EMOTIONS STRONG IN MANSLAUGHTER CASE
OFFICER CLEARED IN MOTORIST SLAYING
A Minnesota police officer was acquitted of manslaughter Friday in the fatal shooting of a black motorist who had informed the officer seconds earlier that he was carrying a gun.
Jeronimo Yanez was also cleared of two lesser charges in the July traffic stop. Yanez testified that Philando Castile was pulling his gun out of his pocket despite being told not to do so.
Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, streamed the aftermath of the shooting live on Facebook.
WOMAN URGING SUICIDE TEARFUL AFTER CONVICTION
A woman who sent her boyfriend a barrage of text messages urging him to kill himself when they were teenagers was convicted Friday of involuntary manslaughter.
The judge found that Michelle Carter caused the death of Conrad Roy III, who intentionally filled his truck with carbon monoxide in a Massachusetts store parking lot in July 2014.
Carter, who faces up to 20 years in prison, cried and clutched a handkerchief as Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz detailed her conduct and the circumstances of Roy’s death.
ISIS LEADER’S FATE UNCERTAIN AFTER AIRSTRIKE
Confusion surrounded the fate of the head of the Islamic State militant group Friday as Russia announced it might have killed him in an airstrike targeting a meeting of ISIS leaders in Syria, but U.S. officials said there was no definitive proof of his death.
The demise of Abu Bakr alBaghdadi would be a severe blow to the extremist group as it fights to hang on to strongholds in Syria and Iraq, although it was not clear how much control he retains over the organization whose capabilities keep evolving.
FORMER GERMAN CHANCELLOR KOHL DIES
Helmut Kohl, the physically imposing German chancellor whose reunification of a nation divided by the Cold War put Germany at the heart of a united Europe, died Friday at his home in Ludwigshafen. He was 87.
“Helmut Kohl was a great German and a great European,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Kohl doggedly pursued European unity, spearheading the end of Germany’s decadeslong division into East and West and bringing a new era in European politics.