5 injured in shooting at Virginia State University, no arrests made
Undated photo of the VSU campus. (Facebook/Virginia State University)
(PETERSBURG, Va.) — A lockdown has been lifted at Virginia State University after a shooting outside residence halls left five people injured, one of them critically. No arrests have been made in the shooting.
Officers responded near the VSU Quad Annexes at around 1:30 a.m. local time Saturday to find five individuals suffering from gunshot wounds, according to the university.
All five individuals were transferred to area hospitals. One is in critical condition while the four others have non-life threatening injuries.
“Although the lockdown has been lifted, members of the VSU community are asked to remain mindful of the ongoing law enforcement activity and avoid the immediate area where investigators are processing the scene,” the university said Saturday morning.
A significant law enforcement presence remains on campus while the investigation continues, the university said.
Chesterfield County Police are leading the investigation, with assistance from Virginia State University Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Hanover County Sheriff’s Office.
Anyone with information related to the shooting is urged to contact Chesterfield County Police at 804-748-1251, Crime Solvers at 804-748-0660, or VSU Police at 804-524-5411.
A person pumps gas at a Chevron gas station on Aug. 7, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Inflation eased slightly in July but price increases stayed above the pace recorded before a surge in fuel prices set off by the Iran war. The reading matched economists’ expectations.
Prices rose 3.4% in July compared to a year earlier, marking a slight cooldown from an annual inflation rate of 3.5% in the prior month, federal government data released on Wednesday morning showed.
Inflation stands more than a percentage point higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.
In July, prices rose for medical care, airline fares, communication, education and recreation, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said.
The prices of meat and milk each climbed more than 5% over the year ending in July, clocking in well above the overall inflation rate.
Egg prices, by contrast, plummeted more than 25% over the previous year, indicating continued recovery from a shortage caused by an outbreak of bird flu.
Energy prices, meanwhile, climbed nearly 15% over the year ending in July. Shelter prices — made up primarily of monthly rents and an equivalent cost assigned to home owners — jumped 3.2% over that period, registering slightly below the overall inflation rate.
The reading arrived days after government data showed unexpected job losses last month, suggesting strain on the economy as a months-long bout of elevated price hikes weighed on shoppers.
The Iran war drove up gasoline prices and catapulted inflation to a three-year high in May. A preliminary peace agreement in June offered up some relief, but a burst of on-again, off-again fighting over ensuing weeks caused crude prices to climb.
Global oil prices stood at about $89 a gallon on Wednesday morning, keeping them well above pre-war levels.
The national average price of a gallon of gas registered at $4.03 on Wednesday, AAA data showed, marking a 35% rise since the outbreak of war in late February.
A prolonged bout of elevated inflation has raised the chances of an interest rate hike, futures markets show. Investors peg the odds of a quarter-point rate hike next month at nearly 50%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
The odds of a rate increase have ticked lower since last week, however, when a lackluster jobs report showed the labor market had shifted into reverse.
The U.S. lost 23,000 jobs in July, according to the federal government’s monthly jobs report, which marked a decline from 57,000 jobs added in June.
The unemployment rate fell slightly from 4.2% in June to 4.1% in July. Unemployment remains low by historical standards.
A government report issued last week showed a steeper slowdown in gross domestic product than expected over three months ending in June, indicating softness in the underlying economy over the early months of the war.
The Fed could raise interest rates in an effort to cool off prices, but the move risks an economic slowdown that may pinch hiring.
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who took the helm of the central bank this summer, has repeatedly vowed to dial back inflation.
“The committee remains resolute — you’ve heard this before — that we will deliver price stability,” Warsh told reporters in Washington, D.C., last month.
Gavel on wooden desk with books as background (sean zheng lim/Getty)
(VIRGINIA) — A former assistant principal at a Virginia elementary school is standing trial on criminal charges more than three years after a then-6-year-old student shot his first grade teacher in their classroom.
Ebony Parker has been charged with eight counts of felony child abuse with disregard for life in connection with the January 2023 shooting at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News — one count for each bullet that was unspent in the gun, according to the Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. She has pleaded not guilty.
The criminal trial comes months after a separate jury in a civil trial found that Parker acted with gross negligence in the shooting and awarded the injured teacher, Abby Zwerner, $10 million in damages.
Prosecutors in the ongoing criminal trial allege that Parker failed to respond after several staffers raised concerns that the student, identified in the trial as JT, had a gun.
“For over an hour, multiple people went to Dr. Parker and told her there was an armed child at an elementary school,” Deputy Commonwealth Attorney Josh Jenkins said during opening statements on Tuesday. “Multiple warnings brought directly to her.”
Jenkins said the evidence will show that Parker did not say to search the child, did not call police and did not remove the child from the classroom.
“She didn’t even get up from her desk,” he said. “Warning after warning after warning — nothing.”
Jenkins said there were 19 children in the classroom at the time of the shooting who are the alleged victims in this case.
“A slight movement of the gun could have hit a child instead of Miss Zwerner,” he said. “All of them, you’ll learn, watched as their teacher clutched her chest and bled before these children, screaming in horror, ran across the hallway to another classroom.”
Jenkins claimed that Parker was the only person in the building at the time who had the authority and knowledge to respond to the crisis.
Defense attorney Curtis Rogers pushed back against that claim, arguing in his opening statement that other school staffers, including Zwerner, could have acted.
“The Commonwealth talks about, a lot, this ongoing crisis and that Dr. Parker was the only person that had knowledge of the crisis and the authority to act. I will submit that that’s not accurate. It’s not true,” Rogers said.
“Think about it — who was the one person that was there from the beginning to the end? And that was the teacher, Miss Zwerner,” he said.
Zwerner, the first witness in the trial, testified that she had told Parker prior to the shooting that JT “seemed to be off” that day and “in a violent mood.” She said another staffer, reading specialist Amy Kovac, alerted her that JT told other students he had brought a gun to school, and that Kovac reported that to the administration.
Zwerner said that in hindsight she could have separated JT from the other students and confirmed that she was responsible for the safety of her students. Though she said her understanding that a crisis or emergency needed to be brought to the attention of the administration, and that she trusted her colleagues.
Kovac testified that she told Parker that two students reported to her that JT had a gun in his bag, and that Parker nodded in acknowledgment when she said she would search the bag at recess. Kovac said she did not find a gun when she searched the bag and then told Parker that she believed the gun was in his jacket pocket.
Pressed by the defense on why she didn’t do more, such as by separating students from JT, Kovac said, “I did not know what his next actions would have been at that moment.”
“A weapon had been reported and no administrator did actions,” she said.
The criminal trial is scheduled to run through at least Thursday.
Zwerner also testified about the shooting during the civil trial, saying she “thought I had died.”
The bullet went through Zwerner’s left hand, which she had lifted, and then into her chest. She was initially hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, police said.
Parker did not testify during the civil trial.
Zwerner and Parker both resigned following the shooting.
The student brought the gun from home, police said. His mother, Deja Taylor, was sentenced to two years in state prison after pleading guilty to child neglect in connection with the shooting. She also pleaded guilty to using marijuana while in possession of a firearm and making a false statement about her drug use during the purchase of the firearm used in the shooting and was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison.
She was released from state custody on May 13 and transitioned to community supervision, according to online Virginia Department of Corrections records.
