FBI hopes to learn what drove ex-Marine to kill 12 in California bar

A mourner arrives with a picture of one of her friends at a vigil for the victims of the mass shooting, at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks, California, U.S., November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

By Alex Dobuzinskis

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (Reuters) – The FBI is hoping to build a clear profile of a former U.S. Marine combat veteran who killed 12 people in a crowded Los Angeles area bar to discover a motive for the latest shooting massacre in the United States.

The gunman, 28-year-old Ian David Long, entered the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, a suburb 40 miles (64 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and opened fire at a little before midnight before he apparently took his own life, law enforcement officials said.

The massacre was the latest shooting rampage in the United States amid a fierce debate over gun control, coming less than two weeks after a man shot dead 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

Paul Delacourt, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles office of the FBI, said it was too early to speculate on the shooter’s motives but that he appeared to have acted alone.

“We will be sure to paint a picture of the state of mind of the subject and do our best to identify a motivation,” Delacourt said, adding that the FBI would investigate any possible “radicalization” or links to militant groups.

Long opened fire, seemingly at random, inside the barn-style, Western-themed bar, with a .45 caliber Glock handgun equipped with a high-capacity magazine, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said. The bar was packed with college students.

Long was in the Marine Corps from 2008 to 2013, reaching the rank of corporal and serving as a machine gunner in Afghanistan, and the sheriff said he may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Obviously, he had something going on in his head that would cause him to do something like this,” Dean said.

DISTURBANCE CALL

Dean told reporters that in April officers had gone to Long’s home in nearby Newbury Park, about 4 miles (6 km) from the bar to answer a disturbance call and found him agitated. Mental health specialists talked with Long and determined that no further action was necessary, the sheriff said.

“He was raving hell in the house, you know, kicking holes in the walls and stuff and one of the neighbors was concerned and called the police,” Richard Berge, who lived one block away from the home, told Reuters.

Berge, who took care of Long’s mother’s dogs, said she told him following that incident she worried her son might take his own life but did not fear he would hurt her.

Dean said he had been told that 150 to 200 people were inside the bar at the time of the shooting.

Asked what the scene inside the bar was like, Dean said, “Like … hell.” Earlier he had described it as “a horrific scene in there. There is blood everywhere and the suspect is part of that.”

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said 21 people had been treated for injuries and released at area hospitals.

Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran, was killed during the shooting. He and a California Highway Patrol officer were the first to arrive at the bar to confront the gunman.

Thousand Oaks, a leafy, sprawling suburb of 127,000 people, was named the third safest city in the United States for 2018 by the Niche research company.

Jason Coffman wept as he told reporters that his son, Cody, 22, was among the dead.

“I know how I love, how much I miss him,” he said. “Oh, son, I love you so much.”

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Editing by William Maclean)

Three fast-moving California blazes cause thousands to flee

Wind-driven ambers are seen during the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

By Stephen Lam

PARADISE, Calif. (Reuters) – Three fast-moving wildfires burned in California on Friday morning, including one that spurred the evacuation of 75,000 homes near a city that was still reeling from a mass shooting.

An inmate firefighter crew work to create a defensible space while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

An inmate firefighter crew work to create a defensible space while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Voluntary evacuations of 75,000 homes were called for because of the Woolsey Fire that included parts of Thousand Oaks in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, the site of a mass shooting incident this week in which 12 people were killed.

The Woolsey blaze was also burning in parts of Los Angeles County.

Also burning in Ventura County was the Hill Fire, which had torched 10,000 acres (4047 hectares) by Thursday night, fire officials said.

In Northern California, the Camp Fire advanced rapidly to the outskirts of the city of Chico early on Friday, forcing thousands to flee after it left the nearby town of Paradise in ruins, California fire officials said.

Evacuation notices were set for homes on the east side of Chico, a city of about 93,000 people situated about 90 miles (145 km) north of Sacramento.

The Chico Fire Department said: “Firefighters continue to actively engage the fire in order to protect life and property.”

Firefighters battle to save structures while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Firefighters battle to save structures while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Flames from the unchecked, 20,000-acre (8,100-hectare) Camp Fire were being driven westward by 35-mile-per hour (56 km-per-hour) winds, fire officials said.

The blaze earlier ripped through Paradise, about 20 miles east of Chico.

“The town is devastated, everything is destroyed. There’s nothing much left standing,” said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) spokesman Scott Maclean.

“This fire moved so fast and grew so fast a lot of people got caught by it.”

Maclean said an as-yet unspecified number of civilians and firefighters had been injured, and it could be days before authorities would know whether anyone had died.

Paradise, located on a ridge, has limited escape routes. Traffic accidents turned roads into gridlock and residents abandoned vehicles and ran from the flames, carrying children and pets, officials said. One woman who was stuck in traffic went into labor, the Enterprise-Record newspaper reported.

A Cal Fire firefighter hoses a smoldering home while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

A Cal Fire firefighter hoses a smoldering home while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

“It’s very chaotic,” said Officer Ryan Lambert of the California Highway Patrol.

Rescuers used a bulldozer to push abandoned cars out the way to reach Feather River Hospital and evacuate patients as flames engulfed the building, Butte County Supervisor Doug Teeter told reporters.

The hospital was totally destroyed, Mike Mangas, a spokesman for operator Dignity Health, told Action News Now.

The fire, which began early on Thursday, was the fiercest of several wind-driven blazes across California, during what has been one of the worst years for wildfires in the state.

In Ventura County, “Strong Santa Ana winds (are) expected to continue through this morning,” the National Weather Service in Los Angeles said on Twitter on Friday. That helped double the size of the Woolsey Fire to 8,000 acres (3238 hectares), fire officials said.

Wind gusts of 50 to 70 mph (80 to 113 kph) were expected in the mountains of Ventura County and up to 50 mph in the valleys and coastal areas of the county, the NWS said.

Travel was limited on U.S. Highway 101 in Ventura County, state highway patrol troopers said.

A former U.S. Marine combat veteran opened fire in a bar packed with college students in Thousand Oaks on Wednesday, killing 12 people in an incident that stunned a bucolic community with a reputation for safety.

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall and Brendan O’Brien; editing by John Stonestreet and Bernadette Baum)

Federal charges filed against captain of deadly Missouri duck boat

Rescue personnel work after an amphibious "duck boat" capsized and sank, at Table Rock Lake near Branson, Stone County, Missouri, U.S. July 19, 2018 in this still image obtained from a video on social media. SOUTHERN STONE COUNTY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT/Facebook/via REUTERS

(Reuters) – The captain of the World War Two-style tourist “duck boat” that sank on a Missouri lake during a storm in July killing 17 people was charged on Thursday with misconduct, negligence and inattention to duty by a federal grand jury, prosecutors said.

Kenneth Scott McKee, 51, of Verona, Missouri, was charged in a 17-count indictment, one count for each of the passengers who died when the vessel sank on July 19.

McKee was captain of the vessel operated by Ripley Entertainment Inc, which ran duck boat tours in Branson, Missouri, Lake Taneycomo and Table Rock Lake, where the incident occurred.

There were 31 passengers aboard the duck boat on Table Rock Lake, outside Branson, Missouri, when hurricane-strength winds churned up the water and sank the craft, causing one of the deadliest U.S. tourist tragedies in recent years.

“The captain of the vessel always has a duty to operate his vessel in a safe manner and that’s why Mr. McKee is under indictment this morning,” Timothy Garrison, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in a news conference.

McKee is accused of failing to properly assess the severe weather, instruct passengers to use personal flotation devices, or head for shore and prepare to abandon ship, the indictment said.

McKee was not yet in custody and was expected to surrender to authorities, Garrison said.

He faces up to 10 years in federal prison without parole for each count and a $250,000 fine. McKee’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Garrison declined to say whether other people were being investigated.

The families of four people who died have filed lawsuits against tour operator Ripley Entertainment, which operates under the name Ride the Ducks, saying it recklessly allowed the vessel out in dangerous weather.

Nine members of the same family were among the 17 killed.

The boats, modeled on the amphibious landing craft used in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944, have a checkered history involving more than three dozen fatalities on water and land, including the Table Rock Lake sinking, according to the complaint.

(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; editing by Bill Berkrot)

British official urges more protection for children ‘datafied from birth’

A girl views a new iPad tablet computer at an Apple store during its UK launch in central London May 28, 2010. Diehard fans mobbed Apple Inc stores in Asia and Europe as the iPad tablet computer went on sale outside the United States for the first time on Friday. The device, a little smaller than a letter-size sheet and with a colour touchscreen, is designed for surfing the Web, watching movies and reading. It has been hailed by the publishing industry as a potential life-saver. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor (BRITAIN - Tags: BUSINESS SOCIETY SCI TECH) - LM1E65S12UK01

By Adela Suliman

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – British children are having vast quantities of personal data collected from birth, according to a report released on Thursday that calls for more transparency and greater legal protection.

From proud parents sharing a photo of their newborn baby online to internet-based toys, smart speakers and location tracking gadgets, children’s every move is being tracked, the Children’s Commissioner for England warned in the report.

“We’re all datafied but the difference for children is … they’re datafied from birth,” the report’s author Simone Vibert, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“I think we should be concerned because we don’t know what the consequences of all this information about children will be in the future.”

Vibert said parents should stop and think before sharing information online about their children, whose online data footprints could one day put them at greater risk of identity theft or limit their job and university prospects.

Last year, a popular children’s toy, CloudPets, was found to have breached data laws after gathering and storing online about two million personal messages shared between children and their family members.

About 79 percent of five to seven year olds in Britain go online every week, mostly using a tablet, this jumps to 99 percent of 12 to 15 years olds, according to a 2017 report by Britain’s communications regulator, Ofcom.

Children aged 11 to 16 post on social media on average 26 times a day, which means by the age of 18 they are likely to have posted 70,000 times, the report found.

It said that while personal information in the wrong hands could pose an immediate threat to children’s safety, there is less understanding of how personal data gathered in childhood shape people’s prospects in the long term.

Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield called on the government to urgently refine existing data protection legislation.

The report said her office would draft a law outlining the statutory duty of care governing the relationship between social media companies and their audiences.

It also urged companies to be more transparent about their collection and use of children’s data and recommended safeguards including improved education in schools on social media use.

Asked to respond, the government said it was “determined to make Britain the safest place to be online”.

“Parents need to have confidence their children are protected,” a spokeswoman for Britain’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

(Reporting by Adela Suliman; Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)

WFP to double food aid to Yemen, says 14 million risk starvation

FILE PHOTO: A malnourished boy lies on a weighing scale at the malnutrition ward of al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen September 11, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah/File Photo

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Food Programme plans to double its food assistance program for Yemen, aiming to reach up to 14 million people “to avert mass starvation”, it said in a statement on Thursday.

“Yemen is the largest hunger crisis in the world. Millions of people are living on the edge of famine and the situation is getting worse by the day,” said the U.N. agency, which is already providing food assistance to 7-8 million Yemenis.

“WFP food and other humanitarian support have been instrumental in helping to prevent famine, but the indications are that even greater efforts will be needed to avert mass starvation.”

FILE PHOTO: A nurse looks as he weighs a malnourished girl at a malnutrition treatment center in Sanaa, Yemen October 7, 2018. Picture taken October 7, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah - RC17C03A5010/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: A nurse looks as he weighs a malnourished girl at a malnutrition treatment center in Sanaa, Yemen October 7, 2018. Picture taken October 7, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah – RC17C03A5010/File Photo

Food security experts including U.N. and Yemeni government officials conducted an assessment in Yemen last month and are expected to issue their report this month, declaring whether or not parts of the country are in famine.

The last report in March 2017 stopped short of declaring famine but said 6.8 million people were in an “emergency”. The new report could put the number at 12 million-14 million, the WFP statement said.

“This would mean nearly half the population having so little to eat that they are just one step away from starvation.”

The hunger crisis is man-made, caused by Yemen’s civil war, economic collapse and problems getting shipments into the country, which traditionally relies on imports for well over half its food.

Most of the aid would be food supplies but some would be given in cash-based transfers, WFP said.

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF says a child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen from diseases that could easily be prevented, and half of Yemeni children are chronically malnourished.

According to the World Health Organization, acute malnutrition affects 1.8 million children under five, and about a third of Yemen’s districts are at risk of sliding into famine.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

A better way to ‘live forever,’ even for non-billionaires

FILE PHOTO: People enjoy a walk at sunset past beach cabin on the pebbled beach in Cayeux-sur-Mer, France, October 13, 2018. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo

By Mark Miller

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Is there a cure for death?

Some Silicon Valley billionaires are looking for it – or at least a way to extend lifespans dramatically, perhaps by hundreds of years.

One scientist sponsored a $1 million contest – the Palo Alto Longevity Prize – for researchers who can stop aging. Alphabet Inc’s Google has a business called Calico, also focused on extending life spans. Entrepreneur Peter Thiel, a cofounder of PayPal Holdings Inc, has funded anti-aging research and has even declared himself against death. “Basically, I’m against it,” he told a British journalist a few years ago.

Marc Freedman, however, has a more down-to-earth idea about immortality. The founder of the encore career movement has just published a wonderful new book called “How to Live Forever: The Enduring Power of Connecting the Generations” (Public Affairs). Freedman is aiming to kick-start a national conversation about ways that today’s older generation can live on through young people.

“Silicon Valley is trying to conquer the wrong problem in the wrong way,” he told me in an interview. “Real happiness comes from having a sense of purpose – and not defeating death, but accepting it and living accordingly. We need to accept and embrace mortality with the wisdom that we are a species that can live on not just literally, but by passing on from generation to generation what we’ve learned from life.”

Freedman’s organization, Encore.org, has played a key role over the past decade in promoting and developing the idea of encore careers – second acts for older adults focused on social purpose and innovation. Two years ago, Encore.org launched a major new youth-mentoring initiative called Gen2Gen, aimed at recruiting and mobilizing more than a million older adults to help young people thrive.

The campaign is working with government and nonprofit groups in seven cities around the country to expand opportunities for older adults to work with children and help them thrive. The focus typically is on issues such as childhood poverty, tutoring and mentoring. So far, the campaign has attracted 160 partner organizations, 1,100 grassroots leaders and a community of 71,000 supporters, Encore reports.

In his book, Freedman explores the intellectual underpinnings of the Gen2Gen campaign. And he gets specific about ways to do it.

“Older people need to get proximate to the young, finding ways to build contact with the younger generation into their daily lives,” he told me. “Start with housing – look for neighborhoods that have a mix of generations. Some older people I know have even sought out co-housing arrangements because they knew it was a prime opportunity to connect across the generations.”

BUILDING BONDS

He also advises older people to think of common interests that bond generations together. “That’s the most reliable crucible for building bonds.” For example, he writes about a senior living facility in Cleveland that has an artist-in-residence program that provides free housing for graduate music students. “The older residents and young musicians frequently share a love of music, which provides the basis for deeper bonds,” he said. “Other people I know have become youth baseball coaches, school volunteers, and chess mentors.”

But Freedman’s focus on older people as a resource also flips upside down the narrative about older people as a drain on society, and a looming intergenerational war. This is a recurring motif in U.S. media and public opinion – the notion that baby boomers are engaged in generational theft, spending down the nation’s resources on programs like Social Security and Medicare, leaving young people with a huge pile of debt and a bleak future.

Plenty of holes can be poked in the deficit and debt arguments, as I noted last week. Their proponents also falsely portray this spending in zero-sum terms – as though security in old age for your parents makes no difference in your own life.

But Freedman prefers a “glass half-full” approach. “I don’t want to be a Pollyanna about the challenges of the massive demographic shift that is coming – any change of this magnitude will require adjustment,” he said. “But I see these changes primarily as an opportunity to be seized, not a problem to be solved.”

(This story corrects name of Encore.org initiative to Gen2Gen instead of Generation2Gen, paragraph 6.)

(Reporting and writing by Mark Miller in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg fractures three ribs in fall

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participates in taking a new family photo with her fellow justices at the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a prominent liberal who at 85 is the oldest U.S. Supreme Court justice, was hospitalized on Thursday after falling in her office at the court the night before, fracturing three ribs, a court spokeswoman said.

Ginsburg initially went home after the fall, but experienced discomfort overnight and went to George Washington University Hospital on Thursday morning, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement.

Tests showed she fractured three ribs on her left side and she was admitted for observation and treatment, Arberg added. The court is not scheduled to hear its next arguments in cases until Nov. 26.

Ginsburg, who has served on the court since 1993, is one of the court’s four liberals. The court’s 5-4 conservative majority was restored last month when the U.S. Senate confirmed Republican President Donald Trump’s appointee Brett Kavanaugh after a contentious nomination process in which Kavanaugh denied a sexual assault allegation dating to the 1980s.

If Ginsburg were unable to continue serving on the court, Trump would likely move swiftly to replace her with a conservative, further shifting the court to the right. That would have major consequences for issues including abortion, the death penalty, voting rights, gay rights, business litigation and presidential powers.

As the oldest justice, Ginsburg is closely watched for any signs of deteriorating health. She has survived bouts with cancer and undergoes regular medical checkups. This week’s incident was not the first time Ginsburg has suffered an injury as a result of a fall – in June 2012, she fell at home and cracked two ribs.

Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings were rocked by university professor Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that he sexually assaulted her in 1982, when they were both high school students.

Ginsburg, who made her name as an advocate for women’s rights, voiced support for the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct even as Kavanaugh was about to face a Senate hearing on the allegations against him, saying that unlike in her youth, “women nowadays are not silent about bad behavior.”

Trump went to the court on Thursday for a formal ceremony welcoming Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court. Kavanaugh was sworn into the lifetime job last month.

The president sat along with first lady Melania Trump at the front of the marble-walled courtroom near the justices’ mahogany bench and made no public remarks. Some leading Republicans from the U.S. Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, attended.

CRITICAL COMMENTS

Ginsburg made critical comments about Trump when he was running for president in 2016, in an unusual foray into politics by a Supreme Court justice. She later said she regretted making the remarks, saying “judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office.”

Ginsburg is a hero among many U.S. liberals, sometimes called “The Notorious R.B.G” in a nickname based on the late American rapper The Notorious B.I.G.

Ginsburg has helped buttress equality rights during her time on the high court, including in sex discrimination cases, and has been a champion of abortion rights and gay rights. In 2010, after the retirement of more senior liberals, she became the court’s voice of liberalism on behalf of women, racial minorities and the poor and disenfranchised.

Trump has already named two members of the court, adding conservative federal appeals court judges Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed by the Senate last year.

If he were able to make a third nomination to the court to replace Ginsburg, that would increase the conservative majority to 6-3. The court’s other liberal justices are Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. Breyer, 80, is the court’s second-oldest justice.

Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation process convulsed the nation just weeks before Tuesday’s congressional elections in which Trump’s fellow Republicans lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives but built on their majority in Senate, which has sole authority over judicial and Supreme Court nominations.

On Wednesday, Trump credited the fight over confirming Kavanaugh, in which Democrats strongly opposed the nominee, for the gains in the Senate.

“By expanding the Senate majority, the voters have also clearly rebuked the Senate Democrats for their handling of the Kavanaugh hearings,” he told reporters.

Trump selected Kavanaugh in July to replace long-serving conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired. Other candidates he considered for the vacancy included: Thomas Hardiman, who serves on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Raymond Kethledge and Amul Thapar of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and Amy Coney Barrett of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Will Dunham; Editing by Alison Williams and Frances Kerry)

Venezuelan migrant exodus hits 3 million: U.N.

FILE PHOTO: Colombian migration officers check the identity documents of people trying to enter Colombia from Venezuela, at the Simon Bolivar International bridge in Villa del Rosario, Colombia August 25, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File Photo

GENEVA (Reuters) – Three million Venezuelans have fled economic and political crisis in their homeland, most since 2015, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The exodus, driven by violence, hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicines, amounts to around one in 12 of the population.

It has accelerated in the past six months, said William Spindler of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which appealed for greater international efforts to ease the strain on the country’s neighbors.

U.N. data in September showed 2.6 million had fled.

“The main increases continue to be reported in Colombia and Peru,” Spindler said.

Colombia is sheltering 1 million Venezuelans. Some 3,000 more arrive each day, and the Bogota government says 4 million could be living there by 2021, costing it nearly $9 billion.

Oil-rich Venezuela has sunk into crisis under Socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has damaged the economy through state interventions while clamping down on political opponents.

He has dismissed the migration figures as “fake news” meant to justify foreign intervention in Venezuela’s affairs.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR said the exodus was straining several neighboring countries, notably Colombia.

“Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have largely maintained a commendable open-door policy,” said Eduardo Stein, UNHCR-IOM Joint Special Representative for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela.

“…However, their reception capacity is severely strained, requiring a more robust and immediate response from the international community.”

Regional government officials are to meet in Quito, Ecuador from Nov 22-23 to coordinate humanitarian efforts.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by John Stonestreet)

Gunman kills 12 including deputy in crowded California bar

Police guard the site of a mass shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Ringo Chiu

(Reuters) – A gunman opened fire on a crowd of mostly college students and young adults dancing at a crowded country and western bar in a suburb of Los Angeles late on Wednesday night, killing 12 people including a sheriff’s deputy, police said.

Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean named the suspect as Ian Long, aged 28. He told a news conference Long had likely shot himself and that he was a veteran who had served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

He said he appeared to have shot at random inside the club, using only a Glock .45-caliber handgun. There was no known motive, he said.

An unknown number of people were wounded in the shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill, a popular venue with college students and young adults in the suburb of Thousand Oaks. Wednesday was dubbed “College Country Night”.

It was the third mass shooting in the United States in under two weeks, six days after the death of two women at a yoga class in Tallahassee, Florida and 12 days after a gunman killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, shouting “All Jews must die”.

“It’s a horrific scene in there,” Dean said earlier. “There is blood everywhere and the suspect is part of that.”

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Rich McKay in Atlanta and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alison Williams)

Pakistani Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy ‘secure’, out of jail

Supporters of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a coalition of religious-political parties, hold flags and chant slogans as they attend a million march rally, after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, in Karachi, Pakistan November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

By Asif Shahzad and Mubasher Bukhari

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – A Pakistani Christian woman has been freed from prison a week after the Supreme Court overturned her conviction and death sentence for blasphemy against Islam, and she is at a secure location in the country, officials said on Thursday.

Officials dismissed some media reports that the woman, Asia Bibi, had been flown abroad, which would enrage hardline Islamists who have been protesting against her release and calling for her to be banned from leaving.

The release overnight of the mother of five prompted immediate anger from an Islamist party that has threatened to paralyze the country with street protests if her acquittal is not reversed.

Bibi, 53, was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 over allegations she made derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim.

She always denied having committed blasphemy.

The case has outraged Christians worldwide, and Pope Francis met Bibi’s family this year, saying he prayed for her. Italy said on Tuesday it would try to help Bibi, who is Catholic, to leave Pakistan.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry denied reports that Bibi had left the country and pointed out that a review of the Supreme Court decision to free her was pending.

“Asia Bibi is completely secure at a safe place in Pakistan,” said ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal.

“Her writ is in court, when that is decided, Asia Bibi can go anywhere she wants to, she is a free national … if she wants to go abroad, no harm in it.”

In Rome, the Catholic aid agency Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) said Bibi has been able to see her husband in an undisclosed location.

Their daughters were “close by” but had not yet seen their mother as of early afternoon, Pakistan time.

The agency, which arranged a meeting for Bibi’s husband and daughter with Pope Francis at the Vatican this year, said the family was awaiting visas but declined to disclose from which country for security reasons.

Insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammad carries a mandatory death penalty in Pakistan, which is about 95 percent Muslim and has among the harshest blasphemy laws in the world.

No executions for blasphemy have been carried out in Pakistan but enraged mobs sometimes kill people accused of blasphemy.

Rights groups say the blasphemy law is exploited by hardliners as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores.

Christians make up about 2 percent of the population.

‘AGITATED’

Security officials told Reuters early on Thursday that Bibi had been released from a prison in Multan, a city in the south of Punjab province.

She was flown to Islamabad and was in protective custody because of threats to her life, said three officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bibi’s lawyer, who has fled Pakistan and this week sought asylum in the Netherlands, confirmed she was no longer in prison.

“All I can tell you is that she has been released,” lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook told Reuters by phone from the Netherlands, where the government said on Thursday it had offered him temporary asylum.

A spokesman for the hard-line Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) party, which took to the streets after the Supreme Court ruling, said her release violated a deal with the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to end the protests.

“The TLP activists are agitated as the government has breached the agreement with our party. The rulers have showed their dishonesty,” party spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi told Reuters.

Under the deal, the government said it would not block a petition to the Supreme Court to review Bibi’s acquittal in light of sharia, Islamic religious law, the TLP said.

It also said the government promised to work to ensure Bibi could not leave the country.

If the government allows Bibi to leave, it would likely face more paralyzing protests from the TLP and other Islamist parties.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad and Saad Sayeed in ISLAMABAD, and Philip Pullella in ROME, Bart Meijer in AMSTERDAM; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Grant McCool, Robert Birsel)