Police in Elizabeth City, North Carolina are investigating a triple shooting Wednesday that injured three teenagers.

According to police, officers were called just after 3:45 p.m. to the 300 block of Speed Street for reports of shots fired. When emergency services arrived, they found three teenagers — two 16-year-olds and one 17-year-old — with gunshot wounds. One of the 16-year-olds was transported to Norfolk General Hospital with serious injuries while the other two teenagers are being treated at Sentara Albemarle Medical Center for injuries that are not life-threatening.

At this time, police have not released any information about what may have led to the shooting, and anyone with information is encouraged to call the Elizabeth City Police Department at (252) 335-4321 or the Crime Line at (252) 335-5555.

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME and GERALD IMRAY (Associated Press)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — At least 16 people, including three children, have died in a toxic gas leak in South Africa, police said Wednesday.

Emergency services said that as many as 24 people were dead.

It wasn’t immediately clear why there was a discrepancy in the death toll.

Search and rescue teams were still working through the area trying to ascertain the extent of the casualties.

The incident happened in an informal settlement in the city of Boksburg on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg, the South African Police Services said.

Police said the three children killed were aged 1, 6 and 15. Two people were taken to the hospital for treatment, police said.

Boksburg is the city where 41 people died after a truck carrying gas got stuck under a bridge and exploded on Christmas Eve.

Emergency services spokesman William Ntladi said that Wednesday’s deaths were caused by a leak from a gas cylinder being kept in a shack in the Angelo informal settlement. He said the leak had stopped and teams were searching a 100-meter (100-yard) radius around the cyclinder to check for more casualties.

The bodies were still lying on the ground “in and around the area,” Ntladi said, and forensic investigators and pathologists were on their way to the scene.

“We can’t move anybody,” Ntladi said. “The bodies are still where they are on the ground.”

Ntladi said the initial information authorities had indicated the cylinder was being used by illegal miners to process gold inside a shack.

Illegal mining is rife in the gold-rich areas around Johannesburg, where miners go into closed off and disused mines to search for any deposits left over.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

VIRGINIA BEACH — The owner of a Virginia Beach bar that’s been the scene of two shootings over the past year and a half was granted bond Wednesday after spending five days in jail on charges accusing her of illegally selling alcohol and running a disorderly business.

Shani Yourman Davis, 40, owner of West Beach Tavern on Cleveland Street, turned herself in Friday after learning police had issued warrants for her arrest, according to her attorney, Mike Joynes.

Although all five charges Yourman Davis faces are misdemeanors, a magistrate ordered her held without bond. The city’s courts were closed for four days for the July Fourth holiday weekend, so she wasn’t able to get a hearing until Wednesday.

The bar’s license was revoked June 1, according to a Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control spokesperson. Three weeks before that, two people were injured in a May 7 shooting outside the bar.

Joynes said Virginia ABC began investigating the tavern shortly after that. The agency came up with a list of conditions that Yourman Davis was required to implement, including installing a walk-through metal detector at the entrance, closing two hours earlier and adding more security cameras in the parking lot.

“We believe we’d met all their conditions but (Virginia) ABC and the Virginia Beach police say we didn’t,” Joynes said.

West Beach Tavern was also the scene of a shootout in March 2022 that involved bar patrons and police. It started when a patron left the business, got an assault rifle from his car and began firing at people gathered outside. Another man then grabbed his gun and shot back at the first. Two responding police officers then fired at him. Four people were injured. The patron with the assault rifle was sentenced in April to four years in prison.

A Virginia Beach police spokesperson said Wednesday he was unable to comment on whether the bar owner’s arrest was related to either shooting. But he said police are still investigating the May shooting and looking for two men believed to be connected to the incident.

Yourman Davis, originally from Israel, has a clean record, owns the Virginia Beach tavern and a restaurant in Chesapeake, and is the mother of three minor children, Joynes told District Judge Vivian Henderson.

Joynes argued bond should always be granted in cases where the defendant is not believed to be a danger to themselves or others, and doesn’t pose a flight risk. There was no evidence that she posed any risks while out on bond, he said. Henderson agreed and set a $7,500 secured bond. She also ordered that Yourman Davis surrender her passport.

West Beach Tavern first received a license to sell alcohol in February 2016, according to an ABC spokesperson.

Jane Harper, [email protected]

By MALAK HARB (Associated Press)

JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian residents of the Jenin refugee camp encountered scenes of widespread destruction Wednesday as they emerged from their homes and returned from nearby shelters following the most intense Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades.

The two-day offensive, meant to crack down on Palestinian militants after a series of recent attacks, destroyed the camp’s narrow roads and alleyways, sent thousands of people fleeing their homes and killed 12 Palestinians. One Israeli soldier also was killed.

While Israel claimed the operation had inflicted a tough blow on the militants, it remained unclear whether there would be any lasting effect on reducing more than a year of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The offensive also further weakened the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s erstwhile partner in battling militants, which already had little control in the camp to begin with.

Israel launched the invasion in the camp, long known as a bastion of Palestinian militants, on Monday, saying its goal was to destroy and confiscate weapons. It carried out airstrikes and sent in hundreds of troops in an operation that was reminiscent of the bloody period two decades ago known as the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel’s open-ended occupation.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, condemned the raid, calling the Israeli operation in Jenin “horrific.” He said there were reports that 80% of dwellings in the refugee camp were either destroyed or damaged.

“They wanted to destroy the camp completely and they failed to do so,” he told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. “It’s state terrorism in action.”

At the request of the United Arab Emirates, the U.N. Security Council has scheduled closed consultations on the Jenin violence for Friday.

Mansour said the Palestinians want the council to take action to protect their people, disarm Israeli settlers and authorize a temporary international presence.

Faraj al-Jundi, an ambulance worker, said he and his family fled their home and stayed with a relative after it was hit in an airstrike on Tuesday.

“They targeted the house, the windows, the doors,” he said as he returned home on Wednesday. “We have a destroyed house. We have broken windows. It’s all gone,” he said. “This aggression is really awful.”

Palestinians slowly filled the streets of the camp, a densely populated area of some 24,000 people that was turned into a ghost town during the offensive. Roads were destroyed, with piles of broken asphalt, stones and rocks lying on the sides. Cars were smashed and scorched, and shops were closed as people gathered in the streets and offered food to one another. Workers fixed broken power lines, slowly restoring electricity for residents, while running water remained disrupted.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel had wrapped up a “comprehensive action against the terrorist enclave” and that similar missions would take place in the future.

“Jenin was to be a safe haven. It no longer is a safe haven,” he said. “This is just the first step. It’s by no means the last action that we will take.”

Some of the scenes from Jenin, including massive army bulldozers tearing through camp alleys, were eerily similar to those from a major Israeli incursion in 2002, which lasted for eight days and became known as the battle of Jenin.

Both operations, two decades apart, were meant to crush militant groups in the camp and deter and prevent attacks on Israelis emanating from the camp. In each case, the army claimed success, only to be dragged into new cycles of military raids and Palestinian attacks.

This week’s raid had wide support across Israel’s political spectrum, but some critics argued the impact would be short-lived, with slain gunmen quickly replaced by others.

“As usual, these things are best taken in proportion. To the security establishment, this is a successful operation thus far, but it holds no real chance of effecting a fundamental change in the state of affairs in the West Bank,” wrote Amos Harel, military affairs commentator for the Haaretz daily.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose autonomy government administers parts of the West Bank, has rejected violence against Israelis, but has effectively lost control over several strongholds of gunmen, including Jenin.

Amateur videos posted on social media showed angry residents of Jenin hurling stones at the Palestinian Authority police headquarters after the Israeli military’s withdrawal.

Mass funerals for the Palestinians killed in the raid drew thousands of mourners. At one stage, participants booed representatives of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, chanted their support for a local militant group and ran them out of the cemetery.

“We are angry at them,” said Mohammed Abu Ali, another camp resident. “They didn’t intervene or stand by our side. Not one person from the Palestinian Authority stood by us.”

Such sentiments could make it difficult for either Israel or the Palestinian Authority to restore control over the camp and other militant strongholds.

Many Palestinians see the actions of the gunmen as an inevitable result of 56 years of occupation and the absence of any political process with Israel. They also point to increased West Bank settlement construction and violence by extremist settlers.

Although the Palestinian Authority has condemned the Israeli crackdown, it is deeply unpopular because of corruption and its security coordination with the Israelis. The two sides, which have almost no political dialogue, maintain security ties in a shared effort to control Islamic militant groups.

Summing up the raid, the military said it had confiscated thousands of weapons, bomb-making materials and caches of money. Weapons were found in militant hideouts and civilian areas alike, in one case beneath a mosque, the military said.

The Israeli military has claimed it killed only militants, but it has not provided details.

The large-scale raid comes amid a more than yearlong spike in violence that has created a challenge for Netanyahu’s far-right government, which is dominated by ultranationalists who have called for tougher action against Palestinian militants only to see the fighting worsen.

Over 140 Palestinians have been killed this year in the West Bank, and Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 25 people, including a shooting last month that killed four settlers.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.

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Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations.

Téa Kvetenadze | New York Daily News

NEW YORK — Central Park’s iconic Loeb Boathouse has partially reopened in time for the summer season, with a new cafe menu, new operator and colorful boats after it closed last year due to financial struggles.

The boat rentals and cafe — located on the building’s north side, with an 80-seat outdoor patio — will operate seven days a week. The new food menu ranges from $4 pastries to $25 lobster rolls, and all orders are packaged to go.

The famous main dining room overlooking the lake will not be open until late summer or early fall, new operator Legends said in a press release, as renovations continue.

Those hoping to take one of the 100 available boats for a spin on the lake will pay $25 an hour, up from $20 last year. Walk-ins are welcome on a first-come, first-served basis but online bookings will soon also be available through reservation service OpenTable. There is a maximum allowance of four people per boat and children under 12 have to wear life jackets.

The hospitality giant Legends was announced as the new management of the famed eatery in February after it closed its doors on December 31 of last year due to rising costs. It had closed in October 2020 because of the pandemic and briefly reopened in spring of 2021 before shuttering again.

“The Boathouse can come back better than ever, ensuring tourists and New Yorkers alike can enjoy this beautiful space and scenery once again,” Mayor Eric Adams said when announcing the new operator in February.

The original Central Park Boathouse dates to the 1870s and its modern iteration opened in March 1954. It has proved popular with locals and tourists ever since, and has appeared in movies such as “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Manchurian Candidate.”

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©2023 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Katie Walsh | Tribune News Service

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Rewatch all the “Mission: Impossible” movies before the highly-anticipated release of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” on Wednesday, July 12. This is the seventh installment of the series that started back in 1996, with Tom Cruise playing super-spy Ethan Hunt of the top-secret Impossible Mission Force.

“Dead Reckoning Part One” is also the third “Mission: Impossible” film written and directed by his close collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, who also wrote last year’s massive hit “Top Gun: Maverick.” McQuarrie came in around the fourth “M:I” installment, “Ghost Protocol,” for an uncredited rewrite, and saved the series by saving Ethan Hunt. The plan was to hand the franchise over to Jeremy Renner, but McQuarrie corrected that near-mistake, and with “Rogue Nation,” “Fallout” and now “Dead Reckoning,” he and Cruise have created one the greatest action movie franchises of all time.

It’s easy enough to rewatch all the films—they’re all available on Paramount+. And while rewatching all six is an immense pleasure, it’s understandable to not have the time or space to drop everything and rewatch all the movies in a week (but if you can, do).

If you only have time to rewatch (or watch) one film, make it “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” the sixth and most recent installment of the franchise from 2018. Firstly, it might be the greatest action spy thriller ever made, and it features Cruise’s craziest stunts yet (until “Dead Reckoning”). There’s the HALO jump onto the Louvre, an incredible car and motorcycle chase in Paris traffic, a foot race across rooftops (which resulted in Cruise breaking an ankle) and of course his famous helicopter climb—all performed live and in the flesh. These are the kind of action sequences that will make you gasp and scream in your living room, and yell “how did they shoot that?”

“Fallout” also includes most of the same crew that Ethan’s been working with for a while—Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), and disavowed MI-6 agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). It also provides an intro to Vanessa Kirby’s White Widow, a glamorous arms dealer/broker and her thuggish brother Zola (Frederick Schmidt). All of these characters return in “Dead Reckoning Part One,” so prioritize “Fallout” on your rewatch list.

If you can add another, make it “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” (2015), the fifth film in the series, also written and directed by McQuarrie. “Rogue Nation” is our first introduction to Ilsa Faust, who has become an iconic character in the series, serving as the female counterpart to lone wolf Ethan. Both agents are out in the cold at times, Ilsa working for whomever will hire her for her particular set of skills—she’s both a sharpshooter and a martial artist. There’s an interest and affection between her and Ethan, but also an understanding that it’s unlikely to work out, romantically, because of their work. Their dynamic is built upon mutual appreciation and respect, and it’s quite unlike any other quasi-romantic pairing on screen. This film also introduces the villain Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) who figures prominently in “Fallout.”

Time for another? Make it the first “Mission: Impossible,” from 1996 directed by Brian De Palma. De Palma’s style is all Cold War-style spycraft with an erotic, voyeuristic tinge, and the film established some of the iconic set pieces (Ethan suspended into a secure room at CIA headquarters at Langley; a brawl atop a train speeding through the Chunnel), as well as the unique tone of the series. More importantly, one of the main antagonists of this film, Kittredge (Henry Czerny), returns in “Dead Reckoning.”

As for the other three, watch “Mission: Impossible 3,” directed by JJ Abrams, to remind yourself why Ethan Hunt doesn’t date much, and also to take in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s incredible villainous performance. The fourth film, “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” directed by Brad Bird, features a fun bit with Benji and Ethan at the Kremlin, as well as the iconic, vertiginous sequence that had Cruise scaling the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The second, “Mission: Impossible 2” is a fascinating artifact from the year 2000, directed by John Woo, with Limp Bizkit on the soundtrack. It’s a true auteur piece by Woo and Cruise is all in: there’s lots of slow-motion, abstract action sequences, and doves flying everywhere. Cruise performs a beachside motorcycle duel with villain Dougray Scott.

Stream all six movies on Paramount+ and secure your tickets for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” which is absolutely the can’t-miss movie spectacle of the summer.

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(Katie Walsh is the Tribune News Service film critic and co-host of the “Miami Nice” podcast.)

©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

By SAMYA KULLAB (Associated Press)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine and Russia accused each other Wednesday of planning to attack one of the world’s largest nuclear power plants, but neither side provided evidence to support their claims of an imminent threat to the facility in southeastern Ukraine that is occupied by Russian troops.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been a focus of fear since Moscow’s forces took control of it early in the war. Ever since then, Moscow and Kyiv have traded blame for shelling the facility and accused each other of nuclear terrorism.

Regular power outages resulting from shelling made it impossible to operate the plant safely, and its six reactors have been shut down to minimize the threat of a disaster.

Over the last year, the U.N.’s atomic watchdog repeatedly expressed alarm over the possibility of a radiation catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl after a reactor exploded in 1986.

Ukraine has alleged more recently that Moscow might try to cause a deliberate leak in an attempt to derail Kyiv’s ongoing counteroffensive in the surrounding Zaporizhzhia region. Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of blowing up a dam in southern Ukraine last month with a similar aim, while Moscow blamed Ukraine for its destruction.

Citing the latest intelligence reports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged Tuesday night that Russian troops had placed “objects resembling explosives” on top of several of the plant’s power units to “simulate” an attack from outside.

“Their detonation should not damage power units but may create a picture of shelling from Ukraine,” according to a statement from the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces.

The Associated Press reviewed high-resolution satellite imagery of the plant taken Monday and Wednesday. The photos showed no visible changes to the roofs of the six concrete containment domes covering the reactors at the plant, or nearby buildings.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has officials stationed at the Russian-held plant, which is still run by a Ukrainian staff that oversees crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

The facility’s location in an area of intense fighting has put it at the mercy of stray shells or rockets, and the Russia-ordered evacuation of hundreds of local people in May deepened the anxiety. The IAEA has tried in vain to forge a deal on a security zone around the plant.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said his agency’s most recent inspection of the plant found no activity related to explosives, “but we remain extremely alert.”

“As you know, there is a lot of combat. I have been there a few weeks ago, and there is contact there very close to the plant, so we cannot relax,” Grossi said during a visit to Japan.

Agency experts have requested additional access to the rooftops of two reactor units, as well as turbine halls and some parts of the cooling system at the plant to confirm the absence of explosives.

“Our experts must be able to verify the facts on the ground. Their independent and objective reporting would help clarify the current situation at the site, which is crucial at a time like this, with unconfirmed allegations and counter allegations,” Grossi said in a statement.

In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov raised the specter of a potentially “catastrophic” provocation by the Ukrainian army at the nuclear plant, which is Europe’s largest.

“The situation is quite tense. There is a great threat of sabotage by the Kyiv regime, which can be catastrophic in its consequences,” Peskov said in response to a reporter’s question about the plant. He also claimed that the Kremlin was pursuing “all measures” to counter the alleged Ukrainian threat.

Renat Karchaa, an adviser to Russian state nuclear company Rosenergoatom that controls the plant, said there was “no basis” for Zelenskyy’s claims of a plot to simulate an explosion. “Why would we need explosives there? This is nonsense” aimed at “maintaining tension,” Karchaa said Wednesday, according to the Interfax news agency.

Late Tuesday, Karchaa alleged in televised remarks that Ukraine’s military was planning to strike the plant overnight with ammunition laced with nuclear waste, but no such attack came.

Grossi said he was aware of both Kyiv’s and Moscow’s claims and reiterated that “nuclear power plants should never, under any circumstances, be attacked.”

“A nuclear power plant should not be used as a military base,” he said.

Last week, Ukrainian emergency workers held a drill to prepare for a potential release of radiation from the plant. In case of a nuclear disaster at the plant, approximately 300,000 people would be evacuated from the areas closest to the facility, according to the country’s emergency services.

Ukrainian officials have said the shut-down reactors are protected by thick concrete containment domes, and experts have said that the plant’s design allows it to withstand barrages.

A Russian attack on the plant would “probably not lead to the widespread dispersal of significant amounts of radiation” due to precautionary steps taken by the IAEA, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank.

“A blast at Zaporizhzhia would spread radiation and sow panic, but the actual off-site radiation risk would be relatively low,’ the think tank said in a recent assessment, adding that wind might blow some radiation toward Russia.

The IISS charged that the most likely scenarios are a Russian-engineered explosion that exposes one of the reactor cores and starts a fire that burns spent fuel, or a blast involving the dry spent fuel on site that would carry the radiation far afield via wind. Neither of those scenarios would bring a disaster on the scale of Chernobyl or Fukushima, Japan’s tsunami-wrecked nuclear plant, it said.

Mark Wenman, a nuclear expert with London’s Imperial College, emphasized that the reactor containment buildings are robust, made from heavily reinforced concrete that is 1.2 meters (4 feet) thick and able to withstand earthquakes and aircraft impacts.

Because the plant’s reactors have been shut down for months, they are not generating much heat anymore, and the spent fuel held in cooling ponds is protected by the concrete containment structure, Wenman said.

Any cold fuel, which is stored in concrete and steel containers outside, is too cold to heat itself and cause a radioactive release, he added.

“It would take a very concerted effort to damage the containment building and cause any form of radioactive release from within,” Wenman said in a commentary. “Even then, the most notable isotope of concern to humans, iodine-131, has all gone due to the time elapsed since the reactors were operational. Overall the risks are still very small.”

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Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker in Washington, Mari Yamaguchi in Okuma, Japan, and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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Virginia Beach graphic designer Nathan Fyffe always had an interest in the 1920s.

But after doing some research, he realized there weren’t many games from that era on the market. So, he decided to create one of his own.

The Ohio native moved to Hampton Roads six years ago and works as a senior designer at Studio Center. He started working on his Prohibition-themed card game, Bootleg, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was looking for a creative outlet, wanted something to do in my spare time and thought like, gosh, instead a lot of people paint or draw, but I thought a board game would be like a big project I could take on,” Fyffe said.

The goal of the game is to collect three sets of booze cards, a vehicle card and a drop-off card. Players can also steal cards from each other, use gangster cards and participate in underground casino side games with dice.

Bootleg is designed for two to five players and takes about 30 minutes to an hour to complete.

After being approached by his publisher, Oak Lounge Games, Fyffe’s card game officially launched in 2022.

“What was nice is I was able to maintain creative control — that was important to me,” he said.

During the development process, Fyffe said he frequently had his family act as “guinea pigs” and test Bootleg during family game nights. At the same time, Fyffe was also working to make the game’s art true to the era.

“It’s very gritty and it very much represents that era better than like, a cartoony version or something like that,” he said.

Bootleg is Fyffe’s first game to publish. Since its launch, the card game has been sold in 22 states and five countries, and just recently started being carried in The Mob Museum gift shop in Las Vegas.

Bootleg can also be found at Oakloungegames.com or Tilth & Oak in Town Center of Virginia Beach. Looking forward, Fyffe said he would like to continue to create games and eventually have Bootleg sold at a big-box company.

“Games have kind of been on the side (for me), but it’s so much fun. That would be like my dream — is to just do that full-time,” he said.

Gabby Jimenez, [email protected]

JAMES CITY — Housed in the same building as social services, some may not be familiar with the medical office there, but for the patients it serves, Olde Towne Medical & Dental Center offers invaluable services that can be difficult to find elsewhere.

On Thursday, the public-private nonprofit will celebrate 30 years of serving the Williamsburg, James City County and York County areas.

The center’s mission is simple: “to provide quality, cost-effective, coordinated and preventative primary health care to clients, regardless of ability to pay.”

Take Urbanna resident Aremi Reyes, who recently traveled an hour from the Middle Peninsula just to receive care at Olde Towne.

Reyes heard about the center from friends and goes for services such as checkups and mammograms. She doesn’t speak English, but the center has volunteer translators and some of the staff are bilingual.

Patients also come from other areas in Virginia, including New Kent County and Newport News.

Aaron Thompson, who has been executive director of the center since 2020, explained what it’s like to walk through the center’s lobby and see patients who have been denied service at other places.

The elation of people who have suffered and finally received care, Thompson said, makes his nearly hourlong commute to work all worth it.

Since its opening in 1993, Olde Towne has grown from a few rooms to half of the building that also houses the James City County Department of Social Services.

The center has around 44 full-time and part-time employees, as well as 35-40 volunteers. This includes five nurse practitioners, an optometrist and a dental director.

Some of the volunteers are specialists, such as cardiologists, neurologists and physiatrists, who work at other practices but volunteer their time at Olde Towne.

Services offered include in-house labs, immunization clinic and prenatal care. The center will have seen around 4,000 individual patients this year.

For funding, the center holds fundraisers, has private donors and receives jurisdictional grants. It works closely with James City County. For instance, Olde Towne is responsible for the pre-employment screening of James City County employees.

The center also receives income from serving its patients.

“We have the belief that no one is ever turned away, regardless of ability to pay,” Thompson said.

However, Olde Towne is not a free clinic, Thompson pointed out. Rather, it works on a sliding scale based on the patient’s income. It works with uninsured, underinsured, Medicare, Medicaid and many commercial health insurance providers.

For Stephanie Betancourt, of Williamsburg, Olde Towne is like a lifesaver.

Betancourt said she didn’t get approved for Medicaid and was struggling to find a new primary care physician. Many places required a monthlong wait for an appointment, but Betancourt couldn’t risk waiting that long. She had previously visited the emergecy room for abdominal pain and was worried that she might be experiencing complications from an intrauterine device.

She recently was able to schedule an appointment at Olde Towne, and said the staff worked hard to get as much done in one appointment as possible so she wouldn’t have to schedule multiple return appointments.

“It gave me a lot of peace of mind,” said Betancourt, who feared that she might have cervical cancer.

Olde Towne is also the only provider of adult dental Medicaid in the area, so it has a long waiting list of patients. It currently has four operatories in the dental suite. Thompson hopes to hire a part-time dentist, as well as a full-time dental hygienist from Virginia Peninsula Community College.

During the pandemic, the center continued to serve its community, only shutting down for 10 days. In order to care for patients’ safely, the center established a telemedicine program in which it had designated treatment rooms and curbside visits.

“It was phenomenal that they were able to pivot as quickly and seamlessly as they did,” Thompson said.

The pandemic also sparked a deeper focus on integrated care, a combination of primary care and behavioral health.

Olde Towne partners with Bacon Street Youth and Family Counseling and received a grant from Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center to help start their integrated care model.

When it comes to expanding the center, Thompson wants add more providers, nurse practitioners and physician assistants. He also wants Olde Towne to become a federally qualified health care center in the future.

Moving forward, Thompson hopes to make more people within the community aware of the services and resources that Olde Towne can offer. Those who use the center say the services are invaluable.

“We are so grateful for the care at Olde Towne,” the wife of a patient wrote in a “success story” shared on the center’s social media pages. “They treat us like family. The providers there truly have a calling and we are so glad they care for folks like us.”

The center will celebrate its 30th Anniversary Gala on Sept. 30 at the Williamsburg Lodge. The fundraiser helps support the underserved populations of greater Williamsburg that depend on Olde Towne for their health needs. For information on tickets sponsorships, visit www.otmdc.org.