Residents are urged to take advantage of the Virginia "sales tax holiday" May 25-31 to get stocked up with all the supplies they may need to weather a hurricane. The season for hurricanes coming off the Atlantic starts June.

Roadside mowing will be ongoing for about the next 4-5 months and the Virginia Department of Transportation asks the motoring public to please drive slowly and be especially alert in areas where the mowing crews are at work. Most roads will get up to three cycles of mowing over the spring-summer-fall, according to a VDOT news release.

Hundreds of volunteers - some in boats and some on land removed trash, debris, old tires, a car fender and even a broken sailboat during a massive cleanup effort of the Occoquan River and its banks in Manassas, Woodnridge, Occoquan and Fairfax VA on Saturday, April 28. The river is the source of drinking water for much of Prince William County as well as a recreational area.

The local law enforcement/hospital take-back initiative in conjunction with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency was held April 28 to prevent pill abuse and theft. According to the DEA, the initiative seeks to stop prescription drug abuse as well as accidental poisonings and overdoses.

Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries wildlife specialists remind local residents that a bear is a wild animal, and that it is detrimental to the bear, as well as illegal in Virginia, to feed a bear under any circumstances. Even the inadvertent feeding of bears is illegal including allowing bears access to unsecured trash or birdfeeders.

Law enforcement officials from Prince William County VA Special Victims Unit will speak in Manassas on Thursday, April 26, at Soroptimist International of Manassas' noon luncheon on "How to Protect Women and Girls from Abduction."

April is Distracted Driver Awareness Month and members of the Haymarket VA Police Department are participating in a nationwide campaign to spread the word about the dangers of driving while distracted. Texting is the worst distraction because it requires use of the driver's hands, eyes, and mind to read and to answer a text message, police said.

Manassas VA City Police Department's crime report for Tuesday, April 17, 2012 includes 2 reports of aggravated assault.