Mother charged after son takes gun into class

Chicago: A mother in the US has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her son’s backpack accidentally discharged at school, injuring a seven-year-old classmate.

The 28-year-old woman from Chicago appeared in court on three misdemeanour child endangerment counts.

During the hearing, prosecutors alleged the woman’s eight-year-old son found the gun under her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School. The mother has a valid firearms identification card.

According to police, the backpack was in the boy’s classroom when, just before 10am on Tuesday, the gun discharged.

The Chicago Sun-times reported that prosecutors said the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child’s abdomen.

The child was taken to hospital in good condition, police said.

Adriatic Sea: An Italian tugboat with six people aboard capsized and sank in the Adriatic Sea, leaving five crew members missing.

The Coast Guard and other authorities were searching for four Italians and one Tunisian sailor.

Just the captain survived, rescued from the sea by a Croatian boat that was in the area.

The tugboat, Franco P, alerted port authorities on Wednesday night that it was sinking about 50 miles off the coast of the southern Italian city of Bari as it was pulling a pontoon from the Italian port of Ancona to Dures.

The pontoon, with 11 people on board, remained adrift and was being rescued. It was not immediately clear what caused the tugboat to capsize.

Bremerhaven: German police said they have detained a suspect in connection with an attack at a high school in the northern city of Bremerhaven in which one person was injured.

Police said the incident happened at the Lloyd high school in the centre of the city.

A spokesperson initially confirmed that there had been a shooting, but later revised that information to say only that the attacker was armed.

“The armed person was detained and is in police custody,” police said in a statement. “The weapon used by the suspect is the subject of police investigation. We cannot currently confirm that there is a second suspect.”

The wounded person was taken to hospital and was not a student, police said.

Berlin: The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service has said levels of espionage are as high as during the Cold War, or even higher.

Thomas Haldenwang, president of the BFV intelligence agency, also warned of the increased risk of sabotage against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.

Germany has exposed a number of Russian spies operating in the country in recent years.

“Today we assess the level of espionage against Germany at least at the level of the Cold War if not significantly higher,” Mr Haldenwang said.

The BFV has stepped up its monitoring of activities by extremist groups and individuals seeking to question the state’s legitimacy in the wake of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Mr Haldenwang said the risk posed by such movements was heightened by foreign powers seeking to promote anti-government propaganda.