Police: 15-year-old boy kills 5 in Raleigh shooting rampage
Police say a 15-year-old boy fatally shot five people in an attack that stretched from the streets of a Raleigh neighborhood to a nearby walking trail. Two others were also injured in the Thursday evening attack, which led police on an hours-long manhunt before the teen was arrested. Raleigh police Chief Estella Patterson said Friday that the teen is hospitalized in critical condition. The motive for the shooting is still not known. Some of the victims were going about their daily routines when they died. They ranged in age from 16 to their late 50s. The dead include off-duty Raleigh police Officer Gabriel Torres, who was on his way to work.
Putin calls his actions in Ukraine ‘correct and timely’
Russian President Vladimir Putin expects his troop mobilization for combat in Ukraine to end in about two weeks. That would allow him to end the unpopular and chaotic call-up meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. Putin faces domestic discontent and military setbacks in a neighboring country increasingly armed with advanced Western weapons. He told reporters Friday he “did not set out to destroy Ukraine” and doesn’t regret starting the conflict. Russia’s difficulties in achieving its war aims are becoming apparent in the illegally annexed Kherson region. Anticipating an advance by Ukrainian forces, Moscow-installed authorities there urged residents to flee Friday.
Walker denies previous support for national abortion ban
Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker is denying his previous support for an outright national ban on abortion, making the shift in his lone debate against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. Walker, a staunch anti-abortion politician recently accused by a former girlfriend of encouraging and paying for her 2009 abortion, accused Warnock of misstating his position by saying Walker had supported a national ban on abortion, without exceptions. But Walker has insisted at various points throughout the campaign that he supported a national abortion ban. The outcome of their race will help determine which party controls the U.S. Senate for the next two years of President Joe Biden’s term.
Officials: 25 dead, many trapped in Turkish coal mine blast
Turkish officials say an explosion inside a coal mine in northern Turkey has killed at least 25 people and dozens remain trapped underground. The explosion occurred Friday at a state-owned mine in the town of Amasra, in the Black Sea coastal province of Bartin. The country’s energy minister says a preliminary assessment indicates the blast was caused by firedamp — a reference to flammable gases found in coal mines. There were 110 people in the mine at the time of the explosion. Most were able to evacuate the mine following the blast, but the interior minister says 49 people were caught in a higher risk area of the mine.
N. Korea fires missile, artillery shells, inflaming tensions
South Korea says North Korea has launched a ballistic missile and hundreds of artillery shells toward its eastern waters. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff says the missile launch happened early Friday. On Friday afternoon, South Korea’s military said North Korea fired 90 additional shells off its east coast. It said it also spotted about 300 other North Korean artillery launches from two separate western coastal areas. In both cases, the North Korean shells were believed to have landed in the buffer zones again. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff says North Korea also flew warplanes near the rivals’ border late Thursday and early Friday, prompting South Korea to scramble fighter jets.
UK’s Truss drops tax cuts, axes Treasury chief amid turmoil
British Prime Minister Liz Truss has abandoned a planned cut to corporation tax, scrapping a key part of an economic plan that sparked weeks of market and political turmoil. Truss said at a hastily arranged news conference Friday that she was acting to “reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline.” Truss also fired Kwasi Kwarteng as Treasury chief on Friday, replacing him with former Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt. Truss is trying to restore order after three weeks of turmoil sparked by the government’s tax-cutting “mini budget.” Truss vowed to press on with other aspects of her economic plan, saying “I want to deliver a low tax, high wage, high growth economy.”
Expired drug kills 10 child leukemia patients in Yemen
Yemeni health officials say expired doses of cancer treatment have killed at least 10 child leukemia patients in the rebel-held capital. The officials Friday said the children died at Sanaa’s Kuwait hospital after being injected with expired doses of smuggled medicine at a number of private clinics. According to a half dozen health officials and workers, some 50 children received a smuggled chemotherapy treatment known as Methotrexate that was originally manufactured in India. The lack of access to basic resources in war-torn Yemen has created large medicine smuggling networks across both rebel Houthi-held and Saudi coalition-controlled areas. Several doctors in Sanaa said that Houthi officials secretly work in partnership with medicine smugglers.
By wire sources
