NATION & WORLD BRIEFING
Girl, 13, killed in N.C. mall parking lot shooting
CONCORD, N.C. – A 13-year-old girl was killed in a shooting at a North Carolina mall parking lot, and two other juveniles were hurt, police said.
Concord police responded to a call about a fight outside a Dave and Buster’s at Concord Mills mall Saturday night, police said in a statement. Officers discovered there had been a shooting and that two boys had suffered non-lifethreatening injuries. Police had said in tweets that the 13-year-old girl died at the scene.
Her name was not immediately released. It’s unclear what led to the shooting.
1 suspect arrested in Va. restaurant robbery, shooting
MANASSAS, Va. – One man was arrested and charged Sunday in a fatal shooting and robbery at a northern Virginia restaurant, while a second suspect in the case remains at large, police said.
Prince William County Police said that Jordan Anderson, 22, of Manassas, was charged with one count of murder, along with malicious wounding and firearm charges. He was located in adjoining Fairfax County and jailed without bond, police said.
Anderson is accused of killing a food delivery driver and wounding another man early Thursday at a Denny’s in Manassas.
2 die while cleaning chemical tank at Houston-area business
PASADENA, Texas – Two workers apparently became overcome by fumes and died while cleaning a chemical tank at a business near Houston, authorities said Saturday.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a tweet that deputies responded to the plant overnight in Pasadena, located just southeast of Houston. They found two men dead at the scene, Gonzalez said.
Witnesses told deputies that the men had climbed inside the tank to clean it and were overcome by fumes.
Outage at major resort strands skiers on lift for an hour
KILLINGTON, Vt. – A power outage at one of the largest ski resorts on the East Coast left skiers and snowboarders stuck on a lift for just over an hour Saturday, according to a spokeswoman.
A falling tree caused a power loss around 9:35 a.m. Saturday at the Killington Resort, stopping all lifts, resort spokesperson Courtney DiFiore said.
Most started running again shortly after, but it took about an hour and 10 minutes to get the Skyeship Gondola moving again. DiFiore said that she doesn’t know how many people were affected but that the lift can carry 2,000 all told.
Calif. newspaper ends print publication after 161 years
MARTINEZ, Calif. – One of the longest-running newspapers in California printed its final edition on Sunday, ending 161 years of publishing news about the city of Martinez east of San Francisco.
Rick Jones, the Martinez News-Gazette’s editor, said he wasn’t certain if the news outlet covering the city of nearly 40,000 will continue publishing online.
The News-Gazette began publishing in September 1858 and combined in 1906 with another local paper in Contra Costa County. At its height in the middle of the 20th century, the paper had about 50 employees but the staff shrank over the years as advertising revenue dwindled.
NKorea begins key meeting before year-end deadline for US
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea opened a high-profile political conference to discuss how to overcome “harsh trials and difficulties,” state media reported Sunday, days before a year-end deadline set by Pyongyang for Washington to make concessions in nuclear negotiations.
The ruling Workers’ Party meeting is a focus of keen attention as some observers predict North Korea might use the conference to announce it would abandon faltering diplomacy with the U.S. and lift its moratorium on major weapons test. The Korean Central News Agency reported that leader Kim Jong Un presided over a plenary meeting of the party’s Central Committee convened
in Pyongyang on Saturday.
Four arrested in $1B cocaine seizure
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – Four people were arrested for possible ties to the more than $1billion worth of cocaine seized in recent days in Uruguay, the largest drug bust in the history of the South American country.
The arrests took place on Saturday, news outlets reported. A uthorities found 5.9 tons of cocaine, 4.4 tons of which was packed into cargo containers in the South Atlantic port of Montevideo, said Attorney General Enrique Rodríguez. Rodríguez did not say where the drug was headed. Multiple news outlets, without citing sources, reported it was destined for Africa.
The men accused of exporting the drug operate a soy bean business, the Uruguayan customs agency said Friday. As officials investigated further, they discovered another cocaine stash at a rural property linked to the suspects.
Missile attack kills 9 at parade
SANAA, Yemen – A ballistic missile attack ripped through a military parade for a Yemeni southern separatist group that’s backed by the United Arab Emirates, killing at least six troops and three children, a spokesman said Sunday.
The explosion took place while the separatists, known as the Resistance Forces, were finishing a parade for new recruits at a soccer field in the capital of Dhale province, said Maged al-Shoebi, a spokesman for the group, who spoke with The Associated Press by phone.
Avalanche kills skier in Italy
ROME – An avalanche has killed a skier in the Dolomite Mountains, the fourth avalanche fatality in the Italian Alps in 24 hours. Italian state TV said the skier was among four people struck by the avalanche near a mountain refuge Sunday morning.
A day earlier, a wall of snow crashed into a group of German skiers in the Senales valley of Bolzano province, killing two 7-year-old girls and the mother of one of them. Prosecutors say they are investigating whether that slope should have been closed to the public that day, given a high risk of avalanches.