GUN SHOP THAT SOLD WEAPON TO SUSPECT “CLOSES INDEFINITELY”

The aftermath of the horrific mass shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has led to the closure of one small business.

According to the Miami Herald, the owners of Sunrise Tactical Supply, the shop that authorities said that in November sold suspected shooter, Nikolas Cruz, the AR-15 rifle that was used in the shooting last week, has been “closed indefinitely.”

The owners of the small business, in a strip mall near the school, said they ensured that Cruz had filled out all of the required paperwork.

Both owners are, according to their attorney, distraught.

The Daily Mail also reported that Cruz apparently purchased other assault weapons from another local gun store — Gun World of South Florida — since 2016, but not the one used in the killing spree.

Ex-workers at Russian “troll factory” trust U.S. indictment.

While Russian officials scoff at a U.S. indictment charging 13 Russians with meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, several people who worked at the same St. Petersburg “troll factory” say they think the criminal charges are well-founded.

Marat Mindiyarov, a former commenter at the innocuously named Internet Research Agency, says the organization’s Facebook department hired people with excellent English skills to sway U.S. public opinion through an elaborate social media campaign.

His own experience at the agency makes him trust the U.S. indictment, Mindiyarov told The Associated Press. “I believe that that’s how it was and that it was them,” he said.

The federal indictment issued Friday names a businessman linked to President Vladimir Putin and a dozen other Russians. It alleges that Yevgeny Prigozhin — a wealthy restaurateur dubbed “Putin’s chef,” paid for the internet operation that created fictitious social media accounts and used them to spread tendentious messages.

The aim of the factory’s work was either to influence voters or to undermine their faith in the U.S. political system, the 37-page indictment states.

Inyo County fire grows to more than 3 square miles.

A winddriven wildfire in rural central California threatened hundreds of buildings Monday, including a historic railroad station, but officials said they made some gains after the flames exploded in size.

The blaze scorched 3½ square miles of chaparral bush and scrub oak in the small town of Bishop on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada that is popular for hiking, fishing, climbing and hunting.

Officials ended most evacuations that were ordered near the town but warned that strong winds were expected in the area and urged residents to remain vigilant.

It comes as California has seen some record-high temperatures and little rain after emerging from a five-year drought, helping fuel some of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in state history late last year. U.S. drought monitors this month declared parts of Southern California back in severe drought.

It’s not clear how many people had to evacuate after the blaze started Sunday, Inyo County sheriff’s spokeswoman Carma Roper said.

State Supreme Court releases new congressional map.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday released a new congressional district map, upending familiar boundaries, renumbering districts across the state and giving a potential boost to Democrats in the 2018 House elections.

Its plan splits only 13 counties. Of those, four counties are split into three districts and nine are split into two districts.

By contrast the most recent map, enacted in 2011, split 28 counties.