COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The owners and operators of nursing schools in Virginia and Florida have been charged with plotting to sell bogus transcripts and diplomas, helping unqualified candidates pass nursing board exams and get health care jobs, federal authorities said Friday.

In March 2019, a witness told the FBI that Patrick Nwaokwu, 50, of Laurel, Md., and Musa Bangura, 62, of Manassas, Va., were creating illegitimate transcripts and certificates through a nursing school in Woodbridge, Va. After the school was shut down for violating state regulations, Nwaokwu and Bangura continued selling bogus transcripts and certifications backdated to when it was open, the FBI says.

The FBI also investigated allegations that Nwaokwu and Bangura worked with people in Florida to sell illegitimate degrees for licensed practical nurses and registered nurses at a second school established by Johanah Napoleon, 45, of Wellington, Fa. The Florida Board of Nursing shut down Napoleon's school in May 2017 for having a low passing rate on licensure exams, according to an FBI agent's affidavit.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A three-day celebration of what would have been history-making astronaut John Glenn's 100th birthday began Friday in his birthplace and childhood hometown in Ohio, even as additional events were announced to mark the occasion.Glenn, who died in 2016, was the first American to orbit Earth, making him a national hero in 1962. In addition to his military and space accomplishments, he spent 24 years as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate.The John Glenn Centennial Celebration in both Cambridge, where Glenn was born on July 18, 1921, and nearby New Concord, where he grew up and met his late wife, Annie, runs through Sunday.