GUNMAN KILLS THREE HOSTAGES, SELF AT VA HOME
A gunman who took three female employees hostage during an employee going-away party at the largest veterans home in the United States apparently killed the women and himself.
Nearly eight hours after the standoff began, the California Highway Patrol confirmed the gunman and three women were found dead. A a bomb-sniffing dog had alerted on the suspect’s car but no bombs were found in the vehicle.
Trump pardons sailor.
President Donald Trump has pardoned a Navy sailor who took photographs of the classified areas of a military submarine.
Kristian Saucier pleaded guilty last year for taking photos inside the USS Alexandria in 2009. He served a 12-month prison sentence.
Saucier said he wanted mementos. But federal prosecutors called him a disgruntled sailor who compromised national security and obstructed the investigation by destroying a laptop and camera.
EPA hires GOP media firm for report.
The Environmental Protection Agency used public money to hire a private media firm with strong Republican ties to help produce a report praising Administrator Scott Pruitt’s first-year accomplishments.
Records show the EPA paid $6,500 last month to Go Big Media Inc. for work related to “design, graphics, production and edits of the EPA end of year report.” The 37-page report references Pruitt by name 214 times. Of two dozen photos included in the document, 20 feature him.
Trump to get military parade.
President Donald Trump’s will get his military parade in Washington on Veterans Day. But it won’t resemble the Bastille Day celebration in France that Trump had leaned on for inspiration.
To minimize damage to Washington’s streets, the parade will include only wheeled vehicles — and not the heavy military vehicles, like tanks, that line the streets of Paris on Bastille Day, according to a Pentagon memo released Friday and first obtained by CNN. The parade will also include military planes flying overhead at the end of the parade. The memo doesn’t provide estimated costs.
Police officer charged with assaulting jaywalker.
A white police officer whose body-camera video recorded him beating a black pedestrian he accused of jaywalking has been arrested on assault charges in North Carolina.
The Buncombe County District Attorney’s Office said Christopher Hickman was charged with assault by strangulation, assault inflicting serious injury and communicating threats.
The Asheville police chief put Hickman on desk duty immediately following the beating last August, and Hickman resigned after an internal investigation determined he should be fired. Still, the case remained a secret until the recording was leaked to a newspaper and published last week, sparking community outrage. The FBI is now investigating.
Paul’s neighbor pleads guilty.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s neighbor pleaded guilty Friday to a federal charge for tackling the lawmaker in an attack his attorney says was triggered by a dispute over lawn maintenance.
Rene Boucher entered the guilty plea in federal court in Bowling Green, Ky., to a charge of assaulting a member of Congress. Paul suffered broken ribs in the attack last year.
Boucher will be sentenced June 15. Prosecutors have signaled they will seek a 21-month prison sentence. Boucher’s lawyer said he will ask for probation.
China silences Xi critics.
As China’s rubber-stamp legislature prepares to approve constitutional changes abolishing term limits and allowing President Xi Jinping to stay in power, signs of dissent and satire have been all but snuffed out.
The constitutional amendment would upend a system enacted in 1982 to prevent a return to the bloody excesses of a lifelong dictatorship typified by Mao Zedong’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
Judge rejects polygamy law challenge.
A judge has rejected a challenge of Canada’s polygamy laws that was launched after two men were found guilty in British Columbia.
Justice Sheri Ann Donegan dismissed all arguments Friday that the charges should be dropped, including a claim that the prosecution was an abuse of process.
Hippo roams southern Mexico.
Authorities are worried about a hippopotamus that is roaming loose in southern Mexico.
Hippos are not native to the country. The hippo appears to have been living in a pair of ponds near Las Chopas, in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.
Experts are looking for the best way to trap and move the 3-year-old, 1,320pound mammal. Hippos can be aggressive, posing a potential danger to the public and native species.