FBI backs off Va. training center

The FBI has withdrawn from a proposed law enforcement training center in Powhatan County, Va., that would be built near a historic area.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported the decision in Thursday's editions. The newspaper cited an e-mail that the FBI sent to the U.S. Department of Justice and a separate e-mail that the state Department of Historic Resources sent to the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Plans had called for the state police, state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, state Department of Corrections and the FBI to use the center.

The center would be built near Shiloh Baptist Church, which was founded by freed slaves in the 1870s.

Residents have argued the facility will be too noisy and out of character for a historic area.

-- Richmond Times-Dispatch