vehicles from processing or renewing driver's licenses and ID cards in person in the past several days should be resolved by today, the agency said Wednesday. Meanwhile, Gov. Bob McDonnell has directed the DMV to extend hours at its service centers because the outage affected 35,000 to 45,000 customers.

About 72 soldiers from the Virginia and Maryland National Guard assigned to the Fort Belvoir-based 29th Infantry Division have been ordered to enter federal active service Nov. 1. The soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan for about a year, after spending several weeks at Camp Atterbury, Ind., conducting pre-mobilization training, according to a news release from the Virginia National Guard.

The U.S. Postal Service will be delivering Social Security checks early because of Hurricane Earl. The early delivery began Wednesday and will continue through today, according to the postal service.

By Bob Lewis  BRISTOL Gov. Bob McDonnell plans to declare an emergency in Virginia today, giving the National Guard and state police time to muster should Hurricane Earl set its sights on the mid-Atlantic.

By Michael Felberbaum

RICHMOND

A massive failure of the state's problem-plagued centralized computers continued to hit several state agencies Tuesday, making it difficult for Virginians to get a driver's license or file tax returns and make payments.