Possible motive behind Michigan State attack might be found in note
EAST LANSING, Mich. — The man who shot eight students at Michigan State University, killing three, was found with two handguns and a note containing a possible motive for the attack, police said Thursday.
The 9 mm guns, dozens of rounds of ammunition and the two-page note were found with Anthony Mcrae when he killed himself Monday night after being confronted by police, said campus deputy chief Chris Rozman.
Investigators said they still were trying to determine a motive, but said the note was a key.
“It appears based on the content of the note that he felt he was slighted in some way by people or businesses,” Rozman said at a news conference. “Did a mental health issue amplify that or was it a component of that? We’re not sure at this point. We’re working our best to try to determine that as best as possible.”
Mcrae, 43, was the lone shooter and had no connection to the victims or to Michigan State as a student or employee, police said.
The shootings happened Monday during evening classes at Berkey Hall and nearby at the MSU Union, a social hub where students can study, eat and relax. Students across the vast campus were ordered to shelter in place for four hours — “run, hide, fight” if necessary — while police hunted for the gunman. Some residence halls were a mile away from the shooting scenes.
Students have described breaking windows and taking other desperate steps to escape Berkey Hall.
Mcrae walked nearly 4 miles toward his Lansing home after the shootings and said nothing before killing himself in front of police, said Lt. Rene Gonzalez of the state police.
Mcrae’s father, who shared the house, told police “his son does not have any friends,” Gonzalez also said.
Mcrae had a misdemeanor gun conviction in 2019, though it didn’t bar him from having the handguns, which Rozman noted were purchased legally but not registered.
Quake in Syria: The United Nations’ regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syrian crisis said Thursday that the country’s death toll from last week’s deadly earthquake is likely to rise further as teams scramble to remove rubble in hardhit areas.
The U.N. has reported a death toll of about 6,000 for all of Syria, including 4,400 in the rebel-held northwest. That figure is higher than those reported by government authorities in Damascus and civil defense officials in the northwest, who have reported 1,414 and 2,274 deaths respectively.
Muhannad Hadi defended the U.N.’S response to the disaster, which many in Syria have criticized as slow and inadequate.
Hadi also noted that before the earthquake, there were some 4.1 million people in need of aid in northwest Syria — many of whom were already displaced and have now become homeless or displaced again.
Asylum ban: The Supreme Court says it will not hear arguments as planned March 1 in a case involving a Trump-era immigration policy used millions of times over the past three years to quickly turn away migrants at the border.
The justices on Thursday removed from their calendar the case involving Title 42, which justified the quick expulsion of migrants on public health grounds.
A court spokeswoman provided no explanation and the case has not been dismissed.
The court’s action follows a legal filing from the Biden administration saying the case soon will be moot.
Republicans and some Democrats in border states have opposed Biden’s efforts to end Title 42.
The lawmakers say the United States is not prepared for the expected influx of people who will come to the border with Mexico once the policy ends.
Spain abortion laws: The Spanish parliament on Thursday approved legislation expanding abortion and transgender rights for teenagers, while making Spain the first country in Europe that will entitle workers to paid menstrual leave.
The changes to sexual and reproductive rights mean that 16- and 17-year-olds in Spain can now undergo an abortion without parental consent.
Period products will now be offered free in schools and prisons, while state-run health centers will do the same with hormonal contraceptives and the morning after pill.
The menstrual leave measure allows workers suffering debilitating period pain to take paid time off.
In addition, the changes enshrine in law the right to have an abortion in a state hospital. Currently more than 80% of termination procedures in Spain are carried out in private clinics due to a high number of doctors in the public system who refuse to perform them — with many citing religious reasons.
COVID-19 outbreak: China says more than 200 million of its citizens have been diagnosed and treated for COVID-19 since it lifted strict containment measures beginning in November.
With 800,000 of the most critically ill patients having recovered, China has “decisively beaten” the pandemic, according to notes from a meeting of the ruling Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, presided over by President Xi Jinping.
China enforced some of the world’s most draconian lockdowns, quarantines and travel restrictions and still faces questions about the origins of the virus that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Heavy-handed enforcement prompted rare anti-government protests and took a heavy toll on the world’s second-largest economy.
The official Xinhua News Agency quoted Xi as saying that policies to control the outbreak had been “entirely correct.”
FTX founder: A federal judge showed impatience Thursday with FTX founder Sam Bankman-fried’s use of the internet while on bail, suggesting that incarceration might eventually be the most effective way to prevent him from communicating on electronic devices in ways that can’t be traced.
Judge Lewis Kaplan did not change a $250 million bail package that lets Bankman-fried live with his parents in California while preparing for trial on charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits at FTX, his cryptocurrency trading platform.
“There is a solution, but it’s not one anybody’s proposed yet,” Kaplan said as Bankman-fried sat passively at the defense table.
The judge noted that Bankman-fried, according to prosecutors, “has done things that suggests to me that maybe he has committed or attempted to commit a federal felony while on release.”
Kaplan was alluding to a claim by prosecutors that Bankman-fried sent an encrypted message over the Signal texting app on Jan. 15 to the general counsel of FTX US.