Multiple dead in Jehovah's Witness hall shooting in Germany
BERLIN (AP) — Shots were fired inside a building used by Jehovah's Witnesses in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, with several people killed and wounded, police said.
“We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren said of the shooting in the Gross Borstel district of Germany’s second-biggest city.
He said he had no information on the severity of the injuries suffered by the wounded. Police did not confirm German media reports, which named no sources, of six or seven dead.
In a Twitter update in the early hours Friday Hamburg police said they believed there was only one shooter, and they were gradually rolling back security forces from the area.
“The investigation into the motive behind the crime continues,” police said.
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Trump invited to testify before NY grand jury, lawyer says
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has been invited to testify before a New York grand jury that has been investigating hush money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign, according to one of his lawyers.
Trump attorney Joseph Tacopina confirmed Thursday that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has invited the former president to testify next week as prosecutors near a decision on whether to proceed with what could be the first criminal case ever brought against a former U.S. president.
“To me, it’s much ado about nothing,” Tacopina told the Associated Press, adding he didn't think prosecutors had committed “one way or another” on a decision on whether to charge Trump. He said there was no legal basis for a case.
“It’s just another example of them weaponizing the justice system against him. And it’s sort of unfair,” he said.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, declined to comment. Such an invitation to testify before a grand jury often indicates a decision on indictments is near.
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Letter claims cartel handed over men who killed Americans
CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — A letter claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel blamed for abducting four Americans and killing two of them condemned the violence and said the gang turned over to authorities its own members who were responsible.
In a letter obtained by The Associated Press through a Tamaulipas state law enforcement official, the Scorpions faction of the Gulf cartel apologized to the residents of Matamoros where the Americans were kidnapped, the Mexican woman who died in the cartel shootout, and the four Americans and their families.
“We have decided to turn over those who were directly involved and responsible in the events, who at all times acted under their own decision-making and lack of discipline,” the letter reads, adding that those individuals had gone against the cartel’s rules, which include “respecting the life and well-being of the innocent.”
Drug cartels have been known to issue communiques to intimidate rivals and authorities, but also at times like these as public relations work to try to smooth over situations that could affect their business. And last Friday’s violence in Matamoros was bad for cartel business.
The Americans' killings brought National Guard troops and an Army special forces outfit running patrols that “heat up the plaza” in narco terminology, Mexican security analyst David Saucedo said.
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China's Xi awarded third term as president, extending rule
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as president Friday, putting him on track to stay in power for life.
The endorsement of Xi's appointment by the ceremonial National People's Congress was a foregone conclusion for a leader who has sidelined potential rivals and filled the top ranks of the ruling Communist Party with his supporters since taking power in 2012.
The vote for Xi was 2,952 to 0 by the NPC, members of which are appointed by the ruling party.
Xi, 69, had himself named to a third five-year term as party general secretary in October, breaking with a tradition under which Chinese leaders handed over power once a decade. A two-term limit on the figurehead presidency was deleted from the Chinese constitution earlier, prompting suggestions he might stay in power for life.
No candidate lists were distributed, and Xi and those awarded other posts were believed to have run unopposed. The election process remains almost entirely shrouded in secrecy, apart from the process by which delegates to the congress placed four ballots into boxes placed around the vast auditorium of the Great Hall of the People.
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Heat takes toll as Iditarod mushers trek across Alaska
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Mushers and their dogs in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race face plenty of variables in the Alaska wilderness. An unexpected one this year has been heat that is taking a toll in a sport better suited for temperatures well below zero.
Jason Mackey said a thermometer hanging from the back of his sled hit 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.67 degree C) at one point this week as he camped alongside the trail while mushers neared the halfway mark of the race. Other racers threw their game plans for the 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) race across Alaska out the window to deal with the heat and messy trail conditions.
Although it’s warm, it wasn’t 80 degrees in interior Alaska, which would probably be a record high in July, said Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with the National Weather Service’s Alaska Region. Instead, when you leave a thermometer in the sun, it absorbs the solar energy, which is the reason official measurement thermometers are kept in the shade.
But it’s still warm and sunny, and it’s having noticeable effects on people who are exposed to it, Brettschneider said.
Last weekend, the same area was much cooler than normal, with what appeared to be ideal mushing conditions. The warmer conditions are being driven by an area of high pressure, he said.
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Robert Blake, actor acquitted in wife's killing, dies at 89
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Blake, the Emmy award-winning performer who went from acclaim for his acting to notoriety when he was tried and acquitted in the killing of his wife, died Thursday at age 89.
A statement released on behalf of his niece, Noreen Austin, said Blake died from heart disease, surrounded by family at home in Los Angeles.
Blake, star of the 1970s TV show, "Baretta," had once hoped for a comeback, but he never recovered from the long ordeal which began with the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, outside a Studio City restaurant on May 4, 2001. The story of their strange marriage, the child it produced and its violent end was a Hollywood tragedy played out in court.
Once hailed as among the finest actors of his generation, Blake became better known as the center of a real-life murder trial, a story more bizarre than any in which he acted. Many remembered him not as the rugged, dark-haired star of “Baretta,” but as a spectral, white-haired murder defendant.
In a 2002 interview with The Associated Press while he was jailed awaiting trial, he bemoaned the change in his status with his fans nationwide: "It hurt because America is the only family I had."
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Malaysia ex-PM Muhyiddin charged with corruption, laundering
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was charged Friday with corruption and money laundering, making him Malaysia's second ex-leader to be indicted after leaving office.
Muhyiddin, 75, pleaded innocent to four charges of abusing his power to obtain 232.5 million ringgit ($51.4 million) bribes for his party and two charges of money laundering involving 195 million ringgit ($43 million). He has been released on bail.
Muhyiddin was arrested Thursday by the anti-graft agency, which questioned him over government stimulus projects to ethnic Malay contractors during the COVID-19 pandemic. He then slammed the charges against him as political persecution to crush his opposition alliance ahead of state elections. Outside the court building Friday, some supporters carried banners which read “malicious intent.”
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim rejected accusations that the charges were politically motivated and noted the investigations were carried out independently by the anti-graft agency. After taking power in November, Anwar ordered a review of government projects approved by past administrations including Muhyiddin, who led Malaysia from March 2020 until August 2021.
Two senior members from Muhyiddin's Bersatu party were recently charged with graft. The anti-graft agency has also frozen Bersatu's party accounts.
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Judge uses a slavery law to rule frozen embryos are property
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — Frozen human embryos can legally be considered property, or “chattel,” a Virginia judge has ruled, basing his decision in part on a 19th century law governing the treatment of slaves.
The preliminary opinion by Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Richard Gardiner – delivered in a long-running dispute between a divorced husband and wife – is being criticized by some for wrongly and unnecessarily delving into a time in Virginia history when it was legally permissible to own human beings.
"It's repulsive and it’s morally repugnant,” said Susan Crockin, a lawyer and scholar at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics and an expert in reproductive technology law.
Solomon Ashby, president of the Old Dominion Bar Association, a professional organization made up primarily of African American lawyers, called Gardiner’s ruling troubling.
“I would like to think that the bench and the bar would be seeking more modern precedent,” he said.
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Jaded with education, more Americans are skipping college
JACKSON, Tenn. (AP) — When he looked to the future, Grayson Hart always saw a college degree. He was a good student at a good high school. He wanted to be an actor, or maybe a teacher. Growing up, he believed college was the only route to a good job, stability and a happy life.
The pandemic changed his mind.
A year after high school, Hart is directing a youth theater program in Jackson, Tennessee. He got into every college he applied to but turned them all down. Cost was a big factor, but a year of remote learning also gave him the time and confidence to forge his own path.
“There were a lot of us with the pandemic, we kind of had a do-it-yourself kind of attitude of like, ‘Oh — I can figure this out,’” he said. “Why do I want to put in all the money to get a piece of paper that really isn’t going to help with what I’m doing right now?”
Hart is among hundreds of thousands of young people who came of age during the pandemic but didn’t go to college. Many have turned to hourly jobs or careers that don’t require a degree, while others have been deterred by high tuition and the prospect of student debt.
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Patrick Ewing fired by Georgetown; went 13-50 last 2 seasons
WASHINGTON (AP) — Before coaching his first game at Georgetown — indeed, his first game as a head coach at any level of basketball — Patrick Ewing acknowledged that his tenure would be judged on one basis: his record.
“People could call me ‘the greatest Hoya ever,’ but as you know, if I don’t win, there will be another coach here, sooner or later,” Ewing said in 2017. “Every coach knows, as soon as ... you dot the I’s and cross the T’s, the writing’s on the wall. At some point in your career, you’re going to be let go. That’s just life in coaching.”
Ewing’s time as coach of the Hoyas came to an end on Thursday, when he was fired after going 75-109 over six seasons at the school he led to an NCAA championship as a player in the early 1980s.
In a statement included with the news release about the change, school president Jack DeGioia called Ewing “the heart of Georgetown basketball” and described him as “tireless in his dedication to his team and the young men he coached.”
Ewing, meanwhile, thanked DeGioia “for giving me the opportunity to achieve my ambition to be a head basketball coach” and added: “I wish the program nothing but success. I will always be a Hoya.”
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