Coach saves students from gunman
PORTLAND, Ore. — Former University of Oregon football star Keanon Lowe said he had just entered a classroom at the Portland high school where he works as a coach and security guard when a student armed with a black shotgun appeared in the doorway.
Lowe had just seconds Friday to react. He lunged at the gunman and wrestled with him for the weapon as other students ran screaming out a back door, Lowe recalled in an interview with Good Morning America.
Lowe said he managed to get the gun away from the student and pass it to a teacher while Lowe held down the student with his other hand. Lowe wrapped the student in a bear hug until police arrived, he said.
No one was injured. Police are still trying to determine if any shots were fired.
“I lunged for the gun and we both had the gun, we had four hands on the gun,” Lowe recalled. “I’m just trying to make sure the end of the gun isn’t pointing toward where the students are running.”
First black woman sworn in as Chicago mayor
CHICAGO — Lori Lightfoot told aldermen and other city powerbrokers assembled at her inauguration Monday as Chicago’s first black woman mayor that she meant what she said on the campaign trail about top-to-bottom reforms in the nation’s third largest city.
“For years, they’ve said Chicago ain’t ready for reform,” said Lightfoot, speaking minutes after her swearing-in at the Wintrust Arena. “Well, get ready, because reform is here.”
She spoke about curtailing some powers of city council members to lessen temptations for corruption and that structural changes to reduce gun violence would be among her top priorities. Hours later, she signed an executive order limiting aldermanic prerogative, a custom that allows each alderman to direct zoning and period decisions in their ward.
Trump team to brief Congress on Iran
WASHINGTON — As questions mount over President Donald Trump’s tough talk on Iran, top national security officials are heading to Capitol Hill to brief Congress. But skeptical Democrats have asked for a second opinion.
The competing closed-door sessions Tuesday, unusual and potentially polarizing, come after weeks of escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf that have raised alarms over a possible military confrontation with Iran. Lawmakers are warning the Trump administration it cannot take the country into war without approval from Congress, and the back-to-back briefings show the wariness among Democrats, and some Republicans, over the White House’s sudden policy shifts in the Middle East.
By wire sources