Earl Neikirk / Bristol Herald Courier via AP

Emergency personnel attend to the injured after a car veered into paradegoers in Damascus, Va., on Saturday, injuring dozens.

DAMASCUS, Va. -- An elderly driver plowed into dozens of hikers marching in a Saturday parade in a small Virginia mountain town and investigators were looking into whether he suffered a medical emergency before the accident.

About 50 to 60 people suffered injuries ranging from critical to superficial, but no fatalities were reported. Three of the worst injured were flown by helicopter to area hospitals. Their conditions weren't immediately available.

Another 12 to 15 victims were taken to hospitals by ambulance and the rest were treated at the scene, where some paramedics and other first-responders were participating in the parade.

It happened around 2:10 p.m. during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, near the Tennessee state line about a half-hour drive east of Bristol.

Damascus Police Chief Bill Nunley didn't release the driver's name or age but said he was participating in the parade and he had traversed the Appalachian Trail in the past. Multiple witnesses described him as an elderly man.

Nunley said the man's 1997 Cadillac was one of the last vehicles in the parade and the driver might have suffered an unspecified medical problem when his car accelerated to about 25 mph and struck the crowd on a two-lane bridge along the town's main road. The driver was among those taken to hospitals.

"It is under investigation and charges may be placed," Nunley said.

Witnesses said the car had a handicapped parking sticker and it went more than 100 feet before coming to a stop.

"He was hitting hikers," said Vickie Harmon, a witness from Damascus. "I saw hikers just go everywhere."

Amanda Puckett, who was watching the parade with her children, ran to the car, where she and others lifted the car off those pinned underneath.

"Everybody just threw our hands up on the car and we just lifted the car up," she said.

Keith Neumann, a hiker from South Carolina, said he was part of the group that scrambled around the car. They pushed the car backward to free a woman trapped underneath and lifted it off the ground to make sure no one else was trapped.

"There's no single heroes. We're talking about a group effort of everybody jumping in," he said.

Nunley cited quick action by police, firefighters, paramedics and hikers to tend to the victims, including a volunteer firefighter who dove into the car to turn off the ignition. The firefighter, whose name wasn't released, suffered minor injuries.

Mayor Jack McCrady encouraged people to attend the festival on Sunday, its final day.

"In 27 years of this, we've never had anything of this magnitude, and is it our job to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

McCrady said a donation fund was being set up to assist the injured, some of whom don't have medical insurance.

"We want to make sure they don't suffer any greater loss than they already have," he said. 

A Virginia judge convicted a high school student accused in a sex-tape scandal on Thursday.

The teen was accused of recording girls while he and his friends had sex with them.

Two other boys already pleaded guilty to unlawful filming, but attorneys for the third boy fought the charges.

He and his two best friends allegedly recorded several sex tapes with girls their age. The defense argued the case is about expectations of privacy, claiming the girls caught on camera knew there was a chance they could be recorded.

One of the explicit videos was recorded in an elementary school parking lot, and the 17-year-old girl involved took the stand. She was asked if she knew a camera was present. She broke down crying as she explained that she made it clear she did not want to be recorded.

More news from NBCWashington.com

Another girl testified that in a separate incident she chased a boy with an iPhone into a bathroom, and the boy tried to convince her he hadn’t been recording.

The two teens who pleaded guilty also took the stand against their friend, who is a student at West Springfield High School in Springfield, Va.

The Fairfax County judge convicted the boy of two felony counts of unlawful filming, but acquitted him of distribution of child pornography and another charge.

Sarah Cole / AL.com via AP file

People opposing and supporting abortion rights demonstrate outside the Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville in February.

When Virginia approved restrictions that could force abortion clinics to close, it joined a rapidly growing list of states that are energizing social conservatives by making it more difficult for women to terminate pregnancies.

Four other states have tightened abortion restrictions in less than two months — part of what abortion-rights groups say is an alarming trend since Republicans swept the 2010 elections. The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday called the Virginia restrictions “excessive and inappropriate.”

Anti-abortion groups see evidence of a break between the relatively stable politics of abortion at the national level and the action in the states.

“There’s a fundamental culture change going on,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, which supports anti-abortion political candidates. She called the recent restrictions “common-sense, common-ground” measures.

“The middle ground is exactly where most people are,” she said in an interview. “They want to see clinic regulation. They want to see parental notification. They don’t like late-term abortions.”

Arkansas legislators, overriding the Democratic governor, banned abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The Kansas legislature blocked certain tax breaks for abortion providers and declared that life begins at fertilization.

Julie Bennett / AL.com via AP

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, back left, Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey, second left, and others applaud as Gov. Robert Bentley signs an abortion clinic regulation bill on April 9.

Alabama enacted a law last week requiring abortion doctors to have permission to perform the procedure at local hospitals, challenging a practice under which clinics bring in physicians from out of town.

And in late March, the governor of North Dakota signed the toughest abortion law in the nation — a ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, a restriction that even some abortion opponents say is designed to provoke a court challenge.

“Although the likelihood of this measure surviving a court challenge remains in question, this bill is nevertheless a legitimate attempt by a state legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade,” Gov. Jack Dalrymple said.

In Virginia, the Board of Health on Friday voted 11-2 to require abortion clinics to meet the same architectural standards required of new hospitals. Abortion-rights groups say the standard is clearly designed to be so costly that clinics will have no choice but to close.

“This is a blatant attempt to impose a backdoor ban on safe, legal abortion care,” said Caroline O’Shea, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, which supports abortion rights.

The Guttmacher Institute, a research group that studies reproductive health, reported this week that 694 state provisions on reproduction have been introduced this year, about half of them to restrict abortion.

Among those are provisions in 14 states seeking to ban abortion before the fetus is viable. In recent years, the institute said, lawmakers had focused on regulating abortion, such as requiring ultrasounds for pregnant women.

“Legislators this year seem to be focusing on banning abortion outright,” it said.

Grisly Philadelphia case
Conservative bloggers, including at RedState and National Review, have lashed out this week at national media organizations for not paying enough attention to the gruesome trial of a Philadelphia abortion provider accused of killing seven late-term fetuses after they were born alive.

The doctor, Kermit Gosnell, faces the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors say he killed some of the fetuses by plunging scissors into their necks and snipping the spinal cord.

Stephen Massof, an unlicensed medical school graduate who worked at the clinic, testified last week that women were sometimes given medicine to speed deliveries and “it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.”

The accelerated restrictions on abortion come at a time when Americans have deeply mixed feelings about the procedure.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday found that 52 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal with some or no exceptions, compared with 45 percent who believe it should be legal most or all of the time.

Those figures have been roughly unchanged over the past decade, although the same poll found in January that only 44 percent believed it should be illegal with some or no exceptions.

Still, that January poll, timed at the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that established a limited right to abortion, found that seven in 10 Americans wanted it to stand, the highest figure since 1989.

Giving ground
The state restrictions have been enacted while national Republicans have given ground on other cultural issues.

Two Republican senators have announced support for gay marriage. Republicans are working with Democrats on a way to establish some path to citizenship for undocumented workers.

And on Thursday, 16 Republican senators joined most Democrats to overcome a threatened filibuster on a bill that would expand criminal background checks for gun sales and toughen penalties for illegal sales.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican vice presidential nominee last year, told an anti-abortion group on Thursday that Republicans “need to work with people who consider themselves pro-choice.”

He also said: “We don’t want a country where abortion is simply outlawed. We want a country where it isn’t even considered.”

Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, pointed out that three dozen governorships will be decided in the 2014 election, and suggested the restrictions passed over the past few weeks would wake up voters.

“What we’re seeing here is an extreme position about women’s rights that was soundly rejected in the 2012 election at the federal level,” she told MSNBC. “These governors should be watching very, very carefully.”

Related:

Kansas lawmakers pass sweeping anti-abortion legislation

Abortion worker at trial: 'It was literally a beheading'

North Dakota governor signs toughest anti-abortion package in US

Arkansas lawmakers approve toughest abortion limits in nation

WSLS 10

Police vehicles outside the New River Valley Mall in Christiansburg, Va.

Two women were shot Friday at a Virginia mall that houses a community college, and police have the gunman in custody, authorities said.

AP

This photo provided by the Christiansburg Police Department shows shooting suspect Neil Allen MacInnis, of Christiansburg, Va..

One victim was airlifted to a hospital. The other was taken to the hospital by ambulance and was in stable condition, officials said.

Police identified Neil Allen MacInnis, 18, a student at the college, as a suspect in the shooting.

Students and workers were evacuated after gunshots rang out at the New River Valley Mall in Christiansburg, NBC station WSLS reported. Local schools were briefly locked down.

A 911 call came in at 1:55 p.m. and cops were on the scene within five minutes.

A witness told the Roanoke Times that a gunman walked into the lobby of the mall, near the New River Community College, and pointed it at a woman.

Students in a classroom heard what they thought was a door slamming before they realized it was gunshots. A teacher told them to run.

“I heard one gunshot, and I didn’t know what it was,” student Josh Brown told the paper. “I saw people running out.”

“I’ll be scared to come back to school,” he added, starting to cry. “What’s wrong with people? Who would do something like this?”

The identities of the victims and any other identifying information are not being released in order to protect their privacy.

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 12, 2013 3:21 PM EDT

Jason Reed / Reuters file

President Obama is seen through the screen of a teleprompter as he meets members of the audience following remarks in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Jan. 25, 2012.

A Virginia man was sentenced to seven years in prison for swiping President Obama's teleprompter and a truckload full of other White House press gear.

Eric Brown pleaded guilty to theft of government property in January. The 49-year-old Richmond man had a history of drug use according to court papers, and was a suspect in about a dozen other truck thefts.  

“If I had to sum up Mr. Brown’s character, it would be that he’s a thief,” U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney said at the Thursday sentencing, according to The Associated Press.

Brown picked up the White House communications staff van from a hotel parking lot in October 2011.

The man did not immediately realize whose van he had stolen until he began unloading the vehicle, prosecutor Laura Taylor said. Brown somehow missed the presidential seals on the exterior of the truck, but realized the mess his sticky fingers had gotten him into when he discovered the teleprompter, sound system, and other press office equipment, she said.

“The theft of government property is a serious offense,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Roderick Young said. “It’s all the more serious when the property belongs to the White House Communications Agency.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

Arlington County Police Department

Kareem Jorif was arrested after allegedly throwing a meat cleaver in the maternity ward of Virginia Hospital Center.

A bizarre incident involving a meat cleaver in a hospital maternity ward landed a man behind bars.

Kareem Jorif, 34, of Arlington, Va., is charged with multiple counts of attempted malicious wounding and carrying a concealed weapon.

Jorif went into the maternity ward at Virginia Hospital Center last week and got into an argument when he was told he couldn't go into a patient's room, police said.

More from NBCWashington.com

Jorif allegedly pulled out the knife from his waistband and used it to bang on a door before tossing it into the patient's room, according to police.

Investigators said he'd gone to the hospital to tell the woman her baby's father couldn't visit because he'd just been arrested.

Jorif was being held without bond.

Hampton Police Division

Susan Alexandria Tinker, 20, was arrested Monday morning after falsely reporting a robbery at the Waffle House where she works.

A Virginia woman who falsely reported a Monday morning robbery at a Waffle House as an April Fools' Day prank has been arrested by police.

Susan Alexandria Tinker, 20, an employee at a Hampton, Va., branch of the Waffle House chain, allegedly called local authorities just before 6 a.m. Monday and claimed the restaurant was raided by robbers five minutes earlier, Hampton Police Division Cpl. Mary Shackelford told NBC News.

Police responded immediately and launched an investigation, interviewing other employees while a K-9 unit sniffed around the scene and investigators canvassed the neighborhood for suspects, Shackelford said.

But when police reviewed surveillance footage recorded during Tinker’s shift, they discovered unspecified evidence that the original 911 call was just an April Fools' Day hoax, Shackelford said.

Hampton police weren’t in the mood for a joke, and Tinker was arrested and charged with one misdemeanor count of falsely summoning police, according to authorities.

Shackelford said that police will not tolerate prank calls made to emergency officials.

"We take this very, very seriously," she said.

"Sometimes we'll get incidents where kids are playing around on the phone," Shackelford added. "But usually it's nothing of this caliber."

Related: Spoiler alert! April Fools' on the Internet

Reuters

Aaron Thomas, 41, known as the "East Coast Rapist."

The man referred to as the "East Coast Rapist" -- tied to a string of attacks along the Eastern Seaboard -- was indicted Tuesday in the county where he has said his reign of terror began.

Aaron Thomas, 41, was indicted by prosecutors in Prince George's County, Md., on six counts of first-degree rape and related charges, reported NBCWashington.com. He is accused of raping and kidnapping six women in the county between 1997 and 2001 and faces a total of 54 charges there, including first-degree sex-offense, kidnapping, theft, and false imprisonment, NBCWashington.com said.

Thomas is already behind bars in Virginia, serving five life sentences plus 80 years for a 2001 rape and abduction in Leesburg, Va., and a Halloween 2009 attack on three teenagers in Prince William County, Va.

"While we know that Mr. Thomas will spend the rest of his life in prison for his crimes, it is important that we prosecute him for the attacks he committed in our county, so these six victims can receive justice and closure from this terrible incident in their lives," said Prince George's County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks in a statement on Tuesday.

Thomas is linked by DNA evidence to more than a dozen sexual assaults dating back to 1997 from the Washington area to Connecticut.

Thomas told The Washington Post that his first rape was in Prince George’s County, and described several assaults that predate the ones known to authorities by several years.

The earliest attack for which he has been charged is a February 1997 assault in Prince George's County, in which a woman was confronted by an assailant on a 10-speed bike, according to The Post. 

He wasn't captured until March 2011 after a massive manhunt following the 2009 Halloween attack.

In a tell-all interview with the Post on Nov. 10, 2012, from his Virginia jail cell, Thomas admitted he was the man known as the "East Coast Rapist," something he has also admitted to law enforcement. 

“I need help with this problem. It’s serious,” Thomas told The Post in 2012. “I don’t think I’m crazy, but something is wrong with me.”