THIS JUST IN: @KanyeWest has decided to run for President in 2020. #VMAs

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Two beloved Virginia journalists were shot and killed Wednesday morning when a gunman opened fire in a shocking moment caught on live television.

Reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, worked for Roanoke-based news station WDBJ and were broadcasting from Smith Mountain Lake in the community of Moneta when multiple gunshots rang out around 6:45 a.m. Parker screamed and ducked before the camera turned off. Parker and Ward both died at the scene. Vicki Gardner, the executive director of the local Chamber of Commerce who Parker was interviewing at the time, was struck in the back and is in stable condition after undergoing surgery at a local hospital.

Police say the gunman was 41-year-old Vester Lee Flanagan, a former WDBJ reporter who went by “Bryce Williams” on air. Flanagan fled the scene, and law enforcement ultimately caught up to him at around 11:30 a.m., when his vehicle went off the highway and crashed. Officials found Flanagan suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital, but died of his injuries at around 1:30 p.m.

While Flanagan was running from the police, video footage of the attacks from the point of view of the shooter were posted to social media accounts bearing the name Bryce Williams. Tweets sent from the Williams account accused Parker of being “racist” and complained that Ward had once “sent [him] to HR.” Twitter and Facebook suspended the accounts involved.

Parker and Ward, both Virginia natives, were loved and respect by their colleagues and often worked together as a team on assignments.
 
“They were special people. They’d brighten up a room every morning,” anchor Kim McBroom said in a broadcast following the attack.
 
Parker "took on the morning live reporting job with great excitement and vigor" and Ward "was universally loved," WDBJ general manager Jeff Marks  told The Associated Press.
 
“My grief is unbearable,” Parker's father told The Washington Post. “Is this real? Am I going to wake up? I am crying my eyes out. I don’t know if there’s anybody in this world or another father who could be more proud of their daughter.”

 
Shortly after the shooting, WDBJ anchor Chris Hurst revealed on social media that he and Parker had been in a relationship for months and were “very much in love.” He described her as “the most radiant woman I had ever met” and that they had talked about getting married.

Ward had announced his own engagement to WDBJ morning producer Melissa Ott months ago. Ott was in the station’s control room during the shooting and  saw it happen live.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) called for stricter gun laws in the wake of the shooting, restating his support for background checks. He made the statement when asked during an online Q&A session whether he would call for tougher gun control as a result of the incident.

ATHENS, Aug 20 (Reuters) -- Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned on Thursday, hoping to strengthen his hold on power in snap elections after seven months in office in which he fought Greece's creditors for a better bailout deal but had to cave in.

Tsipras submitted his resignation to President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and asked for the earliest possible election date.

Government officials said the aim was to hold the election on Sept. 20, with Tsipras seeking to crush a rebellion in his leftist Syriza party and seal public support for the bailout program, Greece's third since 2010, that he negotiated.

"I will go the president of the republic shortly to submit my resignation, as well as the resignation of my government," Tsipras said in a televised address before he met Pavlopoulos.

Faced with a near collapse of the Greek financial system which threatened the country's future in the euro, Tsipras was forced to accept the creditors' demands for yet more austerity and economic reform -- the very policies he had promised to scrap when he was elected in January.

"I want to be honest with you. We did not achieve the agreement we expected before the January elections," he told the Greek people.

"I feel the deep ethical and political responsibility to put to your judgment all I have done, successes and failures."

His decision deepens political uncertainty on the day Greece began receiving funds under its 86 billion-euro ($96 billion) bailout program, five years after a previous government took the first bailout from the euro zone and IMF.

But a snap election should allow Tsipras to capitalize on his popularity with voters before the toughest parts of the latest program -- including further pension cuts, more value-added tax increases and a "solidarity" tax on incomes -- begin to bite. This may allow him to return to power in a stronger position without anti-bailout rebels in Syriza to slow him down.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs meetings of euro zone finance ministers, said he hoped the resignation would not delay or derail implementation of the bailout package.

"It is crucial that Greece maintains its commitments to the euro zone," he said in a statement to Reuters.

Washington (CNN)Ben Carson says homosexuality is a choice because many people "go into prison straight -- and when they come out, they're gay."

The neurosurgeon and potential Republican candidate for president in 2016 made the comment in an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo that aired Wednesday on "New Day."

Asked whether being gay is a choice, Carson responded: "Absolutely."

"Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight -- and when they come out, they're gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question," Carson said.

That argument, Carson said, "thwarts" the notion that homosexuality isn't a choice, which is at odds with the majority of the medical community, including the American Psychological Association, who says "most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation." Slate's Mark Joseph Stern also outlined the scientific arguments against this particular belief last year.

Carson also said he believes the issue of allowing or restricting same-sex marriage should be decided on the state level, rather than by federal courts -- even as the Supreme Court prepares to take up a case this spring that could legalize gay marriage nationwide.

He said it's possible to grant the legal rights that accompany marriage to same-sex couples -- or to any two people at all -- without applying the word "marriage" to their relationships.

"Why do gay people want to get married? Why do they say they want to get married? Because they want to have various rights -- property rights, visitation rights," he said. "Why can't any two human beings, I don't care what their sexual orientation is, why can't they have the legal right to do those things? That does not require changing the definition of marriage."