About NoVA Scanner
NoVA Scanner gathers Northern Virginia's local news in one place: headlines and short excerpts from 50 local publishers, checked every 30 minutes, each linked to the original story. It's run by a Northern Virginia native who grew up in the area.
What it covers
- Arlington County and Falls Church: Arlington, Ballston, Clarendon, Rosslyn, Crystal City and Falls Church
- Alexandria: Old Town, Del Ray, Potomac Yard and the rest of the City of Alexandria
- Fairfax County: Fairfax City, Annandale, Springfield, Burke, Centreville, Chantilly and Mount Vernon
- Tysons, McLean and Vienna: Tysons, McLean, Vienna, Great Falls and Oakton
- Reston and Herndon: Reston, Herndon and the Dulles corridor
- Loudoun County: Leesburg, Ashburn, Sterling, Purcellville, South Riding and western Loudoun
- Prince William County and Manassas: Manassas, Woodbridge, Gainesville, Haymarket, Bristow and Dumfries
Some towns have their own page; see news by town.
How it works
- News. Publishers' feeds are checked every 30 minutes (pages without a feed hourly). Each story shows the publisher's own headline and a short excerpt and links to the full story on their site. The full list is on the sources page.
- Events. Local event calendars are checked every few hours and listed for the next two weeks on things to do, with seasonal guides for the events that come around every year.
- Reddit. The top thread of the day from local subreddits, titles and links only.
- Archive. Every story collected since March 2025 stays searchable.
What's written by AI
Headlines and excerpts are always the publishers' own. Some pages add AI-written text, made with Anthropic's Claude models from those same headlines and excerpts:
- the daily digest,
- the summaries on stories covered by several outlets,
- the ongoing story pages, including which subjects get one.
AI also helps screen out events and Reddit threads that aren't local news or things to do. AI-written text is labeled where it appears and may contain errors; the linked stories are the record.
Corrections, tips and publishers
Spotted a mistake, have a tip, or publish local news and want your feed listed, changed or removed? Email [email protected]. NoVA Scanner isn't affiliated with the publishers it links to.
Privacy
The site uses Google Analytics to count visits. Your light or dark choice and the time of your last visit (for the new-story dots) are kept in your own browser. If you sign up for the email, your address is stored only for that email and never shared.