AP
LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) _ Washington and Lee University students who have correctly picked the Republican presidential nominee at a mock convention since 1948 are predicting Donald Trump will be the party’s pick this year. By a better than 2-1 ratio, Trump topped his nearest competitor, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, during the mock convention at the school’s Lexington campus. The billionaire businessman snared 1,320 student delegates to Cruz’ 652. Trump Tweeted his pleasure at the results, adding that “I hope you are right.” The private college in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley holds a mock convention every four years to predict the nominee of the party out of power in the White House. Since the first convention in 1908, Washington and Lee students have been correct in their prediction 19 out of 25 times.
Will Dudley
LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) _ Washington & Lee University has named the school’s next president. The university announced in a press release on Friday that its board of trustees has elected William Dudley, provost and philosophy professor at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, to be the next president. Dudley will assume the post in January, succeeding Kenneth Ruscio, who announced in May that he would step down. Ruscio will remain in office until Dec. 31. Dudley was born in Charlottesville and raised in Arlington. He received his B.A. in mathematics and philosophy, magna cum laude, from Williams in 1989, and an M.A. and a Ph.D., both in philosophy, from Northwestern University. He joined the Williams faculty in 1998. His area of expertise is German idealism, from Kant to Hegel.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) _ Canadian Pacific has created a website to showcase all of its arguments for its proposed takeover of Norfolk Southern railroad. Most of what’s on the website is from Canadian Pacific’s previous statements and reports on the proposed merger. But the site also lists the question Canadian Pacific plans to ask Norfolk Southern shareholders this spring. Canadian Pacific wants Norfolk Southern investors to vote on whether they want the two railroads to discuss a merger. Norfolk Southern, with headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, has rejected all of Canadian Pacific’s takeover offers. The latest one was worth roughly $30 billion. Norfolk Southern doesn’t plan to create its own website about the proposed deal. All of its statements on Canadian Pacific’s offers are listed on the news section of its corporate site.
Canadian Pacific’s website can be found here.
Norfolk Southern’s website can be found here.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia is moving forward to reduce carbon emissions linked to climate change amid uncertainty over the future of the Obama administration’s landmark environmental initiative. Despite a legal challenge, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the state’s largest power company and environmentalists all agreed Wednesday that work on Virginia’s share of the nation’s Clean Power Plan should continue. In fact, a group of power company executives, environmentalists and others working on the plan are to meet as scheduled Friday. A coalition of 27 primarily Republican-led states and industry opponents swayed a divided Supreme Court to grant a lower court hearing on the claim the proposed regulations are “an unprecedented power grab.” The justices issued the temporary freeze Tuesday.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ The Virginia Senate has passed a bill that would prevent some drivers from being charged with reckless driving for going 11 miles over the speed limit. The legislation passed Wednesday with bipartisan support that raises the threshold for charging drivers with reckless driving from 80 miles an hour to 85 miles an hour. The current reckless driving law applies to anyone going 20 miles an hour over the speed limit or 80 miles an hour. Virginia raised the speed limit in 2010 for some highways to 70 miles an hour, and supporters of the measure said drivers going 81 shouldn’t face potentially harsh penalties. Opponents said the higher limit for reckless driving would make Virginia’s roads less safe.The bill is authored by first-term State Senator David Suetterlein.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia’s Republican-dominated House of Delegates has approved a bill that would allow prison officials to execute inmates in the electric chair if lethal injection drugs are unavailable. The bill sailed through the House with a 62-33 vote Wednesday. Its real test will be in the GOP-controlled Senate, where a similar bill stalled two years ago. Supporters have been using the impending execution of a convicted murderer to make their case for the electric chair. The state says it doesn’t have enough pentobarbital to carry out the execution. Companies have blocked the use of their drugs in executions, forcing many states to consider other methods. Virginia is one of at least eight states that allow electrocutions, but it currently gives inmates the choice of lethal injection or the electric chair.
Nicole Lovell
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) _ A friend of the 13-year-old Virginia girl who was killed after climbing out of her bedroom window says the seventh-grader talked of running away and starting a family with the man now charged in her slaying. Natasha Bryant told The Washington Post that Nicole Lovell said 18-year-old Virginia Tech student David Eisenhauer was her boyfriend. She says Nicole described Eisenhauer as “funny and really nice” shortly before her Jan. 27 disappearance in Blacksburg. Eisenhauer is charged with abduction and first-degree murder. Another Virginia Tech student, 19-year-old Natalie Keepers, is charged with accessory before and after the fact and with illegally dumping Nicole’s body just across the state line in North Carolina.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia’s House of Delegates has approved a bill that would allow students in underperforming schools to switch to a different one within the same district. The bill was approved by the Republican-controlled House with a 57-42 vote on Tuesday. Under Republican Del. James LeMunyon’s bill, the state would identify 12 underperforming public schools and give students there the choice to transfer to another school in the district. The bill heads to the Republican-controlled Senate. Virginia Education Association President Meg Gruber says it hasn’t formally taken a position on the bill but has practical concerns about it. She said she questions what would happen if a lot of students wanted to switch a school that’s already overcrowded.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ One of Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s biggest donors and political allies has turned against him with an advertisement campaign condemning a deal he struck with GOP leaders on gun policy. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group Everytown for Gun Safety took out a full-page advertisement in a Richmond newspaper on Tuesday declaring that “Terry McAuliffe is wrong” and urging residents to pressure him into scrapping the deal. Everytown has also been running online ads comparing McAuliffe to the head of the National Rifle Association. McAuliffe’s administration is standing by the deal, which it says as a whole will make residents safer. Bloomberg has been one of McAuliffe’s biggest political patrons. His political action committee was McAuliffe’s single largest non-party donor during his successful 2013 gubernatorial bid.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A bill that’s making its way through Virginia’s General Assembly would prevent political parties from requiring voters to sign a party affiliation statement in a presidential primary. The Republican-led Senate voted 34-5 to approve the bill Monday. It heads to the House. The state Republican Party had planned to require voters in the party’s March 1 primary to sign a statement affirming they’re Republicans before casting a ballot. But it later changed its mind amid criticism from Donald Trump supporters. A judge rejected Trump supporters’ attempt to block the loyalty oath, but the party rescinded its decision to use it anyway, calling it “bad publicity.” The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the bill applies only to state-sponsored primaries and that parties could still hold their own nominating contests with an oath.