DAMASCUS, Va. (AP) _ Witnesses described a frantic scene and close calls after an elderly driver plowed into dozens of hikers marching in a small Virginia mountain town’s parade. 

 Investigators say they are looking into whether the man had suffered a medical emergency before the accident. The driver was being treated and hasn’t been identified. 

 About 50 to 60 people suffered injuries ranging from critical to superficial, but no fatalities were reported. Three of the worst injured were flown by helicopter to area hospitals. 

 It happened during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, near the Tennessee state line. 

Rev. E.W. Jackson

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia Republicans have chosen firebrand conservative minister E.W. Jackson’s for lieutenant governor, the first black candidate the party has nominated for statewide office since 1988. 

 Jackson provoked the loudest ovation of the day at from the tea party-dominated Republican Party convention in Richmond on Saturday, declaring in an impassioned speech, “I am not an African-American, I am an American!” 

 He won the nomination on the fourth ballot over six rivals. As the only black candidate, he becomes the first black Republican nominee since the party nominated Maurice Dawkins in 1988. 

 Jackson heads a nondenominational church in Chesapeake and credits his religious background for his shift from the Democratic Party. His first GOP bid for office came last year when he lost the U.S. Senate nomination to former Sen. George Allen.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ State Sen. Mark Obenshain has won the Republican nomination for attorney general in Virginia 35 years after his father won the party’s U.S. Senate nomination. 

 Obenshain was nominated by acclamation on a voice vote after his rival, Del. Rob Bell, conceded defeat after the first ballot at the Virginia Republican Convention on Saturday. 

 Obenshain’s father, Richard Obenshain, won the party’s U.S. Senate nomination in the same building in 1978, but was killed in August of that year when a small plane carrying him home from a campaign event crashed when Mark Obenshain was 16. John W. Warner took his place on the ballot and won the first of five U.S. Senate terms. 

 Onstage with Obenshain when he accepted the nomination was his mother and Richard Obenshain’s widow, Helen Obenshain.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia’s conservative activist attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, has been nominated by acclamation for governor at a statewide Republican convention dominated for the first time by the tea party. 

 Cuccinelli was unopposed for the nomination. Several thousand delegates to the convention will also choose their nominees for lieutenant governor from seven candidates, and choose between Del. Rob Bell of Albemarle and state Sen. Mark Obenshain of Harrisonburg. 

 In remarks to the convention Saturday, Cuccinelli tacked to the center in a speech that stressed mainstream themes and fought back against Democratic attacks portraying him as a right-wing extremist. 

 He made scant mention of his support for abortion restrictions and instead noted his crackdowns on Internet predators and human traffickers, to exonerate the wrongly convicted and aid the intellectually disabled.

 FARMVILLE, Va. (AP) _ A Mega Millions ticket sold in Farmville has matched all six numbers in the latest drawing and will split the estimated $190 million jackpot with the holder of another winning ticket bought in New Jersey. 

 Virginia Lottery officials said Saturday that one of the winning tickets from Friday night’s drawing was bought at the Farmville Food Lion. The winner has yet to claim the ticket, which is worth $95 million. 

     The numbers drawn were 11, 15, 35, 43, 49. The Mega Ball was 41. 

 The Virginia winner has 180 days to claim the prize and can choose to take the $95 million in 26 annual payments or a one-time cash option of $70.3 million before taxes. 

 It’s the eighth time there has been a Mega Millions jackpot winner in Virginia.

Gov. Bob McDonnell

Gov. Bob McDonnell says his administration has never given any special treatment to a dietary supplement company that is under investigation.  McDonnell said on WTOP radio Tuesday he and first lady Maureen McDonnell have been friends with Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams for four or five years. The Republican governor says more than $100,000 in political contributions and thousands of dollars more in personal gifts have not won the company any state economic development incentives.  McDonnell says Williams helped pay for his daughter Cailin’s wedding in 2011, giving her $15,000.
Star Scientific is facing a securities investigation.  The FBI is looking at the relationship between McDonnell and Williams, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity because their roles preclude them from talking publicly.

WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) _ Boston Police say a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings is in custody after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead.

Police announced via Twitter that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in custody. His brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan, was killed Friday in a furious attempt to escape police.

The brothers are suspects in Monday’s marathon bombings, which killed three people and wounded more than 180 others. The men are also suspected of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer in his vehicle late Thursday.

Authorities in Boston had suspended all mass transit and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to stay indoors as the hunt for the remaining suspect went on.

WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) _ Boston’s police commissioner says all of Boston must stay in their homes as the search for the surviving suspect in the marathon bombings continues.

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis made the announcement Friday morning, after a long night of violence that left the other suspect dead. Read the rest of this story »

WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) _ Police in Boston have released a new photo showing the man believed to be a suspect in the marathon bombings, shown in earlier footage in a white hat. 

In the new photo, he’s wearing a gray hoodie sweatshirt pulled up on his head. The photo was taken at a 7-Eleven in Cambridge, just across the river from Boston.  Read the rest of this story »

BOSTON (AP) _ The two bombs that went off at the Boston Marathon killed at least 3 people, including an 8-year-old boy who was waiting with his mother and sister for his father to cross the finish line. Hospitals say at least 144 people were wounded and 17 of the injuries are critical. Many people at the scene reported seeing some of injured with missing limbs.

Security tight across the world

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Police in Los Angeles, New York City, London and other cities are increasing security following the bombings in Boston. The Los Angeles police department is urging officers to be extra vigilant around large crowds and stepped up security at the Dodgers game and other sporting events.