FORMER APPLE ENGINEER CHARGED WITH PLANS THEFT

For about two years, Xiaolang Zhang was privy to information to which many in the tech world can only dream of having access: the inner workings of Apple’s secretive autonomous car research. During the weekend, the former Apple engineer was arrested by U.S. authorities at San Jose International Airport while preparing to board a flight to China and charged with stealing proprietary information related to Apple’s self-driving car project. At the time of his arrest, he said he was working for a Chinese startup that is also developing autonomous vehicles, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Monday by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office.

Illinois judge faces misdemeanor charge after dropping loaded gun in courthouse.

Judge Joseph Claps kept his sunglasses on as he paced the courthouse lobby, but his suit jacket was off, folded and draped over his prohibited firearm.

He is a friendly guy, at least according to a surveillance video inside Chicago’s Leighton Criminal Court Building, which shows Claps waving at two women passing by.

Then a silver-toned pistol tumbles from a fold in his coat and slides across the polished floor.

There is no audio in the video released by authorities, but the sound undoubtedly makes an impression. The women, one of them a sheriff’s deputy, pivot toward the metallic clank. Another deputy nearby whips her neck around to see what happened.

And now Claps, 70, an associate judge in Cook County’s circuit court, has been charged with a misdemeanor crime of carrying a firearm in a prohibited place, authorities said.

Spate of attacks marks push by Islamic State militants.

KABUL,

A squad of assailants, including gunmen and a suicide bomber, stormed a government building Wednesday in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, killing at least 11 people, in the latest of half a dozen deadly attacks in that region since midJune. No group has asserted responsibility for the attack, but most of the others have been claimed by the Islamic State.

The morning attack on a busy education office building in the crowded provincial capital left several dozen officials and visitors trapped for hours while insurgents and security forces exchanged gunfire, officials and witnesses said. Ten other people were injured. A spokesman for the provincial governor’s office said the assault had ended but gave no details.

Students in Florida who survived shooting file federal lawsuit.

FORT LAUDERDALE,

Broward deputies at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School violated the constitutional rights of the survivors of February’s school massacre by failing to stop Nikolas Cruz when he showed up on campus with murder on his mind, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The lawsuit specifically names Broward County, retired school resource officer Scot Peterson, Broward Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jan Jordan and campus monitor Andrew Medina as defendants.

Neo-Nazi trial puts spotlight on fate of migrants in Germany.

MUNICH» A German court found the main defendant guilty on Wednesday in a string of neo-Nazi killings more than a decade ago — a high-profile trial that raised fresh questions about the treatment of migrants at a time when Germany is grappling with an unprecedented influx of refugees and surging support for a farright party bent on keeping the country white.

The Munich court sentenced Beate Zschaepe, the only known survivor of the National Socialist Underground group, to life in prison in the killings of 10 people — most of them migrants — who were gunned down between 2000 and 2007. The group’s name, often shortened to NSU, alludes to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party.

Zschaepe was also found guilty of membership in a terrorist organization.

— Denver Post wire services