Police look for motive behind California school shooting

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will go to the polls on Saturday to choose a new president, an election that will decide the future of the country that struggles with security challenges after the Easter Sunday bombings and increasing political polarisation.

The election will see a close contest between former wartime defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 70, and the ruling party candidate Sajith Premadasa, 52. Anura Kumara Dissanayake from the National People's Power (NPP) coalition is also a strong candidate.

There are 15.9 million eligible voters who will choose a successor to President Maithripala Sirisina among a record 35 candidates.

Sirisena, who was elected in 2015, is not seeking a re-election.

The front runner candidates would be either depending on their legacies or hoping that the larger electorate would forget them while making their choices.

Premadasa, the ruling United National party (UNP) candidate, banks on his 'man of the commoner' image - a legacy of his father Ranasinghe Premadasa, the country's president between 1989 and 1993 until the LTTE assassinated him in 1993. Premadasa senior was a man of the poor. His welfare schemes and his low cost housing programmes had endeared him to the masses.

If Premadasa senior is still remembered and loved for his commoner's touch, the dark side of his authoritarian rule still lingers.

"We still remember his (Premadasa senior) gory era when we saw piles of bodies of youth burning on the road sides on tyre pyres," Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former President, said at campaign rallies in support of his brother

Gotabhaya.

"No one wants to return to the Premadasa terror era," he said.

Premadasa senior led a relentless crackdown on the Marxist JVP uprising between 1987-90. The Rajapaska senior's legacy of ending the Tamil separatist war has made him the darling of the Sinhala Buddhist majority.

His younger brother Gotabhaya was his top defence ministry official who supervised the daily military operations against the LTTE.

While doing so he acquired a reputation as a ruthlessly efficient administrator.

A cleaner capital city of Colombo with spruced up buildings, paved walkways became a symbol of Gotabhaya's efficiency.

His downside was attacking media personnel and crushing dissent under his brother's presidency which culminated in Sri Lanka being subject to UN Human Rights Council resolutions.

"We all know who was the architect of the white van culture," Ajith P Perera, a leading Premadasa backer said.

The dreaded white van blamed on the disappearances of media personnel during Rajapaksa's presidency.

Gotabhaya, from Sri Lanka People's Front, to his advantage has the image a man who is most trusted to safeguard national security after the Easter Sunday bombings on April 21 by the Jihadi group which killed over 270 people.

"We want him to tackle the threat of Muslim militancy and ensure national security," Shalani Perera, a first time voter said. Meanwhile, at least 50 Sri Lankan election officials at the capital Colombo's main counting centre were admitted to hospital on Friday with food poisoning on the eve of presidential polls, officials said.

Hospital spokeswoman Pushpa Soysa said the 50 men and women were being treated at the National Hospital after a meal at the centre, responsible for tallying hundreds of thousands of votes.

“We have 50 officials at the moment,” Soysa said. “They are being treated for food poisoning.” Police said an investigation was under way just a day before Sri Lanka votes in what has become a closely fought presidential election.

Officials said that reserve staff would be brought in if the 50 remain sick.

SANTA CLARITA: Police investigating a high school shooting in California said on Friday they still did not know what motivated the suspect, who killed two classmates and wounded three others before shooting himself in the head and collapsing.

Thursday morning's shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, about 40 miles (65 km) north of Los Angeles, took place in a matter of just seconds. The suspect pulled a .45 semi-automatic pistol from his backpack in an outdoor school courtyard and opened fire.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva of the Los Angeles County Sheriff 's Office said on Friday that why was the question of the day.

“This kind of came out of the blue,” the sheriff told CNN. “It shocked everyone who knew him.”

Police have not released the name of the suspect, but have said it was his 16th birthday on Thursday. Authorities said he was in grave condition at a hospital.

“He saved the last round for himself,” Villanueva said.

Investigators are looking into the suspect's past and social media accounts and interviewing people who knew him, the sheriff added. “We're still digging,” he said. The FBI is assisting in the investigation and police do not know yet where the suspect got the weapon, the sheriff said.

Two girls aged 14 and 15 were being treated at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, California and were listed in good and fair condition, a hospital spokeswoman said early on Friday.

At the Henry Mayo Hospital in Santa Clarita, authorities said a 14-year-old boy was treated and released, and the other students taken there died.

No names of the wounded or the dead were released yet, but the two slain students were a 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy.

Captain Kent Wegener of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said surveillance video footage showed the suspect opening fire from a single stationary position and shooting his victims in rapid succession before turning the gun on himself.

The scene at Saugus High School was reminiscent of other mass shootings at U.S. schools, including Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a former student with an assault gun killed 17 people on Feb. 14, 2018.