Excitement, anxiety mount a day before Scotland votes on independence
EDINBURGH, Scotland — For Scots, Wednesday was a day of excitement, apprehension, and a flood of final appeals before a big decision. In a matter of hours, they will determine whether Scotland leaves the United Kingdom and becomes an independent state.
A full 97 percent of those eligible have registered to vote — including, for the first time, 16- and 17-year-olds — in a referendum that polls suggest is too close to call.
A phone poll of 1,373 people by Ipsos MORI, released Wednesday, put opposition to independence at 51 percent and support at 49 percent, with 5 percent of voters undecided.
That means neither side can feel confident, given the margin of error of about plus or minus three percentage points.
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a Scot, told a No campaign rally that the quiet majority of pro-Union Scots “will be silent no more,” while pro-independence leader Alex Salmond urged voters to seize a democratic opportunity 307 years in the making.
Hundreds of Gazans are trying to reach Europe in risky sea voyages
ABASSAN, Gaza Strip — The university student was desperate to flee Gaza after suffering through years of border closures and three wars.
In early September, a week after the latest war between Gaza’s ruling Hamas and Israel, 22-year-old Mohammed Abu Toaimeh crossed into neighboring Egypt. He handed $2,000 to traffickers and boarded a ship that was to smuggle him to Europe.
Instead, he and dozens of other Gazans are missing amid reports that smugglers sank their vessel on purpose.
In the past two months, more than 1,300 Gazans are believed to have gone to Egypt, some even sneaking in through a border tunnel, to embark on illicit sea voyages, said Ramy Abdu, a human rights activist tracking the trafficking.
Pennsylvania State Police: Ambush suspect belonged to military re-enactor group
Schools closed, kids stayed inside and authorities chased down several false sightings Wednesday in their hunt for the suspect in a fatal ambush outside a rural Pennsylvania State Police barracks.
Police released new details about the background of Eric Frein, a 31-year-old self-taught survivalist who authorities said recently shaved his head in a wide Mohawk, evidently as “part of the mental preparation to commit this cowardly act,” Lt. Col. George Bivens said Wednesday afternoon.
Frein belonged to a military simulation unit based in eastern Pennsylvania whose members play the role of soldiers from Cold War-era eastern Europe, Bivens told reporters.
“In his current frame of mind, Frein appears to have assumed that role in real life,” he said.
Hundreds of law enforcement officials spent a fifth full day Wednesday looking for the gunman who concealed himself outside the Blooming Grove barracks late Friday and shot two troopers with a rifle, killing one and wounding the second. Police named Frein the suspect after finding his abandoned SUV, which contained his driver’s license and spent shell casings matching those at the crime scene.
Australian police say 15 detained in counterterrorism raids
SYDNEY — Australian police detained 15 people Thursday in a major counterterrorism operation, saying intelligence indicated a random, violent attack was being planned on Australian soil.
About 800 federal and state police officers raided more than a dozen properties across Sydney as part of the operation — the largest in Australian history, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Andrew Colvin said. Separate raids in the eastern cities of Brisbane and Logan were also conducted.
The arrests come just days after the country raised its terror warning to the second-highest level in response to the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group.
By wire sources