When he finally took off his mirrored sunglasses, Seung-Hui Cho’s empty gaze shook his teachers, who had just asked police to be on hand the next time he showed up for poetry class.

Police said 50-year-old Lydia Mae Flight of Chesapeake ignored flashing lights and down crossing gates Sunday at 5:30 p.m. when she attempted to cross the tracks.

Sen. John McCain is stopping at the Tri-Cities Regional Airport this morning. TriCities.com is covering the event live.

What a long, weird - and historic - presidential campaign it’s been. The choice between Barack Obama and John McCain is down to its final hours until Tuesday’s voting, at which point, we all hope, this race, unlike 2000, will end. Or do we?

The faithful are busy as Nov. 4 nears. While politicians are making their final pitch to voters, religious Americans from across the political spectrum are appealing to a higher power on the candidates’ behalf.

The Associated Press found that Obama’s aunt had been instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya. The woman, Zeituni Onyango, is living in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama’s late father.

SUMTER, S.C. (AP)—Police in South Carolina say a 12-year-old trick-or-treater was killed when a convicted felon fearing a robbery fired nearly 30 rounds with an assault rifle from inside a house.

Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin return to Virginia on Saturday for three campaign rallies in the sprint to Election Day.

WASHINGTON (AP)—Patrick Campbell worries Barack Obama will raise his taxes but thinks John McCain will send people off to war. He says that leaves him leaning toward Obama ... maybe.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine says he considered expanding polling hours for next week’s election but has no authority to do it.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP)—The NAACP is reviewing new data on Virginia’s preparations for Election Day.

In what some pundits are calling the “sleeper race” of this election, Congressman Virgil Goode and his Democratic challenger are fighting to the bitter end.

Now that state educators have the most accurate graduation rates yet, they want to tie that data to school accreditation.

Three free-speech advocacy groups said Wednesday they will go to court after the election to try to overturn a state ban on the wearing of campaign paraphernalia to the polls on election day.

Any type of exercise is beneficial for health, but high-intensity exercise is likely necessary to achieve significant improvements in body composition, researchers at the University of Virginia have found.

The two congressional candidates for Virginia’s 5th District talked policy and traded pointed jabs in a packed and rowdy room Tuesday night at American Legion Post 325.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia, a swing state with a heavy military presence that hasn’t backed a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson, is favoring Barack Obama slightly over John McCain, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Richmond International Airport officials are planning $1 billion in improvements to handle anticipated growth in passenger traffic.

Befitting of Virginia’s swing-state status, both presidential candidates plan additional visits to the Old Dominion again this week.

Obama leads Republican John McCain by as many as 11 percentage points in surveys released since Friday.

A national voter-protection organization Monday sued Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and other top Virginia election officials on behalf of the Virginia State Conference NAACP.

The State Board of Elections today adopted a proposal to allow absentee ballots filed by overseas military voters to be counted if state law is not followed.

WESTFIELD, Mass. (AP)—With an instructor watching, an 8-year-old boy at a gun fair aimed an Uzi at a pumpkin and pulled the trigger as his dad reached for a camera.

A former school bus driver in Staunton has been indicted on charges she had sex with a teenage boy.

BELLS, Tenn. (AP)—In a rural Tennessee county where you can’t buy alcohol or even find a Wal-Mart, residents of tiny Bells stopped each other to ask if anyone knew the pale-skinned young local accused of plotting to kill dozens of black people, including Barack Obama.

LEESBURG, Va - With “Tito the Builder” at her side Monday, Sarah Palin kicked off the last full week of campaigning before Election Day talking taxes in Northern Virginia.

ST. LOUIS (AP)—A federal judge has ruled that parts of Missouri’s new law restricting registered sex offenders’ actions on Halloween night are unenforceable, saying the law lacked clarity and could cause confusion for sex offenders and those charged with enforcing it.

Sarah Palin arrived in Salem to a roaring crowd of more than 14,000 and an introduction by a regular Joe, who announced to the crowd, “I’m a mechanic from Blacksburg Virginia.”

RICHMOND, Va. (AP)—The Virginia NAACP sued Gov. Tim Kaine on Monday, arguing that the state has failed to prepare for an unprecedented voter turnout in next week’s presidential election.

WASHINGTON (AP)—Federal agents have broken up a plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives said Monday.