Peter Sblendorio | New York Daily News (TNS)

The Grammy Awards announced another tune-up Tuesday, adding three new categories ahead of next year’s show.

The 2024 ceremony is set to introduce Best African Music Performance, Best Pop Dance Recording and Best Alternative Jazz Album, organizers said.

The Best African Music Performance category will recognize “recordings that utilize unique local expressions from across the African continent,” the announcement reads. Best Pop Dance Recording will honor “tracks and singles that feature up-tempo, danceable music that follows a pop arrangement,” while Best Alternative Jazz Album will celebrate “artistic excellence in Alternative Jazz albums by individuals, duos and groups/ensembles, with or without vocals.”

The new additions follow a 2023 ceremony in which the Grammys added five categories, including Songwriter of the Year.

“These changes reflect our commitment to actively listen and respond to the feedback from our music community, accurately represent a diverse range of relevant musical genres, and stay aligned with the ever-evolving musical landscape,” Henry Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said Tuesday. “By introducing these three new categories, we are able to acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists.”

Tuesday’s announcement also revealed that Songwriter of the Year and Producer of the Year will move to the Grammys’ general field, which is non-genre-specific. Album, Song and Record of the Year are also in the general field, as is Best New Artist.

“We are excited to honor and celebrate the creators and recordings in these categories, while also exposing a wider range of music to fans worldwide,” Mason said.

This year’s Grammys took place in February at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, where Beyonce set a new record with her 32nd career win. Harry Styles won Album of the Year for “Harry’s House,” Lizzo won Record of the Year for “About Damn Time” and Bonnie Raitt won Song of the Year for “Just Like That.”

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

Two people were killed and four others injured, two of them critically, in a Monday morning crash at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The head-on collision happened about 11 a.m. near the Pea Island Visitors Center. A blue Dodge Caravan traveling south on two-lane N.C. 12 moved into the northbound lane and struck a blue Chevrolet Suburban, said N.C. Highway Patrol Sgt. M.T. Bryan. The Caravan’s driver, 26-year-old Elijah Midgette of Rodanthe, died at the scene, as did the Suburban’s driver, 68-year-old Carolyn Elmore of Bracey in Mecklenburg County.

Four passengers in the Suburban were injured. Two of them – an 88-year-old Blackridge woman, and a 76-year-old Bracey woman – were both in critical condition Tuesday at Norfolk General Hospital, Bryan said. Two others, a 75-year-old and a 67-year-old were hospitalized in fair condition. 

No passengers were in the Dodge Caravan.

The crash occurred in a 55 mph speed zone, Bryan said. Police were still trying to determine why Midgette’s Caravan moved into the oncoming lane.

N.C. 12, the only road connecting Hatteras Island to the rest of the Outer Banks and the mainland, was closed in both directions for about three hours after the crash.

Kari Pugh, [email protected]

Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who in prose both dense and brittle took readers from the southern Appalachians to the desert Southwest in such novels as “The Road,” “Blood Meridian” and “All the Pretty Horses,” died Tuesday. He was 89.

McCarthy died of natural causes in Santa Fe, New Mexico, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said.

McCarthy, raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, was compared to William Faulkner for his Old Testament style and rural settings. McCarthy’s themes, like Faulkner’s, often were bleak and violent and dramatized how the past overwhelmed the present. Across stark and forbidding landscapes and rundown border communities, he placed drifters, thieves, prostitutes and old, broken men, all unable to escape fates determined for them well before they were born. As the doomed John Grady Cole of McCarthy’s celebrated “Border” trilogy would learn, dreams of a better life were only dreams, and falling in love an act of folly.

McCarthy’s own story was one of belated, and continuing, achievement and popularity. Little known to the public at age 60, he would become one of the country’s most honored and successful writers despite rarely talking to the press. He broke through commercially in 1992 with “All the Pretty Horses” and over the next 15 years won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer, was a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show and saw his novel “No Country for Old Men” adapted by the Coen brothers into an Oscar-winning movie. Fans of the Coens would discover that the film’s terse, absurdist dialogue, so characteristic of the brothers’ work, was lifted straight from the novel.

“The Road,” his stark tale of a father and son who roam a ravaged landscape, brought him his widest audience and highest acclaim. It won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was selected by Winfrey for her book club. In his Winfrey interview, McCarthy said that while typically he didn’t know what generates the ideas for his books, he could trace “The Road” to a trip he took with his young son to El Paso, Texas, early in the decade. Standing at the window of a hotel in the middle of the night as his son slept nearby, he started to imagine what El Paso might look like 50 or 100 years in the future.

“I just had this image of these fires up on the hill … and I thought a lot about my little boy,” he said.

He told Winfrey he didn’t care how many people read “The Road.”

“You would like for the people that would appreciate the book to read it. But, as far as many, many people reading it, so what?” he said.

McCarthy dedicated the book to his son, John Francis, and said having a child as an older man “forces the world on you, and I think it’s a good thing.” The Pulitzer committee called his book “the profoundly moving story of a journey.”

“It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, ‘each the other’s world entire,’ are sustained by love,” the citation read in part. “Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.”

In 2022, Knopf made the startling announcement that it would release McCarthy’s first work in more than 15 years, a pair of connected novels he had referred to in the past: “The Passenger” and “Stella Maris,” narratives on a pair of mutually obsessed siblings and the legacy of their father, a physicist who had worked on atomic technology. “Stella Maris” was notable, in part, because it centered on a female character, an acknowledged weakness of McCarthy’s.

“I don’t pretend to understand women,” he told Winfrey.

His first novel, “The Orchard Keeper” — written in Chicago while he was working as an auto mechanic — was published by Random House in 1965. His editor was Albert Erskine, Faulkner’s longtime editor.

Other novels include “Outer Dark,” published in 1968; “Child of God” in 1973; and “Suttree” in 1979. The violent “Blood Meridian,” about a group of bounty hunters along the Texas-Mexico border murdering Indians for their scalps, was published in 1985.

His “Border Trilogy” books were set in the Southwest along the border with Mexico: “All the Pretty Horses” (1992) — a National Book Award winner that was turned into a feature film; “The Crossing” (1994), and “Cities of the Plain” (1998).

McCarthy said he was always lucky. He recalled living in a shack in Tennessee and running out of toothpaste, then going out and finding a toothpaste sample in the mailbox.

“That’s the way my life has been. Just when things were really, really bleak, something would happen,” said McCarthy, who won a MacArthur Fellowship — one of the so-called “genius grants” — in 1981.

In 2009, Christie’s auction house sold the Olivetti typewriter he used while writing such novels as “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men” for $254,500. McCarthy, who bought the Olivetti for $50 in 1958 and used it until 2009, donated it so the proceeds could be used to benefit the Santa Fe Institute, a nonprofit interdisciplinary scientific research community. He once said he didn’t know any writers and preferred to hang out with scientists.

The Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos purchased his archives in 2008, including correspondence, notes, drafts, proofs of 11 novels, a draft of an unfinished novel and materials related to a play and four screenplays.

McCarthy attended the University of Tennessee for a year before joining the Air Force in 1953. He returned to the school from 1957 to 1959, but left before graduating. As an adult, he lived around the Great Smoky Mountains before moving West in the late 1970s, eventually settling in Santa Fe.

His Knoxville boyhood home, long abandoned and overgrown, was destroyed by fire in 2009.

This story includes biographical material written by former AP reporter Sue Major Holmes.

A sailor died after being flown off a Norfolk-based destroyer last week while deployed overseas, Navy officials said.

Chief Gunner’s Mate Caprice Pryor was medically evacuated off the USS Ramage on June 8 while underway in the North Sea. The cause of his death is under investigation.

“Our deepest condolences go to Chief Pryor’s family and friends and to the Ramage crew,” said Rear Adm. Erik Eslich, commander of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group. “Chief Pryor made a lasting impact on the Sailors he led aboard Ramage, and his contributions to the U.S. Navy are immeasurable. “

Pryor, an Illinois native, enlisted in the Navy in September 1998. He has served at the Navy Submarine Torpedo Facility in Yorktown and been attached to 7 warships, including: the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Nicholas; guided missile cruisers Cowpens and Antietam; and destroyers William P. Lawrence, Barry and Ramage.

Pryor reported in July 2022 to Ramage, which is homeported in Norfolk.

Ramage is deployed to the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa area of operations as part of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group. The strike group left Naval Station Norfolk in the first week of May.

“We stand ready to support Chief’s family, friends, and the Ramage crew through this tragic time.  Our sincerest thanks go to our Norwegian Allies for their assistance during the MEDEVAC (medical evacuation) and support now to bringing Chief Pryor home,” Eslich said.

Among Pryor’s awards and decorations are a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, an Armed Forces Service Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.

By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER (Associated Press)

MIAMI (AP) — Former President Donald Trump arrived Tuesday afternoon at the federal courthouse in Miami to formally surrender to authorities ahead of his court appearance on charges accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

He was expected to face a magistrate judge, kickstarting a legal process that will unfold at the height of the 2024 presidential campaign and carry profound consequences not only for his political future but more urgently for his own personal liberty.

Four black SUVs entered the garage beneath the Miami courthouse, followed by police officers, ahead of his scheduled 3 p.m. appearance. A fifth black SUV remained outside. Security remained tight outside the building but there were no signs of significant disruptions.

Trump approached his arraignment with characteristic bravado, insisting as he has through years of legal woes that he has done nothing wrong and was being persecuted for political purposes. But the gravity of the moment was unmistakable as he answers to 37 felony counts that accuse him of willfully retaining classified records that prosecutors say could have jeopardized national security if exposed, then trying to hide them from investigators who demanded them back.

The case is laden with political implications for the 76-year-old Trump, who currently holds the dominant spot in the early days of the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it also poses profound legal impact given the prospect of a years-long prison sentence. Even for a defendant whose post-presidential life has been dominated by investigations, the documents probe has stood out for both the apparent volume of evidence amassed by prosecutors and the severity of the allegations.

It’s also a watershed moment for a Justice Department that until last week had never before brought charges against a former president. Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of President Joe Biden, sought to insulate the department from political attacks by handing ownership of the case last year to a special counsel, Jack Smith, who on Friday declared, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.”

The arraignment, though largely procedural in nature, is the latest in an unprecedented public reckoning this year for Trump, who faces charges in New York arising from hush money payments during his 2016 presidential campaign as well as ongoing investigations in Washington and Atlanta into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 race. He’s sought to project confidence in the face of unmistakable legal peril, attacking Smith as “a Trump hater,” pledging to stay in the race and scheduling a speech and fundraiser for Tuesday night at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.

“They’re using this because they can’t win the election fairly and squarely,” Trump said Monday in an interview with Americano Media.

The court appearance is also unfolding against the backdrop of potential protests. Some high-profile backers have used barbed rhetoric to voice support. Trump himself has encouraged supporters to join a planned protest Tuesday at the Miami courthouse, where he is expected to surrender to authorities.

Trump is not expected to be subjected to a mugshot, according to a person familiar with the situation. Generally, Justice Department agencies, like the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service, take a booking photo as part of the arrest process and the photo is uploaded into a shared law enforcement database.

Some Trump supporters were also planning to load buses to head to Miami from other parts of Florida, raising concerns for law enforcement officials who are preparing for possible unrest around the courthouse. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the city would be ready, and police chief Manuel A. Morales said downtown could see anywhere from a few thousand up to 50,000 protesters.

Among those who arrived early Tuesday were the father-son duo of Florencio and Kevin Rodriguez, who came to the U.S. fifteen years ago as asylum seekers fleeing dictatorship in Cuba.

Wearing a shirt that reads “Jesus is my savior, Trump my president,” the younger Rodriguez, Kevin, said it was possible Trump was guilty of illegally retaining classified documents. But he questioned the fairness of the proceedings in light of other classified information probes concerning Democrats, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden.

Clinton was not charged for sending classified information on a private email server after FBI investigators concluded that she had not intended to break the law. The Biden investigation remains open, but no evidence has emerged to suggest he acted willfully — a core claim in the Trump indictment.

“We never abandon our amigos — those who love this country and our liberty,” Rodriguez added, highlighting Trump’s staunch opposition to Cuba’s communist government.

The crowd also included far-right internet personality Anthime Gionet, who served a two-month prison sentence for streaming live video while he stormed the U.S. Capitol. Gionet, better known as “Baked Alaska,” was livestreaming video of his interactions with other people as they waited for Trump to arrive.

Unlike in the New York case, where photographers produced images of a somber-faced Trump at the courtroom defense table, the public’s view will limited. Cameras are generally not permitted in federal courts, and a judge Monday night barred reporters from having phones inside the building.

A federal grand jury in Washington had heard testimony for months in the documents case, but the Justice Department filed it in Florida, where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is located and where many of the alleged acts of obstruction occurred. Though Trump is set to appear Tuesday before a federal magistrate, the case has been assigned to a District Court judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, who ruled in his favor last year in a dispute over whether an outside special master could be appointed to review the seized classified documents. A federal appeals panel ultimately overturned her ruling.

It’s unclear what defenses Trump is likely to cite as the case moves forward. Two of his lead lawyers announced their resignation on the morning after his indictment, and the notes and recollections of another attorney, M. Evan Corcoran, are cited repeatedly throughout the 49-page charging document, suggesting prosecutors envision him as a potential key witness.

Trump has said he’s looking to add to his legal team though no announcements were made Monday. He was expected to be represented at his arraignment by Todd Blanche, an attorney also defending him in the New York case, and Florida lawyer Chris Kise, who joined Trump’s stable of attorneys last year. Under the rules of the district, defendants are required to have a local lawyer for an arraignment to proceed.

The Justice Department unsealed Friday an indictment charging Trump with 37 felony counts, 31 relating to the willful retention of national defense information. Other charges include conspiracy to commit obstruction and false statements.

The indictment alleges Trump intentionally retained hundreds of classified documents that he took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the presidency in January 2021. The material he stored, including in a bathroom, ballroom, bedroom and shower, included material on nuclear programs, defense and weapons capabilities of the U.S. and foreign governments and a Pentagon “attack plan,” the indictment says. The information, if exposed, could have put at risk members of the military, confidential human sources and intelligence collection methods, prosecutors said.

Beyond that, prosecutors say, he sought to obstruct government efforts to recover the documents, including by directing personal aide Walt Nauta — who was charged alongside Trump — to move boxes to conceal them and also suggesting to his own lawyer that he hide or destroy documents sought by a Justice Department subpoena.

___

Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami and Terry Spencer in Doral, Florida, contributed to this report.

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

___

More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump

JAMES CITY — This summer, the James City County Library is inviting teens to take a break from the heat with a visit to its new teen room.

The teen room features everything from a virtual whiteboard, Nintendo Switches and an arcade game table to a magnetic poetry wall, board games and crafts and a study area. Additionally, the Young Adult book collection will be located nearby for easier access.

This new feature mirrors the Kiwanis Kids Idea Studio, located in the same building, which was designed for younger children, according to Williamsburg Regional Library Director Betsy Fowler.

“We just recently opened the space and teens are already using it to connect, play, study, and have a space they can call their own in the library,” she said. “The Kiwanis Kids Idea Studio … has been a great success and we wanted to offer teens the same opportunity.”

The teen room is available to teenagers 13-years-and-older and is open during library hours. A number of special teen-only programs will take place this summer, including Teens Night Out on Fridays after regular library hours, anime film showings, a video game tournament and more. The first Teens Night Out event is slated for June 16 at 6 p.m.

The ultimate goal is “to create engaging spaces in the library for readers of all ages, so everyone always feels as though they have a special place to call their own,” Fowler said. “This is how our youngest library visitors transition into being lifelong readers and library users.”

For more information on the library’s offerings for teenage guests, visit wrl.org/teens. The James City County Library is located at 7770 Croaker Rd.

Sian Wilkerson, 757-342-6616, [email protected]

By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER (Associated Press)

MIAMI (AP) — Donald Trump is expected to become Tuesday the first former president to face a judge on federal charges as the city of Miami prepared for possible protests by crowds that officials said could number in the thousands.

Security was tight outside the federal courthouse ahead of Trump’s history-making court appearance but there were no major disruptions as the morning unfolded.

Trump approached his arraignment with characteristic bravado, insisting as he has through years of legal woes that he has done nothing wrong and was being persecuted for political purposes. But the gravity of the moment was unmistakable as he answers to 37 felony counts that accuse him of willfully retaining classified records that prosecutors say could have jeopardized national security if exposed, then trying to hide them from investigators who demanded them back.

The case is laden with political implications for Trump, who currently holds the dominant spot in the early days of the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it also poses profound legal consequences given the prospect of a years-long prison sentence. Even for a defendant whose post-presidential life has been dominated by investigations, the documents probe has stood out for both the apparent volume of evidence amassed by prosecutors and the severity of the allegations.

It’s also a watershed moment for a Justice Department that until last week had never before brought charges against a former president. Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of President Joe Biden, sought to insulate the department from political attacks by handing ownership of the case last year to a special counsel, Jack Smith, who on Friday declared, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.”

The arraignment, though largely procedural in nature, is the latest in an unprecedented public reckoning this year for Trump, who faces charges in New York arising from hush money payments during his 2016 presidential campaign as well as ongoing investigations in Washington and Atlanta into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 race. He’s sought to project confidence in the face of unmistakable legal peril, attacking Smith as “a Trump hater,” pledging to stay in the race and scheduling a speech and fundraiser for Tuesday night at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.

“They’re using this because they can’t win the election fairly and squarely,” Trump said Monday in an interview with Americano Media.

The court appearance is also unfolding against the backdrop of potential protests. Some high-profile backers have used barbed rhetoric to voice support. Trump himself has encouraged supporters to join a planned protest Tuesday at the Miami courthouse, where he is expected to surrender to authorities.

Trump is not expected to be subjected to a mugshot, according to a person familiar with the situation. Generally, Justice Department agencies, like the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service, take a booking photo as part of the arrest process and the photo is uploaded into a shared law enforcement database.

Some Trump supporters were also planning to load buses to head to Miami from other parts of Florida, raising concerns for law enforcement officials who are preparing for possible unrest around the courthouse. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the city would be ready, and police chief Manuel A. Morales said downtown could see anywhere from a few thousand up to 50,000 protesters.

Among those who arrived early Tuesday were the father-son duo of Florencio and Kevin Rodriguez, who came to the U.S. fifteen years ago as asylum seekers fleeing dictatorship in Cuba.

Wearing a shirt that reads “Jesus is my savior, Trump my president,” the younger Rodriguez, Kevin, said it was possible Trump was guilty of illegally retaining classified documents. But he questioned the fairness of the proceedings in light of other classified information probes concerning Democrats, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden.

Clinton was not charged for sending classified information on a private email server after FBI investigators concluded that she had not intended to break the law. The Biden investigation remains open, but no evidence has emerged to suggest he acted willfully — a core claim in the Trump indictment.

“We never abandon our amigos — those who love this country and our liberty,” Rodriguez added, highlighting Trump’s staunch opposition to Cuba’s communist government.

Unlike in the New York case, where photographers produced images of a somber-faced Trump at the courtroom defense table, the public’s view will limited. Cameras are generally not permitted in federal courts, and a judge Monday night barred reporters from having phones inside the building.

A federal grand jury in Washington had heard testimony for months in the documents case, but the Justice Department filed it in Florida, where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is located and where many of the alleged acts of obstruction occurred. Though Trump is set to appear Tuesday before a federal magistrate, the case has been assigned to a District Court judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, who ruled in his favor last year in a dispute over whether an outside special master could be appointed to review the seized classified documents. A federal appeals panel ultimately overturned her ruling.

It’s unclear what defenses Trump is likely to cite as the case moves forward. Two of his lead lawyers announced their resignation on the morning after his indictment, and the notes and recollections of another attorney, M. Evan Corcoran, are cited repeatedly throughout the 49-page charging document, suggesting prosecutors envision him as a potential key witness.

Trump has said he’s looking to add to his legal team though no announcements were made Monday. He was expected to be represented at his arraignment by Todd Blanche, an attorney also defending him in the New York case, and Florida lawyer Chris Kise, who joined Trump’s stable of attorneys last year. Under the rules of the district, defendants are required to have a local lawyer for an arraignment to proceed.

The Justice Department unsealed Friday an indictment charging Trump with 37 felony counts, 31 relating to the willful retention of national defense information. Other charges include conspiracy to commit obstruction and false statements.

The indictment alleges Trump intentionally retained hundreds of classified documents that he took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the presidency in January 2021. The material he stored, including in a bathroom, ballroom, bedroom and shower, included material on nuclear programs, defense and weapons capabilities of the U.S. and foreign governments and a Pentagon “attack plan,” the indictment says. The information, if exposed, could have put at risk members of the military, confidential human sources and intelligence collection methods, prosecutors said.

Beyond that, prosecutors say, he sought to obstruct government efforts to recover the documents, including by directing personal aide Walt Nauta — who was charged alongside Trump — to move boxes to conceal them and also suggesting to his own lawyer that he hide or destroy documents sought by a Justice Department subpoena.

___

Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami and Terry Spencer in Doral, Florida, contributed to this report.

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

___

More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump

As organizations and groups throughout Hampton Roads prepare to honor Juneteenth, Colonial Williamsburg is marking the day with a new take on a tradition.

The inaugural Juneteenth Sunrise Service will be held Sunday at 6 a.m. by the oak tree on Market Square. Actress Tina Lifford will give the special keynote address.

According to a news release, the service is inspired by “Watch Night”, also known as “Freedom’s Eve”, which is a tradition in Black churches, “born out of the enslaved community’s ‘waiting for the hour’” on the night of Dec. 31, 1862, before the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863. The first documented Sunrise Service was conducted for Easter in 1732 by a Moravian community in Germany. Several denominations in the American colonies took up the tradition after it was apparently spread by Moravians who had come to the colonies.

Colonial Williamsburg’s Janice Canaday and her fellow officers in the foundation’s Black employee resource group played an instrumental role in putting together the service to commemorate Juneteenth, which marks the emancipation of enslaved people in the U.S.

This day is commemorated annually on June 19, the anniversary of Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger’s order proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas. In 2021, it was established as a federal holiday when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.

According to Canaday, discussions and planning for the service began earlier this year.

“When we were asked about this, to come up for something for Colonial Williamsburg, I thought about something that would maybe go back and fetch a tradition,” she said. “Not something that has been totally gone away from, but it’s not as talked about (now) as it used to be when I was coming up as a young girl.”

As a kid, Canaday said that she attended sunrise services, usually on Easter Sundays, with her mom before the larger church service. She was also baptized during a sunrise service.

For Lifford, participating in the service was “easy to say yes to.”

“I have never been to Williamsburg and I have wanted to,” she said. “Now I get to … experience the historical, stepping back into time, and at the same time, (bring) a message that I think is affirmative to the whole historical journey and the power in the few.”

Lifford, who has dozens of acting credits in movies and television, will focus on that theme, and how people now can benefit from studying how “often a few people have made a huge difference” and understanding what it takes to make change.

“In any circumstance, there is the opportunity for a self-affirming perspective,” she said. “How do we take historical moments and find that self-affirming perspective in the midst of some really difficult and even heinous facts? This is an opportunity for me to speak to the empowering perspective that comes with the history of slavery and the human condition.”

In her household growing up, Lifford said that her family did not celebrate or discuss Juneteenth. It was only when she was graduating from high school and first attending college that the Black movement became “more robust,” she said, and she learned about Juneteenth.

Canaday’s hope is that the service will represent “a new beginning.”

“That’s what we really want here at Colonial Williamsburg,” she said. “To let folks know that hopefully it’s a new dawn, a new day, a new sunrise and a new experience here as to how we present the story of those people who were here — all of them — and how we address, embrace and engage with the community.”

More Juneteenth events

Juneteenth will be commemorated around the Williamsburg area with several events.

On Wednesday, Jamestown Settlement will host “a thought-provoking evening of history and performance exploring the precarious nature of freedom from 17th-century Jamestown to Juneteenth” with their Talking History Program: Prelude to Juneteenth event.

The program will feature a talk by Norfolk State University professor Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, musical interludes by Sylvia Tabb & the Rejoicing Singers and dramatic readings from primary sources. The event begins at 7 p.m.

William & Mary will commemorate Juneteenth on Friday with an event on campus at Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved. The event, which is scheduled for 3-6 p.m., features featuring poetry, music, a performance by the Elegba Folklore Society and more. Goods and food from various local vendors will be available for purchase.

Also on Friday, the Williamsburg Regional Library Gallery at the Stryker Center is hosting an opening reception for its 2nd Annual Juneteenth Commemorative Art Exhibition from 6-8 p.m. The exhibition features local and regional Black artists curated by Willis Potter, and will be on view through July 28.

On Saturday morning, a motor parade will kick off 9 a.m. at Highland Park, followed by the NAACP Youth Works and Williamsburg Police Department car show in Bicentennial Park from 10 a.m.-noon. Additionally, there will be a community fair with games and more.

In York County, a Juneteenth Celebration including family activities, live music, a showing of “The Princess & the Frog” and concessions will be held Saturday afternoon from 3-8 p.m. at the McReynolds Athletic Complex.

On Monday, Colonial Williamsburg will offer free admission in honor of Juneteenth.

Sian Wilkerson, 757-342-6616, [email protected]

GLOUCESTER — More than 1,000 people attended the 21st annual Marine Science Day on Saturday at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, which offered a glimpse to those both young and old about the wonders of coastal ocean life and beyond.

“We’ve been trying to come for years,” said parent Laura Hall. “My kids love going in the water and finding all kinds of little creatures. They love fishing, so we thought we’d bring them down here.”

The campus, in Gloucester Point, opened its doors for visitors to explore and learn about VIMS’ state-of-the-art equipment, laboratories and surrounding wetlands. Talks were given on the biology of aquatic creatures and migration patterns, children played educational games and made arts and crafts at the pavilion, and VIMS staff briefed onlookers about various exhibits.

In the Acuff Center for Aquaculture, Darian Kelley, a laboratory specialist with the VIMS Eastern Shore Laboratory, talked about bay scallops, which have been raised at the Castagna Shellfish Research Hatchery since 2009.

“We grow them in this system for 30-50 days until they’re pinkie-nail size,” Kelley said, “and then we will take them down to the restored grass beds, and we will deploy a portion of them into cages, so that they can spawn and contribute to a natural population.”

Kelley’s team releases some scallops into the wild and also gives some to local shellfish growers in the hope that they will someday become a viable commercial product.

Next to a table with microscopes where attendees could view seagrass epifauna, Marine Scientist Julia Mackin-McLaughlin told visitors about her research at the Coastal and Estuarine Ecology Lab. She explained how her team researches the expansion or decline of seagrass in the Chesapeake Bay.

“In recent years, we’ve noticed that Ruppia, which is also known as widgeongrass, has expanded while eelgrass has declined,” Mackin-McLaughlin said. “So we’re curious to see how that’s going to affect the organisms that rely on both these species.”

VIMS Dean and Director Derek Aday said Marine Science Day is an opportunity for the institute to show the breadth of its work across three campuses and 500 employees.

Aday said he hopes that Science Day and VIMS outreach work in general can start to carry the public conversation around marine science toward the topic of coastal resilience, which involves safeguarding the animals, land and people on the Atlantic shoreline against changes in the environment.

One sign of that change came in the form of smoke last week in Virginia, which drifted down from wildfires in Canada. Organizations like the American Geophysical Union claim that such fires are becoming more common with global warming and less precipitation.

Among its many initiatives, like its recently funded derelict fishing gear removal project, VIMS offers forecasting tools on its website that can be used to predict sea level rise and potential flooding when storms are on the way.

“Everything from transportation to real estate to water quality and development — we’re connected to all of those things,” Aday said. “And so whether you’re a boater or a homeowner or an angler or a seafood lover or just someone that appreciates coastal and marine environments, it’s almost guaranteed that not only are we doing something connected to what you’re interested in but also that we have some sort of outreach or education program (related to it).”

Those interested can sign up for the VIMS newsletter at vims.edu to stay informed about programming and upcoming events.

J.W. Caterine, [email protected]

DENVER — Ten people were wounded in a mass shooting early Tuesday in Denver in an area where basketball fans had been celebrating the Nuggets first NBA title win, police said, and a suspect was taken into custody.

The shooting happened about 12:30 a.m. — about 3 1/2 hours after the game — and three of the injured were in critical condition, the Denver Police Department said in a statement. The suspect, a man, was one of the seven people who suffered injuries believed to be non-life-threatening.

The shooting happened about a mile from Ball Arena, where the Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat on Monday night.

“As far as what led up to this altercation that resulted in the shots being fired, that’s still under investigation at this time,” police spokesperson Doug Schepman said. “It did occur in the area where we had largest gathering of folks celebrating during the night.”

The area was taped off and evidence markers were at the scene.

A small crowd was in the area at the time of the shooting, he said, but had “diminished quite a bit at that point.” He said the shooting was in an area where a lot of people might have come out of bars after the game.

Police were interviewing witnesses and Schepman described the ongoing investigation “expansive.”