AP
Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is not going to make an independent bid for governor of Virginia. Bolling made the announcement in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday, more than 3 1/2 months after folding his Republican candidacy for the office in November. In the end, Bolling wrote, his decision came down to the daunting task an independent candidate faces raising money without the help of a major party, and the fact that the lifelong Republican would have to forever sever his ties to the GOP.
Master Trooper Junius Walker
DINWIDDIE, Va. (AP) _ A Dinwiddie County prosecutor says she will seek the death penalty against the man charged in the shooting death of a Virginia state trooper. Commonwealth’s Attorney Lisa Caruso announced her intentions Friday at Russell Ervin Brown’s arraignment. The 28-year-old Chesterfield County man is charged with capital murder in Thursday’s slaying of 63-year-old Master Trooper Junius Walker. According to media reports, Brown said in court that he expects to be executed. Attorney Joseph Teefey was appointed to represent Brown, whose next court appearance is March 18.
Master Trooper Junius Walker
DINWIDDIE, Va. (AP) _ Virginia State Police have identified a suspect arrested in the fatal shooting of a trooper during a traffic stop.
State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller says 28-year-old Russell E. Brown of Chesterfield was found hiding at a business about a half-mile from where Master Trooper Junius A. Walker was shot off Interstate 85 on Thursday.
Geller says Brown has been charged with one count each of capital murder of a police officer and two felony firearm counts.
Brown is being held without bond at the Meherrin River Regional Jail in Alberta. It wasn’t known whether he has an attorney.
The 63-year-old Walker was a 40-year State Police veteran.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The two largest measures before Virginia’s General Assembly — the state budget and a landmark reform of the way Virginia funds its 58,000-mile highway network — have won final passage.
The measures were approved Saturday, just before lawmakers ended a 2013 session that remained fractious and dramatic into its final hours.
The budget passed the House and Senate by comfortable margins, as did the transportation funding bill.
Both passed only after senior budget writers tweaked a proposal to expand Medicaid that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli had ruled would be unconstitutional. Democrats had said they would not give their crucial votes to the budget and transportation bills without assurance that the Medicaid expansion would be pushed through. Continue reading
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Legislative negotiators have reached a transportation funding reform compromise that could get full House and Senate votes by week’s end. If the General Assembly can pass an accord by its scheduled adjournment Saturday, it would be the first comprehensive overhaul of the way Virginia pays for its highway system the legislature has approved since 1986. The 10 conferees signed an agreement Wednesday morning.
Gaining support among the negotiators – five delegates and five senators – is a plan that would replace Virginia’s 17 1/2 cents-per-gallon gasoline tax with a 3.5% wholesale gasoline tax, boost sales taxes from 5% to 5.3%, levy a $100 fee on hybrid cars and shift about $200 million a year in sales taxes to highway use in five years.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Gov. Bob McDonnell used his annual address to the state Wednesday night to make one big, last push for a lasting legislative legacy, urging lawmakers to embrace his education and transportation reforms. But he also included a surprise: an appeal to the 2013 General Assembly to approve bills that allow for nonviolent felons’ civil rights to be automatically restored.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell says policymakers should discuss allowing school officials to carry firearms on campus. If school officials were trained and chose to have a weapon, McDonnell says they might have an opportunity to stop someone from trying to get into a school. The Republican governor addressed the issue Tuesday during his monthly radio show on Washington’s WTOP.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Gov. Bob McDonnell is proposing 2 percent pay raises for public school teachers conditioned on more strenuous teacher assessment standards and a longer probationary period for new hires. McDonnell is asking the General Assembly to budget nearly $59 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1 for pay raises. The raises also would apply to principals, librarians, guidance counselors and teachers’ aides. But the raises are tied to passage of an Education Fairness Act that stretches teacher probationary periods from three to five years and makes it easier to define a teacher as incompetent.
Click here for the full governor’s news release.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A multi-agency group studying the possibility of uranium mining in Virginia has issued its report. The Uranium Working Group released the 125-page report Friday to Gov. Bob McDonnell. It will be a critical resource in the General Assembly’s expected debate over whether to end a 30-year ban on uranium mining in Virginia.
Click here to see the full report.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) _ Lottery officials say nobody has won the Powerball jackpot and the top prize will now increase to about $425 million for the next drawing, the largest jackpot ever for the game.
Iowa Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer said sales were strong over the holiday week for Saturday’s drawing, which was estimated at $325 million before the numbers were picked. That was the fourth-largest jackpot in the game’s history.
Neubauer says the jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing could go even higher than the estimated $425 million because sales pick up in the days before record drawings.
The previous top Powerball prize was $365 million, won in 2006 by ConAgra Foods Workers in Lincoln, Neb.
The Powerball numbers for Saturday were 22-32-37-44-50, and the Powerball was 34.