Judge appoints former Mayor Gene Teague to City Council
On Monday, February 23, 2026, Circuit Court Judge G. Carter Greer ordered that Michael Gene Teague be appointed to serve on the City Council.
As the hearing regarding the suspension of Mayor LC Jones has been continued until June 5, 2026, the courts acted in accordance with Va. Code §24.2-236, which states that the court may appoint a suitable person to act in the officer’s place during the period of the officer’s suspension.
Teague has accepted the appointment and has declined to receive payment for his expected time on the City Council.
Teague served multiple terms on the Martinsville City Council, being appointed to the positions of Mayor and Vice Mayor during those terms.
In this photo released by the Norfolk Police Department, first responders are shown at the scene of a shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, on March 12, 2026. (Norfolk Police Department)
(NORFOLK, Va.) — A person was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, on Thursday.
The school shooting was allegedly committed by a former Army National Guardsman who was convicted of giving material support to ISIS, an FBI official told ABC News.
The gunman opened fire in Constant Hall, an academic building, around 10:43 a.m. and was found dead minutes after officers arrived, Old Dominion University Police Chief Garrett Shelton said during a press briefing.
The suspected gunman was identified as Mohamed Jalloh, who was previously convicted in 2016 of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic militant group.
Two of the victims were members of the university’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program, according to U.S. Army Cadet Command.
Students in the ROTC class fought the shooter, an Army official told ABC News.
Jalloh, a former member of the Army National Guard, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2017 and released in December of 2024, according to Bureau of Prisons records.
He allegedly walked into a room and asked if it was an ROTC class, and when someone answered, “yes,” he shot the instructor several times, according to sources.
When he pleaded guilty in 2016, Jalloh admitted he had communicated with a member of ISIS who was located overseas who introduced him to an individual in the U.S. who was actually an FBI confidential informant.
The ISIS member was believed to be actively plotting an attack and believed Jalloh would assist the informant in carrying it out. During one meeting with the FBI informant, Jalloh was asked about a timeline for an operation and commented that it was better to plan an attack for the month of Ramadan, court records say.
Prosecutors had recommended Jalloh serve 20 years in prison. It’s not immediately clear why he was released before the end of his 11-year sentence, though it is not unusual in the federal prison system for inmates to be released before serving their full term of imprisonment.
A sophomore named Jennifer told ABC Hampton, Virginia, affiliate WVEC that she was waiting for a midterm exam when she heard a group of people saying, “get out, get out, get out.”
“All of a sudden, we heard a commotion. A lot of people rumbling, starting to get up,” she said. “The guy next to me, we looked at each other, we started running, and that’s when we heard, you know, gunshots.”
She commended the university’s quick communication through alerts, saying, “I’m very, very proud of how quick the situation was handled.”
Shelton told reporters that the investigation is still ongoing and they were combing through the campus for clues.
“We now have to search every single room in that facility. There were students that we found that were hiding and faculty and staff,” he said.
The police did not say how the gunman died.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the bureau is treating the shooting as “as an act of terrorism,” and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force will be working with local police in the investigation.
There’s no longer a threat, the university said, adding that classes are canceled for the rest of the day and Friday.
“Today was a tragic day for the campus of Old Dominion University,” Old Dominion President Brian Hemphill told reporters.
(WASHINGTON) — An 11th hour plea from the prime minister of Pakistan appears to have swayed both President Donald Trump and the Iranian regime to agree to a two-week ceasefire deal in exchange for temporarily opening the Strait of Hormuz, at least temporarily staving off Trump’s promise to bomb Iran back to the “stone ages.”
With just hours to go until Trump’s 8 p.m. ET Tuesday deadline, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif — one of the key mediators attempting to the end the conflict — issued a public call to Trump, urging him to allow more time for negotiations.
“Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future,” Sharif said. “To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks.”
Sharif also implored Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz as a “goodwill gesture.”
Just after 6:30 p.m. ET, Trump posted on his social media platform that he would suspend military attacks.
“Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two week,” he wrote.
“We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate,” Trump continued, referring to an Iranian counterproposal transmitted to negotiators after rejecting plans for a longer ceasefire on Monday. “Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two-week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated.”
Within the hour, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council claimed that the U.S. agreed to its plan which includes numerous concessions.
In a lengthy statement on Iranian state media, the council said the U.S. “committed in principle to non-aggression, continued Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, acceptance of enrichment, lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions.”
Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, meanwhile, said Iran would agree to a ceasefire if attacks against it are halted. He also said passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be allowed during the two-week period if coordinated with Iran’s armed forces.
The White House did not respond to specific questions Tuesday evening on whether the U.S. agreed to Iran’s 10-point plan — which includes lifting all primary and secondary sanctions and withdrawing combat troops from the region — or what it made of Iran saying the Strait of Hormuz would open with coordination from Iran’s military.
In response, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement:
“President Trump’s words speak for themselves: this is a workable basis to negotiate, and those negotiations will continue. The truth is that President Trump and our powerful military got Iran to agree to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations will continue.”
Despite Trump calling Iran’s counterproposal a “workable basis” for negotiations, it contains many terms the U.S. and the president himself have long rejected and was previously described by administration officials as “maximalist.”
After the two-week ceasefire was announced, mediators began making arrangements to hold the first round of talks following the implementation of the ceasefire on Friday in Islamabad, but the White House said late Tuesday that it had not yet committed to any plans.
Before Sharif’s proposal was made public, two U.S. officials cautioned that although talks showed signs of progress, the Trump administration and Iranian regime still appeared to be far apart on core issues, expressing doubt that a broad deal could be reached on such a tight timeline.
One U.S. official also said the dynamic proposed by Sharif mirrored confidence-building measures under discussion behind closed doors, but up until the president and Iranian authorities accepted the terms, it was unclear whether both sides could be brought on board.
Fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz is a top priority for U.S. officials, who indicated that any agreement with Iran would have to lead to near-immediate progress on that front.
Asked about the state of negotiations with Iran on Tuesday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he hoped “to have more news” later in the day and called Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz “a big problem for the world.”
“The whole world’s been impacted unfortunately because Iran is violating every law known by striking commercial vessels in the Straits of Hormuz,” he said. “I mean this is a regime that doesn’t believe in laws, rules or anything like that — it’s a State Sponsor of Terrorism, so it’s not surprising that they’re now conducting terrorist activity against commercial vessels.”
Iran sees the strait as equally important and has signaled publicly and in private negotiations that it is highly reluctant to agree to any terms that would see it losing leverage over the waterway.
Iran’s counterproposal issued Monday stipulated that the country would fully open the Strait of Hormuz but set the rules for passage through the waterway and extract a toll of $2 million per vessel, a situation the Trump administration has repeatedly said would be untenable.
