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Trump-endorsed challengers lag behind incumbent Republicans in fundraising

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Three of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump have tapped out early to announce they are not seeking reelection in 2022 — but the remaining seven appear to be running strong races, judging by fundraising numbers disclosed in the latest campaign finance filings.

As 2022 candidates were gearing up for the upcoming midterm election none of the Trump-endorsed challengers vying to unseat those seven House Republicans managed to outraise the sitting lawmakers in the last quarter of 2021, filings released this week show.

It’s not uncommon for incumbents to have a big cash advantage over their challengers, but the large fundraising gaps hint at the long way Trump-backed challengers have to go to — despite the former president’s support.

Most notably, Rep. Liz Cheney — with backing from both establishment Republicans and moderate Democrats — has broken her own fundraising records, despite being the most high-profile Republican on Trump’s 2022 hit list.

The Wyoming Republican reported raising more than $2 million in just the final three months of last year, bringing her 2021 fundraising total to $7.2 million. Her Trump-endorsed primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, raised less than half of Cheney’s fourth-quarter haul during the same period, reporting just over $745,000.

As the 2022 election year ramps up, Hageman’s cash on hand is just $381,000 compared to Cheney’s $4.7 million war chest, according to filings.

Cheney, one of two Republicans on the nine-member House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, has also received support from some major liberal donors who typically give only to Democrats, including investor and billionaire John Pritzker of the Pritzker family, who maxed out on his contribution to Cheney by giving $10,800 to her joint fundraising committee earlier last year.

Also among those rallying behind Cheney are Trump critics within the Republican Party, including former Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., who is among several Republican lawmakers who announced their retirement after clashing with pro-Trump GOP forces.

“My wife and I maxed out for Liz and then we held a fundraiser for her because we wanted to speak up,” Rooney, who gave Cheney’s joint fundraising committee $10,800 back in May, told ABC News.

Rooney, who had previously given upwards of $1 million to various GOP candidates groups over the years, told ABC News that he’s no longer giving to the RNC and Republicans except for Cheney and a handful of others, because he’s tired of Trump-dominated narratives within the Republican Party.

Among Cheney’s other donors in the final months of last year was former President George W. Bush, who maxed out on his donation to her campaign by giving $5,800 in October.

Bush also gave $2,800 to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who has been targeted by Trump for being one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him in his impeachment trial last year, and the only one of them up for reelection this year. Similar to Cheney, Murkowski outraised her Trump-endorsed challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, by more than double in the final three months of 2021, and entered the 2022 election year with $4.3 million on hand.

Reps. Fred Upton and Peter Meijer, both representing Michigan, also boasted major fundraising advantages over their respective Trump-endorsed challengers, Steve Carra and John Gibbs, both bringing in five times the amount their challengers took in last quarter.

In Washington’s 3rd District, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler held a narrower fundraising gap over Trump-backed challenger Joe Kent, but still entered 2022 with a much larger war chest than his rival.

South Carolina Republican Russell Fry, who Trump endorsed just this week, managed to raise close to the amount raised by incumbent Rep. Tom Rice, but still faces Rice’s big war chest of nearly $2 million.

Former Trump aide Max Miller, who’s running to fill retiring GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez’s seat in Ohio, continued to report the strongest fundraising figures among contenders vying for Gonzalez’s open seat. Although his fundraising showed signs of slowing down in the final quarter of 2021, with contributions of $181,000 compared to the nearly $700,000 he raised in the previous quarter, he nonetheless entered 2022 with nearly $1 million in cash on hand.

Miller was one of several big-name Trump-aligned GOP candidates who failed to maintain their massive fundraising momentum from the earlier part of 2021.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had boasted $3.5 million in donations in the first quarter of 2021, reported a relatively small $1.2 million haul in the final quarter, while Reps. Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert’s fundraising both gradually slowed down throughout the year.

In Senate races, Sen. Tim Scott, who is endorsed by Trump and is also considered a possible 2024 presidential election contender, continued to bring in large sums, raising $7 million in the fourth quarter.

Rep. Mo Brooks, who is running for a Senate seat, was significantly outraised in the fourth quarter by his GOP primary challenger Katie Britt, who raised $1.2 million compared to Brooks’ $385,000 — a huge drop from what he raised in the previous quarter.

In North Carolina, no GOP Senate candidate raised more than a million dollars in the final quarter amid a competitive primary. Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Ted Budd brought in $968,360 while former North Carolina Republican Gov. Patrick McCory raised $748,072 and Rep. Mark Walker brought in only $146,053. The split among Republican donors could make Trump’s endorsement all the more important for Budd, the current leading fundraiser.

In Pennsylvania, the Senate primary field was upended when the Trump-endorsed candidate dropped out in November, leading two relative newcomers to emerge on the campaign trail. TV doctor Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick are reportedly dropping millions in advertising, but it remains to be seen whether they’re getting any return on their investment. Trump has yet to make an endorsement in the race.

The candidate who appears to have raised the most money of any GOP challenger is Georgia Senate candidate and former football star Herschel Walker, who raised $5.4 million in the fourth quarter to lift his fundraising total to $10 million since the start of his campaign — signaling what could be an expensive general election race between him and Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, who has nearly $23 million in cash on hand.

“This massive fundraising haul, likely the largest in the country for a non-incumbent, shows that Georgia Republicans are clearly united behind Herschel Walker and are ready to take on Senator Warnock,” Scott Paradise, campaign manager for Team Herschel, said in a press release last week.

On the Democratic side, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly joins Warnock as the party’s top two fundraisers, with Kelly holding $19 million in cash on hand as both men seek reelection.

In what could be a tight Senate primary race in Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman held a strong lead in fundraising over the course of last year, but fellow Western Pennsylvanian Rep. Conor Lamb appears to be gaining traction, bringing in $1.35 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.

In North Carolina, leading Senate candidate Cheri Beasley took in $2.1 million in the final quarter of 2021, with 90% of her donations being $100 or less, according to her campaign. Beasley’s campaign manager, Travis Brimm, said in a press release that they are “committed to building a strong, grassroots campaign that touches every corner of the state and helps lead to victory in November.”

And nationally, the Democratic Party and Republican Party fared about even with their national party committees’ fundraising in 2021.

In total, the RNC outraised the DNC by $8 million, but the DNC entered the election year with a bigger war chest, reporting $67 million in cash on hand compared to $56 million for the RNC.

The Senate and House arms of the Republican Party also slightly outraised their Democratic counterparts, and entered the year with a slightly bigger war chest of $111 million compared to the Democratic committees’ $106 million.

Congressional bill seeks to end legacy admissions at colleges

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A bill introduced in Congress Wednesday by Democratic lawmakers seeks to end legacy admissions at many U.S. colleges and universities.

The so-called Fair College Admissions for Students Act would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to bar institutions of higher education that participate in federal student aid programs from giving admissions preference to applicants with legacy or donor status, a common practice at elite institutions.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) in an attempt to address what they said is an unfair and inequitable admissions process that disproportionately benefits wealthy, white and connected students.

“All students deserve an equitable opportunity to gain admission to institutions of higher education, but students whose parents didn’t attend or donate to a university are often overlooked in the admissions process due to the historically classist and racist legacy and donor admissions practices at many schools across the country,” Bowman said in a statement.

Merkley said the bill would seek to level the playing field for minority and first-generation students especially.

“Children of donors and alumni may be excellent students and well-qualified, but the last people who need extra help in the complicated and competitive college admissions process are those who start with the advantages of family education and money,” he said in a statement.

The bill would allow the education secretary to waive the legacy preference ban for institutions like historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and minority-serving institutions, which admit high levels of underrepresented students already.

Legacy preferences are common among selective colleges; according to the progressive think tank The Century Foundation, three-quarters of the nation’s top 100 national universities in U.S. News & World Report employ them, and nearly all the 100 liberal arts colleges do.

The legacy preference is worth an extra 160 points for children of alumni, researchers from Princeton University found.

Supporters of legacy preferences argue that legacies can help boost an institution’s ability to award financial assistance to low-income students.

Several institutions, including Johns Hopkins University and Amherst College, have ended their practice of legacy admissions in recent years.

Last year, Colorado became the first state to enact a law banning legacy admissions at public colleges and universities. In the wake of the “Varsity Blues” scandal, California didn’t ban legacy admissions but did require institutions whose students receive state financial aid to disclose how many applicants are accepted through the practice.

The Fair College Admissions for Students Act is introduced as the Supreme Court is poised to hear challenges to affirmative action, which also could have implications for many colleges and universities’ admissions policies.

Biden relaunches cancer ‘moonshot’ initiative to help cut death rate

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday relaunched the federal government’s cancer “moonshot” initiative, with the goal of cutting the death rate from cancer in half over the next quarter-century.

“We can end cancer as we know it,” Biden said during an event at the White House.

The initiative is personal for Biden, who lost his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015 and who first launched the initiative as vice president.

“I committed to this fight when I was vice president,” Biden said Wednesday. “It’s one of the reasons why quite frankly why I ran for president. Let there be no doubt, now that I am president, this is a presidential, White House priority. Period.”

After the Obama presidency, Biden and wife — and now first lady — Jill Biden founded a nonprofit foundation dedicated to finding a cure for cancer.

In 2016, Congress authorized $1.8 billion in funding for the government’s moonshot initiative over seven years. There’s $410 million left for the next two fiscal years.

In addition to cutting today’s age-adjusted death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years — after it has fallen by about 25% over the past 20 years — the initiative will aim to “improve the experience of people and their families living with and surviving cancer,” the White House said.

“It’s bold,” Biden said. “It’s ambitious. But it’s completely doable. Just as we harnessed the size to develop cutting edge COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, we’ll bring a fierce sense of urgency to the fight against cancer.”

On Wednesday, Biden said he was “announcing a call to action for cancer screening and early detection.”

More than 9.5 million cancer screenings were missed in the U.S. because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House said.

“We have to get cancer screenings back on track,” Biden said. “And make sure they’re accessible to all Americans.”

But the pandemic has also led Biden to set “very ambitious goals,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters Tuesday.

“The scientific advances that we saw from the COVID-19 pandemic, from the response to it, also points to things that are possible today,” the official said.

One example, according to the White House, is that the relaunched initiative will aim to “study and evaluate multi-cancer detection tests, like we did for COVID-19.”

The cancer “moonshot” initiative will have a coordinator in the White House, and the White House will form a “cancer cabinet” of officials from across the federal government. The initiative will involve the private sector, foundations, academic institutions and others, too.

Other goals, according to the White House, include increasing equitable access to screening and prevention — with at-home screening, mobile screening, and community health networks, as well as “accelerating efforts to nearly eliminate cervical cancer through screening and HPV vaccination, with a particular focus on reaching people who are most at risk.”

There will be a White House cancer “moonshot” summit, as well as a White House roundtable conversation series, they said.

The president also called on Congress to approve funding for a research project he has proposed to be housed at the National Institutes of Health, called “Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H),” which would try to develop breakthroughs for several diseases.

Biden was joined Wednesday in the White House’s East Room by about 100 members of the cancer community, including patients, survivors, researchers, advocates, caregivers, members of Congress and others, according to senior Biden administration officials.

During his remarks, the president drew on his own family’s experience navigating a cancer diagnosis, articulating many of the challenges people around the country face after hearing they have cancer.

“Despite all the progress,” Biden said, “there’s still a sense of powerlessness, guilt that maybe you’re not doing enough because you don’t know enough.”

The first lady and Vice President Kamala Harris. whose mother was a breast cancer researcher, also spoke.

ABC News’ Molly Nagle contributed reporting.

CNN president Jeff Zucker resigns, says he failed to disclose consensual relationship with colleague

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — CNN president Jeff Zucker announced Wednesday that he’s resigning for not disclosing a consensual relationship with a colleague.

Zucker said in a note to employees, “As part of the investigation into Chris Cuomo’s tenure at CNN, I was asked about a consensual relationship with my closest colleague, someone I have worked with for more than 20 years. I acknowledged the relationship evolved in recent years. I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong.”

The colleague, who is not leaving the company, said in a statement, “Jeff and I have been close friends and professional partners for over 20 years. Recently, our relationship changed during COVID. I regret that we didn’t disclose it at the right time. I’m incredibly proud of my time at CNN and look forward to continuing the great work we do everyday.”

WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar said in a companywide memo that he accepted Zucker’s resignation and that he’ll announce an interim leadership plan soon.

“We thank Jeff for his contributions over the past 9 years,” Kilar said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Biden orders US troop deployments to reassure NATO allies amid Russia standoff

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has ordered U.S. troop deployments to reassure NATO allies amid the standoff with Russia over Ukraine.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced the imminent arrival of several thousand U.S. troops — some already in Europe and some from the U.S. — to NATO allies in eastern Europe at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday — the first major movement of U.S. forces in response to concerns Russia will invade Ukraine.

“President Biden has been clear that the United States will respond to the growing threat to Europe’s security and stability. Our commitment to NATO Article 5 and collective defense remains ironclad. As part of this commitment and to be prepared for a range of contingencies, the United States will soon move additional forces to Romania, Poland, and Germany,” Kirby said.

All of the troops would be under U.S. command.

“I want to be very clear about something. These are not permanent moves. They are moved designed to respond to the current security environment. Moreover, these forces are not going to fight in Ukraine. They are going to ensure the robust defense of our NATO allies,” he added.

A senior defense official had earlier confirmed to ABC News that about 3,000 U.S. troops will be given orders to deploy to Europe or, if they’re already in Europe, to head to countries in eastern Europe.

One of the units moving into eastern Europe from Germany is an armored Stryker unit.

“It’s important that we send a strong signal to Mr. Putin and frankly, to the world that NATO matters to the United States. It matters to our allies, and we have ironclad Article 5 commitments attack on one is an attack on all,” Kirby said.

The troop movements are separate from the 8,500 U.S. troops put on “heightened alert” to reinforce NATO’s Response Force if needed — and none would go to Ukraine.

Pressed on what signal it sends that the U.S. is not waiting for a NATO vote to deploy an alliance force, Kirby said “the signal that sends — that we’re that we’re moving additional U.S. forces into allied territory, at the request and with the invitation of those countries — is that we take our NATO commitments very, very seriously.”

Kirby said 1,000 soldiers based in Germany will arrive in Romania in “the coming days” at the request of the country, augmenting the roughly 900 U.S. troops already in Romania. Another 2,000 troops from Fort Bragg in North Carolina will deploy to Poland and Germany, most to Poland.

“The 82nd Airborne Division is deploying components of an Infantry Brigade Combat Team and key enablers to Poland. And the 18th Airborne Corps is moving a joint task force capable headquarters to Germany. Both of them as you know are based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina,” Kirby said.

The announcement comes after Biden told reporters on Friday that he would be moving American forces “in the near term.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the escalating tensions on the U.S. and the West for having “ignored” Russia’s key demand that NATO bar Ukraine from joining the organization. The U.S. and NATO allies argue Russia is the aggressor, having already invaded Crimea and massing troops at the border.

This a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Major winter storm strikes from Denver to Chicago before heading to Northeast

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A major winter storm is moving across the Heartland Wednesday, bringing snow from Denver to Chicago and ice as far south as Texas.

More than 1 foot of snow is expected from northern Missouri into Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan.

A winter storm warning has been issued in Chicago where 5 to 10 inches of snow is expected.

A winter storm warning was also issued in Denver where up to 6 inches of additional snow is forecast.

Denver schools are closed Wednesday due to the storm.

As of Tuesday night, 1,212 flights were already canceled for Wednesday due to the storm, with St. Louis, Chicago, Denver, Detroit and Kansas City seeing the biggest impacts.

In Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson has issued a state of emergency.

Further south, an ice storm warning has been issued from Memphis to Louisville, where the ice could be as thick as half an inch, sending trees toppling onto power lines.

A winter storm warning was also issued for Dallas where ice could make roads very dangerous.

The storm will then move into the Northeast Thursday night into Friday morning, bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain.

Over 1 foot of snow is possible in western Pennsylvania, upstate New York and parts of New England.

A winter storm watch has been issued for Boston, where residents are still digging out from last weekend’s massive snowstorm.

Dangerous ice accumulation is possible from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia to New York City to Boston.

New York City will see rain on Thursday which will then change to freezing rain and some sleet on Friday morning. The National Weather Service warns that New York City Tristate region should be prepared for dangerous travel conditions on Friday.

Houthi missile intercepted by UAE during historic Israeli visit raises tensions

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(JERUSALEM)– While Israeli’s president Isaac Herzog was in Abu Dhabi on a historic visit on Monday, United Arab Emirates officials announced that a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels had been intercepted, the third such attack in three weeks.

Tensions between the two countries have escalated as the Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for a Jan. 15 drone-and-missile attack on the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot, killing three people and wounding six. It was the first deadly attack since 2018, when the UAE-backed forces were fighting the Houthis for control of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

“The operation led to a large number of death and wounded, including Emiratis,” Yahya Sare’e, spokesman of the Houthis, tweeted on Tuesday.

A Saudi-led coalition retaliated the day after with an airstrike on Yemen, killing about 80 people.

In 2020, the UAE and Bahrain signed U.S.-brokered normalization agreements with Israel, known as the “Abraham Accords.” Iran and its regional allies, including the Houthis, were among their shared security concerns. Iran, meanwhile, denounced any normalization of relations with Israel.

“The Islamic republic of Iran not only condemns what some countries are doing aiming at normalization, but also believes that those countries should listen to awakening calls by their own people and stop sowing discord in the Muslim and Arab world. This will be much better for the region’s future,” spokesman of Iran’s foreign ministry Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday, according to the Tasnim News Agency.

Yemeni minister of information Dhaif Allah Al-Shami, also made clear his country’s similar stance.

“Every country has its own way of welcoming the leaders of the Zionist entity [Israel], and we in Yemen have only done our duty,” he said on Twitter.

Zakaria Al-Qaq, an expert in national security and war studies, told ABC News the Houthi attack on the UAE coinciding with the Israeli president’s visit had a clear message: “To stop the UAE intervention in Yemen.”

“Second, it’s not only a rejection to the Israel Emirates relation but also a threat to Yemeni National Security, because [of] the security coordination between the two countries,” he added.

Houthis have declared they would continue to fire rockets into the UAE.

“The armed forces affirm that the state of the Emirati enemy will be an unsafe as long as the tools of the Israeli enemy in Abu Dhabi and Dubai continue to launch aggression against our people and our country,” Sare’e wrote in another tweet.

The Houthi spokesman has also repeated threats, telling citizens, residents and companies in the UAE “to stay away from vital headquarters and facilities, as they are vulnerable to targeting during the coming period.”

People in the already war-worn Yemen have been going through a difficult humanitarian situation over the past years. The World Food Programme has warned that more than five million people are on the verge of famine, with 50,000 others now living in famine-like conditions.

The spate of recent attacks have helped raise crude oil prices above $90 per barrel, another worry for a global economy already struggling through the pandemic.

American statesman Bob Dole to be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(ARLINGTON COUNTY, Va.) — Former Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole — a decorated World War II veteran and presidential candidate who served in Congress for 36 years — will be laid to rest with military honors on Wednesday at historic Arlington National Cemetery.

Dole died on Dec. 5, 2021, after announcing last February that he’d been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and was starting treatment.

Dole’s wife of 46 years, former Cabinet secretary and North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole, and daughter, Robin, are expected to attend the invitation-only, graveside funeral with family members, close friends and former colleagues. Dole was given the rare honor to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda late last year before his body was taken to his home state of Kansas for memorials and then back to Washington, where he’ll be laid to rest Wednesday afternoon alongside American war heroes.

Dole, a native of Russell, Kansas, served as an army officer in World War II and was severely wounded in action at age 21, left with permanent limited mobility in his right arm. Overcoming adversity, Dole went on to graduate law school, serve in the Kansas legislature, and represent his home state for four terms in the House of Representatives and five terms in the Senate, where he led the Republican Conference for more than a decade.

In Congress, he was an advocate for the rights of veterans and Americans with disabilities, spearheading the inclusion of protections against discrimination in employment, education and public services in the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Dole also served as national chairman of the World War II Memorial Campaign which raised funds for the World War II Memorial to be built on the National Mall.

He ran three times for president, ultimately winning the Republican party nomination in 1996 but losing the general election to Bill Clinton, who was seeking a second term. Months later, Clinton presented Dole with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House.

In a USA Today op-ed he finished on pen and paper less than two weeks before his death, Dole wrote Congress needs teamwork now more than ever, writing, “Those who suggest that compromise is a sign of weakness misunderstand the fundamental strength of our democracy.”

Biden to relaunch cancer ‘moonshot’ initiative to help cut death rate

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday will relaunch the federal government’s cancer “moonshot” initiative, with the goal of cutting the death rate from cancer in half over the next quarter-century, according to the White House.

The initiative is personal for Biden, who lost his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015 and who first launched the initiative as vice president.

After the Obama presidency, Biden and wife — and now first lady — Jill Biden founded a nonprofit foundation dedicated to finding a cure for cancer.

In 2016, Congress authorized $1.8 billion in funding for the initiative over seven years. There’s $410 million left for the next two fiscal years.

“Taken together, these actions will drive us toward ending cancer as we know it today,” the White House said.

On Wednesday, Biden and the first lady will also announce “a call to action on cancer screening to jumpstart progress on screenings that were missed as a result of the pandemic, and help ensure that everyone in the United States equitably benefits from the tools we have to prevent, detect and diagnose cancer,” according to the White House.

More than 9.5 million cancer screenings were missed in the U.S. because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House said.

But the pandemic has also led Biden to set “very ambitious goals,” a senior White House official told reporters Tuesday.

“The scientific advances that we saw from the COVID-19 pandemic, from the response to it, also points to things that are possible today,” the official said.

One example, according to the White House, is that the re-launched initiative will aim to “study and evaluate multi-cancer detection tests, like we did for COVID-19.”

There will be a White House cancer “moonshot” summit, as well as a White House roundtable conversation series, they said.

On Wednesday, Biden will speak at an event in the White House’s East Room, joined by about 100 members of the cancer community — patients, survivors, researchers, advocates, caregivers, members of Congress and others — according to a senior administration official. The first lady and Vice President Kamala Harris (whose mother was a breast cancer researcher) will also make remarks, the official said.

Two officers killed during shooting at Bridgewater College campus, suspect in custody

February 2, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(BRIDGEWATER, Va.) — A campus police officer and a campus safety officer were killed during a shooting at a Virginia college Tuesday afternoon after responding to reports of a “suspicious” person on campus, officials said.

Multiple agencies responded to Bridgewater College in Bridgewater following a report of an active shooter around 1:20 p.m. local time, school officials said.

The two officers were responding to a call of a “suspicious male individual” on the grounds of the college’s Memorial Hall, according to Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller. After a brief interaction, the suspect opened fire, striking both officers, she said.

The suspect fled on foot and was apprehended about a half-hour later off-campus, officials said. Officers followed the suspect after he waded into the North Rive, onto an island in the river, and he was taken into custody without incident, Geller said.

The two officers died from their injuries, Bridgewater spokesperson Logan Boger confirmed to ABC News. They were identified by the college’s president as Campus Police Officer John Painter and Campus Safety Officer J.J. Jefferson.

“Today our campus community experienced unspeakable tragedy. Two members of the Bridgewater College family were senselessly and violently taken from us,” Bridgewater College President David Bushman said in a statement.

“This is a sad and dark day for Bridgewater College. I know we all have so many questions and not many answers,” he said.

The officers were known as the “dynamic duo” and were close friends, Bushman said. Painter was Jefferson’s best man in his wedding this year, he said.

The suspect was identified by authorities as 27-year-old Alexander Wyatt Campbell, of Ashland, Virginia. He has been charged with felonies: 2 counts of capital murder, 1 count of first-degree murder and 1 count of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, according to Geller, and is being held without bond at the Rockingham County Jail.

Campbell was treated for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, according to Geller. It is unclear if he was shot by Painter, who was the only one of the two officers armed, or if it was self-inflicted, she said.

Multiple firearms “associated with Campbell” were recovered on and off-campus and seized as evidence, Geller said.

Virginia State Police did not comment on Campbell’s relationship to the college, but Geller said several college employees called 911 after seeing the suspect in and around Memorial Hall. “He was not supposed to be in this particular location,” she said.

A motive is still under investigation, and Campbell is the lone suspect, police said. It is unclear if he has an attorney.

Bridgewater Mayor Ted Flory said the community is “shocked by today’s senseless violence.”

“We are heartbroken by the needless injuries and loss of life. And we are rightly angered at the evil which alighted upon us,” he said in a statement. “But even in our grief, we turn our heads and we see the goodness of humanity: police officers running toward the danger, rescue personnel rushing in, and neighbors keeping each other safe.”

Agencies including the Virginia State Police, the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office and the Harrisonburg Police Department responded to the college following reports of an active shooter. The FBI was also sending agents to the scene, according to a spokesperson.

By 4:33 p.m., the university gave an “all clear” message on its website.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a statement on social media that he had been briefed on the situation and “will continue to monitor the situation in conjunction with law enforcement.”

Bridgewater, a small private liberal arts college, enrolled around 1,500 full-time students as of fall 2021.

Classes were canceled for Wednesday. School officials said they will provide information soon on grief counseling and other support.

The is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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