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MONETA, Va. (AP) — The suspect in the on-air shooting of two TV station employees has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities say Vester Flanagan died hours after this morning's shooting deaths of former co-workers Alison Parker and Adam Ward during a live broadcast outside a shopping mall near Roanoke, Virginia. Police who'd been looking for him since the shooting spotted him on a northern Virginia interstate in late morning and pursued his car, but he sped away and crashed. Police say they found him suffering from a gunshot wound.
MONETA, Va. (AP) — Officials say they don't yet know a motive in the fatal on-air shooting of a reporter and a cameraman from a TV station in Virginia. They say Vester Flanagan was a former employee at the station, WDBJ-TV. Authorities say they don't know if the shooting was racially motivated. Flanagan was black and had formerly complained about racial bias at the station. The station said he was angry and difficult to work with, and that's why he was eventually fired.
MONETA, Va. (AP) — The television reporter and cameraman who were killed while they were doing a live shot this morning are being described as a team who were at the beginning of their careers. Reporter Alison Parker, who was 24, had been hired at WDBJ full-time about a year ago. Twenty-seven-year-old cameraman Adam Ward had worked at the station for several years. They both found love at the station. Parker was dating an anchor. Ward was engaged to a producer.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart says it will stop stocking the AR-15 and other semi-automatic weapons at its stores because fewer people are buying them. The retailer says it will replace them with more hunting rifles and shot guns. A Wal-Mart spokesman says the semi-automatic weapons were sold at fewer than a third of its 4,600 U.S. stores.
ORFORD, N.H. (AP) — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says Donald Trump will not be the Republican presidential nominee because his message is not an optimistic one. He's taking issue with Trump's campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again," saying America is already a great country that can be made greater. Rubio has largely shied away from taking on Trump, even as rivals such as Jeb Bush and Rand Paul have become more forceful in criticizing the billionaire businessman who sits atop Republican polls.
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