An Arlington resident and former federal prosecutor is running for Virginia lieutenant governor.

Victor Salgado, the fifth declared candidate vying to be the Democratic Party’s nominee in November, knows he’s a political outsider. But he told ARLnow that possible federal policy changes inspired him to enter the political arena.

“We need to respond to some of the policies of federal encroachment coming our way with smart legislation and partnerships,” he said. “There are going to be important court battles, but I see our next steps as being primarily political.”

Salgado, who spent eight years working in the U.S. Department of Justice, kicked off his campaign this month and launched his website this week.

A campaign video mentions priorities of protections for reproductive rights, special education, and early childhood programs, as well as fighting possible policies related to immigration and citizenship status under the Trump administration.

“When that happens, Richmond needs to step up,” he said in the video.

Virginia’s lieutenant governor has limited duties but, as the president of the Senate, is a key figure in crafting policy around the statehouse.

The son of Peruvian immigrants, Salgado was born and raised in New Jersey. But his legal life — starting with a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University — began in the D.C. area.

From 2006 to 2012, he focused on compliance, enforcement and government investigations at a D.C. law office before leaving for a four-year stint as a Deputy Attorney General of New Jersey.

Salgado returned to the D.C. area in April 2016 as part of the DOJ’s public integrity section, which oversees the investigation and prosecution of all federal crimes affecting government integrity.

He was promoted to senior litigation counsel for the public integrity section in 2020, and remained in that position until this month.

“I cut my chops as a prosecutor, essentially policing our systems of government and protecting our democracy,” Salgado said. “That positions me — quite uniquely — to talk about the issues that I want to talk about in this campaign and the reason why I’m jumping at this juncture.”

Since September 2019, he has also worked as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, focusing on white collar crime and securities fraud.

“I am going to outwork everybody in this race,” Salgado said. “I quit the department so that I can focus on this, exclusively working 18-hour days non-stop from today through the primary.”

He said residents throughout Arlington and Virginia should keep an eye out for him.

“I will be talking to anybody who wants to talk to me,” the candidate said. “You will see me outside of Metro stops greeting people, meeting people outside of grocery stores, talking to people … I want to be busy. I intend to be busy. This is going to be my job, 24/7.”

The other candidates in the Democratic field are state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (15th District), Prince William County School Board chair Babur Lateef, state Sen. Aaron Rouse (22nd District) and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney.

The primary election is scheduled for June 17.

A large fire consumed multiple buildings Friday morning on the former Virginia Intermont College campus in what one city official called “a tragedy for our city.”

Videos shared on social media and captured by local news outlets show the massive blaze engulfing structures at the historic college campus. Located in Bristol in western Virginia along the Tennessee border, Virginia Intermont College closed in 2014.

Neal Osborne, a city councilman in Bristol, shared video of the blaze on Facebook, which he said had become “a full inferno” of the college’s main hall by 1:15 a.m.

“There’s no way around it – this is very bad and this is a tragedy for our city, this is a tragedy for our neighborhood, this is a tragedy for everyone who attended Virginia Intermont College,” Osborne said in the post. “This is heartbreaking to see this.”

USA TODAY left a phone message Friday morning with the Bristol Fire Department seeking an update on the fire.

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City councilman: Property owners ‘will have to answer’ for why fire erupted

The fire could be seen in videos burning the main building on campus, as well as adjacent structures. News crews with WJHL-TV reported observing the building collapse after 2 a.m.

Bristol police and firefighters were at the scene, and Osborne said in his video that firefighters from surrounding localities and departments also responded to provide additional aid.

Osborne said he and other city officials had for years pushed the owners of the private property to care for the aging infrastructure, but that those concerns “fell on deaf ears every single time.”

“They will have to answer for this in my mind,” Osborne said. “They will have to answer for why this property was not secured, why they did not take proactive steps to prevent this from happening.”

What is the Virginia Intermont College?

Constructed within view of the Blue Ridge Mountain range, Virginia Intermont College was founded in the late 1800s as an institute for women to get a higher education. It later become coeducational before it was finally shuttered in May 20, 2014 due to financial failure and the loss of its accreditation, the Roanoke Times reported.

Friday morning’s blaze is not the first time a fire has broken out on the closed campus.

Following a previous fire in November, Bristol Fire Chief Mike Armstrong told WJHL that the site was “dangerous” and said his crews prioritized fighting fires without stepping foot inside the aging buildings.

“The floors are rotten, the windows are broken out, the roofs are rotten. And it’s just not safe to be in there with all the debris, the broken glass,” Armstrong said. “I can tell you within the last 12 months, we’ve had multiple fires up here.”

Bristol Vice-Mayor Jake Holmes told WJHL that the site had fallen into disrepair and had become “a hazard.”

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com

An Egyptian man living in Virginia who was slated to be deported has been charged with planning an attack on the Israeli consulate in New York City.

Abdullah Azz al-Din Taha Muhammad Hassan allegedly provided bomb-making instructions and plans on how to attack the Manhattan consulate to an undercover FBI source, according to court documents. He was arrested Tuesday, the FBI told Fox News Digital. 

Hassan is charged with distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction in furtherance of the commission of a federal crime. 

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“The FBI’s New York Office wants to reassure our Jewish community here in New York that our office — along with our law enforcement partners — remains vigilant in our efforts to identify, investigate and disrupt potential threats to our community, using every tool at our disposal to do so. As always, we urge all community members to report suspicious activity to law enforcement and call 911 in cases of imminent violence or threats to life,” the FBI said in a statement. 

“We will continue working to ensure our communities remain safe places for all, and we thank the public for their continued trust and partnership.” 

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Hassan caught the FBI’s attention after the Fairfax County Police Department informed federal authorities that a tipster alerted police about his social media posts on X. The tipster said the account engaged in “radical and terrorist-leaning behavior.”

In several posts, Hassan praised the Islamic State terror group and other radical figures, federal prosecutors said. In August, he began messaging with an FBI confidential source whom he believed he recruited to conduct a “mass casualty attack,” authorities said. 

Demonstrators attend an “emergency rally for Gaza” outside the Israeli Consulate in New York City, Oct. 9, 2023. (Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News Digital)

Over several weeks, Hassan directed the informant on how to make a bomb, acquire weapons and how to make a “martyrdom video,” authorities said. In November, he allegedly selected the Consulate General of Israel as the target of the attack, saying it would be easier to commit an attack using small arms and be “martyred” by the police.

He believed New York would be “a gold mine of targets” for an attack, prosecutors said. As the pair planned the attack, Hassan also allegedly told him to book flights to countries without extradition agreements with the United States. During the attack, Hassan said the source could either murder people at the consulate with an assault rifle or detonate an explosive vest while standing in a group of targets, court documents state.

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Hassan also asked for the source to livestream the attack so he could watch it in real time, authorities said. 

In a statement, Jonathan Harounoff, the international spokesperson for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, said the Jewish state “will not cower to terror.”

“We will not be silent in the face of hate and violence,” he said. “We will not stop in our pursuit of justice and peace. We will continue in our fight to return all 100 of our hostages still being held in Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza.”

Sara Netanyahu and Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel, attend Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the 79th session of the General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters.  (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

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Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York, expressed gratitude to authorities for thwarting the alleged attack. 

“This attempted attack by terror organizations is an attack on the sovereign soil of the State of Israel in its entirety,” he wrote on X. “It’s proof that terror knows no boundaries and that we must fight it everywhere and every time. The threat it poses to the western world and its values must be fought together by all western democracies alike. Together we will prevail.”