Man accused of 1 murder claims he killed 16
WOODBURY, N.J. — A man charged with beating to death a New Jersey resident he says sexually abused him as a child now claims he has killed a total of 16 people, including his ex-wife and three others found dead near a New Mexico airport, officials said. Authorities have not corroborated his claim.
Sean Lannon, 47, said he killed the four whose remains were found in a vehicle and “11 other individuals” in New Mexico, Alec Gutierrez, an assistant prosecutor in Gloucester County, New Jersey, said at a detention hearing Friday, NJ.com reported.
Gutierrez said Lannon had confessed to luring several victims to a home in New Mexico and dismembering some of them. Authorities said in court documents that Lannon made the admission in a phone call to a relative, who told investigators he expressed remorse. Lannon has been charged only with the death in New Jersey, and his lawyer says his client was provoked. He has been named a person of interest in the four New Mexico slayings.
Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, an Army post in the U.S.
capital, and against the Army’s vice chief of staff, two senior U.S. intelligence officials said.
They said communications intercepted by the National Security Agency in January showed that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard discussed mounting “USS
Cole-style attacks” against the Army post, referring to the October 2000 suicide attack in which a small boat pulled up alongside the Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden and exploded, killing 17 sailors.
The intelligence also revealed threats to kill Gen. Joseph M. Martin and plans to infiltrate and surveil the installation, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss national security matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Army post, one of the oldest in the country, is Martin’s official residence.
The threats are one reason the Army has been pushing for more security around Fort McNair, which sits alongside Washington’s bustling newly developed Waterfront District.
KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, on his first visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief, said Sunday that the Biden administration wants to see “a responsible end” to America’s longest war, but the level of violence must decrease for “fruitful” diplomacy to have a chance.
With questions swirling about how long U.S. troops will remain in the country, Austin said that “in terms of an end date or setting a specific date for withdrawal, that’s the domain of my boss.” He said his stop in Kabul, the capital, where he met with military commanders and senior Afghan government officials, including President Ashraf
Ghani, was intended to let him “listen and learn” and “inform my participation” in reviewing the future of the American force.
President Joe Biden said last week in an ABC News interview that it will be “tough” for the U.S. to meet a May 1 deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. But Biden said that if the deadline, which is laid out in an agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban, is extended, it wouldn’t be by a “lot longer.”
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — North Korean diplomats vacated their embassy in Malaysia and were expelled Sunday, after the two nations cut diplomatic relations in a spat over the extradition of a North Korean criminal suspect to the United States.
The North Korean flag and embassy signage were removed from the premise in a Kuala Lumpur suburb. Two buses ferried the diplomats and their families to the airport, where they were seen checking in for a flight to Shanghai. Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the expulsion was in response to Pyongyang’s “unilateral and utterly irresponsible decision” on Friday to sever diplomatic ties.
Two days after Kuala Lumpur extradited a North Korean man to the U.S. to face money laundering charges, a furious North Korea on Friday announced it was terminating ties with Malaysia. Malaysia denounced the decision and in a tit-for-tat response, gave North Korean diplomats 48 hours to leave.
BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo — Republic of Congo pressed ahead Sunday with an election in which President Denis Sassou N’Guesso is widely expected to extend his 36 years in power, while the leading opposition candidate was flown to France after suffering COVID-19 complications.
After casting his ballot, Sassou N’Guesso said the government was aware of opposition candidate Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas’ illness and had taken the steps necessary for him to be transferred to France for further treatment.
MIZORAM, India — Myanmar police officers who fled to India after they said they defied orders to shoot people protesting their country’s military coup are urging India’s government not to send them back and to grant them asylum on humanitarian grounds.
One of the officers who has sought refuge in a village in the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram along the border with Myanmar said they didn’t want to return to their country until the problems there are solved. That officer and others who spoke to The Associated Press did so on condition of anonymity out of concern for the safety of family members still in Myanmar.