Bob McDonnell promised to crack down on repeat drug dealers when he ran for governor...

Now that the election is over, some small-business owners in the Richmond area say their...

Chesterfield academy receives national award

The accused East Coast Rapist says he doesn't know why he couldn't stop attacking women...

If compromise can be reached and gridlock broken, Virginia's congressional delegation could be at the...

New York City police say there have been two more reports of possible anti-gay attacks, following the killing of a gay man taunted with homophobic slurs.

Police spokesman Paul Browne says the attacks occurred Monday and early Tuesday.

In one, a 45-year-old man was attacked in Manhattan's East Village by a drinking companion who yelled an epithet.

In the second, two men were walking in lower Manhattan at about 5 a.m. Tuesday. Two other men yelled homophobic slurs in Spanish and attacked them. They were arrested on hate crime assault charges.

The reports come as police increased a presence in nearby neighborhoods through the end of June, which is Gay Pride Month.

Mark Carson was killed Saturday; a man has been charged with murder as a hate crime.

Lives were forever changed in a few short minutes as a large tornado battered the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing at least 24 people and injuring dozens. The storm tore apart one elementary school and severely damaged another; it ripped homes off their foundations, scattered prized possessions, laid waste to businesses.

While officials are nearly certain the search for survivors and the dead is complete, the effects of Monday's tornado will linger into the coming weeks as the cleanup and rebuilding begins. There's also the emotional fallout, as residents and first responders grapple with what they saw and heard in the moments before, during and after the massive tornado.

___

Watch the AP video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0bfYKY87lI

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, easing up on his long-held tough stance on Myanmar, said Tuesday he planned to allow key sanctions legislation against the Southeast Asian nation to lapse because of the country's progress toward democracy.

McConnell, R-Ky., made the announcement after meeting with Myanmar President Thein Sein, who is making a landmark visit to Washington. On Monday, Thein Sein became the first Myanmar leader to visit the White House in nearly 50 years and received strong backing from President Barack Obama.

Thein Sein, a former general, has been hailed for leading a historic shift from five decades of military rule, although serious human rights violations persist. House members Tuesday pressed him to release more political prisoners and end communal violence that has spiked in recent months and killed hundreds, mostly minority Muslims.

The sanctions in question authorize an import ban, already waived by Obama, meaning that should the legislation lapse, it would make little practical difference on restrictions now in place. But it would mean the administration could not re-impose the ban should Myanmar backtrack on reforms.

It also marks an important shift by McConnell, who for the past two decades has been a leading voice in Congress on policy toward the country also known as Burma. He's been a staunch supporter of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and was a fierce critic of the former ruling junta that was replaced by a nominally civilian government in 2011.

"The administration has extended an olive branch to the new Burmese government and I believe it is time for Congress to do the same," McConnell told the Senate.

The office Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who co-sponsored the 2003 Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether she shared McConnell's view.

Myanmar policy has been a rare area of bipartisan agreement in Washington. The administration, with congressional support, has suspended broad restrictions on trade and investment over the past year after Suu Kyi was elected to parliament and hundreds of political prisoners were freed.

McConnell said the objective of the sanctions was to change the behavior of Myanmar's government, and to a significant extent, that has taken place.

"I believe renewing sanctions would be a slap in the face to Burmese reformers and embolden those within Burma who want to slow or reverse reform," he said.

The European Union last month lifted its economic sanctions, and McConnell said not renewing U.S. trade sanctions would bring greater certainty for American companies looking to invest in Myanmar and put them on "an equal footing with their Western competitors."

He said Congress would retain leverage on Myanmar through other sanctions that remain on the books.

Myanmar, which is rich in minerals, oil and natural gas but still very poor, is one of Asia's last untapped markets. The U.S. last month announced it was considering duty-free access for Myanmar to U.S. markets, and on Tuesday the two governments signed a bilateral trade and investment framework agreement.

However, others in Congress are adopting an increasingly critical stance toward Thein Sein's government. Four Democratic lawmakers, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., on Tuesday presented the Myanmar president with a list of nearly 250 political prisoners they said should be freed.

They also called for an end to attacks on minorities and for provision of humanitarian assistance to tens of thousands of villagers would have been displaced by violence.

Despite the historic changes in Myanmar since 2011, human rights groups say authorities have failed to stop, and have sometimes abetted, sectarian attacks. The violence has been directed overwhelmingly against Muslims but has not led to any criminal trials against members of the country's Buddhist majority.

Voicing concern over the use of rape as a weapon of war in Myanmar, Crowley introduced a bill last week with Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., to renew the legislation McConnell intends to let lapse. Crowley said he wants to ensure that a ban on imports of Myanmar gems — mostly mined from a Northern conflict zone — remains in place.

McConnell said Tuesday restrictions on jadeite and rubies were likely to remain in place under other statutes.

Authorities say a man suspected of abducting two girls near an Iowa bus stop had committed suicide.

Forty-two-year-old Michael Klunder was found dead Monday night at a rural property northeast of Dayton.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation did not release more details Tuesday about Klunder's death.

Dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement are searching by air, land and water for 15-year-old Kathlynn Shepard.

She and a 12-year-old girl were taken near a bus stop in Dayton, about 60 miles north of Des Moines, on Monday afternoon after accepting a ride from a stranger. The younger girl was able to escape.

Authorities say they are broadening their search for the 15-year-old and will put up billboards around the state.

The lawyer for the family of missing Utah woman Susan Powell said Tuesday that there's an ongoing federal investigation into her disappearance, but the FBI declined to comment on that and police in Utah said they didn't know anything about it.

Anne Bremner made the announcement at a Seattle news conference a day after local officials in Utah said they had closed their investigation into the Susan Powell case.

"This is not over," Bremner said.

Newly released police records show that Utah officials believe Josh Powell likely killed his wife in late 2009, and that his brother, Michael Powell, helped dispose of the body, but authorities felt they didn't have enough evidence to prove that theory in court.

Last year, as the investigation continued, Josh Powell killed himself and his two young sons in an explosive house fire, leaving nearly all of his life insurance proceeds to his brother, Michael, who later jumped to his death from a parking garage in Minnesota.

Bremner, who was joined at the news conference by Chuck Cox, Susan Powell's father, said the federal probe is looking at what Josh Powell's father, Steve, knew about his daughter-in-law's disappearance.

West Valley City Deputy Police Chief Mike Powell said he believed Bremner was mistaken. He said he wasn't immediately aware of any ongoing federal investigation but would look into it.

"We have made it clear we worked closely with our law enforcement counterparts across 11 states," Powell said.

Bremner said she was informed of the ongoing investigation and its general scope by a federal agency, but she declined to say which. The FBI office in Salt Lake City declined to comment on her remarks.

Steve Powell had a sexual obsession with Susan Powell and thoroughly documented it in journals seized by police. He is currently serving a prison sentence after being convicted of voyeurism charges for secretly recording young neighbor girls.

Utah police said Monday that they do not believe he was directly involved with Susan Powell's disappearance but may know more about it than he has let on.

Both Bremner and Cox disputed the notion that prosecutors in Utah never had enough evidence to prosecute Josh Powell.

They cite his bizarre alibi -- that he wasn't home when his wife vanished because he had taken their two sons, then 2 and 4, camping in the Utah desert in the middle of a snowstorm.

They cite his unusual behavior -- that he showed little concern for her, couldn't explain why he had her cellphone with the digital SIM card removed, and, two days after she disappeared, he rented a car and drove it 800 miles.

They also cite potential motives: Josh Powell cleaned out Susan Powell's retirement accounts 10 days after her disappearance, and -- as the newly released documents revealed -- he had apparently had an affair with a woman he met through a dating service months before his wife vanished.

Cox said the police "came to the wrong conclusion on the circumstantial evidence. I think there was plenty."

Utah authorities have repeatedly said they didn't prosecute Powell because they did not have a body or a crime scene. While that makes it tougher to prove a murder charge, prosecutors across the country have won convictions in such circumstances.

Susan Powell's family plans to continue searching for her, with the help of volunteers and a private investigator.

"I'd like to find my daughter," Cox said. "I'd like to lay her to rest."

Police said both Steve and Michael Powell were uncooperative in the investigation.

They interviewed Michael numerous times after discovering he left his car at an Oregon junk yard weeks after Susan's disappearance -- a fact police didn't learn until nearly two years later. Officials said he offered evasive answers about why he got rid of the car and how he had used it in late 2009.

His suicide left investigators without any person of interest in the case. While authorities believe the brothers were responsible for Susan Powell's disappearance, they said repeatedly Monday that they never had enough evidence to bring charges -- an assertion that has been questioned in the past by legal experts as well as law enforcement in Washington state.

"This is a circumstantial case, yes," said West Valley City Deputy Chief Phil Quinlan. His fellow deputy chief, Mike Powell, added, "We didn't have a body. We don't have a crime scene."

The Powell brothers used sophisticated computer encryption to communicate, Quinlan said. Investigators have been unable to decipher that secret communication.

The case file shows that in August 2010, police contacted a West Valley City woman, whose full name is redacted, after her phone number was discovered in Josh Powell's phone records.

She told police she had a sexual relationship with Josh Powell after meeting him through a dating service about six or seven months before Susan Powell disappeared. The woman said she knew Josh Powell by the name John Staley, and she didn't know he was married. It wasn't until after she saw news coverage of the case that she discerned his true identity.

The woman initially called 911 just days after Susan Powell disappeared and claimed she had been having an affair with Josh Powell for the past two months, Maxwell wrote. At the time, however, she declined to provide corroborating information.

The file includes other details, and contained emails from Susan Powell's father, who expressed hope his daughter might be found in the days after her December 2009 disappearance.

Cox believed Josh Powell poisoned his wife's pancakes before she was taken from the couple's house.

Susan Powell was reported missing after failing to show up for work.

Police found a small amount of her blood on the floor next to a recently cleaned sofa and carpet in their house, but not enough to consider it a crime scene, they said.

Josh Powell eventually returned to the couple's hometown of Puyallup, Wash., where he got caught up in a battle with Susan Powell's parents for custody of the boys, 7-year-old Charlie and 5-year-old Braden.

On Feb. 5, 2012, he locked a social worker out of a rental home at the start of a supervised visit, attacked the boys with a hatchet and set the house afire. All three were killed.

The federal government has given the job of compiling statistics used by the State Department to analyze trends in global terrorism to an academic group, a move that may complicate accurate unclassified assessments of patterns of terrorist activity for years to come.

Officials said Tuesday that the switch also removes federal accountability for the numbers, something that could make them less reliable in the eyes of some.

Because of the change, statistics on terrorist incidents to be released May 30 in the State Department's annual terrorism report are likely to be dramatically lower than in previous years. But that decrease may not reflect an actual downward trend in attacks. That's because the new group compiling the data uses different criteria than those employed by the National Counterterrorism Center.

A man accused of vandalizing a 1929 Pablo Picasso painting in an act that was caught on cellphone video has pleaded guilty in exchange for a two-year prison sentence.

Uriel Landeros had faced felony graffiti and criminal mischief charges accusing him of spray-painting "Woman in a Red Armchair" at the Menil Collection in Houston.

Emily Detoto, Landeros' attorney, says that at a court hearing Tuesday, her client pleaded guilty to the graffiti charge as part of a deal with prosecutors. The other charge was dropped.

The painting was damaged June 13. A bystander captured the act in a 24-second video that was posted on YouTube. The vandal left behind an image of a bullfighter, a bull and the word "conquista," the Spanish word for conquest.

The Army says the commanding general of Fort Jackson, S.C., has been suspended in connection with charges of adultery and involvement in a physical altercation.

The Army says Brig. Gen. Bryan Roberts reportedly was in an altercation with another woman, not his wife. Roberts was suspended from his job by Gen. Robert W. Cone, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command, while the investigation continues.

Roberts took command of Fort Jackson in April 2012.

He has been in the Army for about 29 years and served as the director of Iraq training and advisory teams before taking the Fort Jackson post.

The suspension is the latest in a series of scandals involving senior military officers in recent months.

Brig. Gen. Peggy Combs will serve as interim commander during the investigation.