RICHMOND, Va. (AP) The political crisis in Virginia spun out of control Wednesday when the states attorney general confessed to putting on blackface in the 1980s and a woman went public with detailed allegations of sexual assault against the lieutenant governor.
With Gov. Ralph Northams career already hanging by a thread over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook, the days developments threatened to take down all three of Virginias top elected officials, all of them Democrats.
The twin blows began with Attorney General Mark Herring issuing a statement acknowledging he wore brown makeup and a wig in 1980 to look like a rapper during a party when he was a 19-year-old student at the University of Virginia.