A gunman on Friday opened fire at a local newspaper office in Maryland, killing five people and injuring others in what police said was a “targeted attack.”
Staff at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis said the attacker, armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades, shot through a glass door into the newsroom.
US media have named a suspect held by police as Jarrod Ramos, who is reported to have unsuccessfully sued the newspaper group in 2012 for defamation.
Police have not confirmed a motive.
They said a white male suspect in his late 30s was taken into custody at the scene of the shooting and was being questioned.
Investigators were said to be looking into “violent” threats that had been made against the Capital Gazette via social media.
“This was a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette,” William Krampf, deputy chief of Anne Arundel County Police, was quoted by the BBC as saying.
He added that the gunman “entered the building with a shotgun and looked for his victims as he walked through the lower level.”
County executive, Steve Schuh, told CNN that the suspect was hiding under a desk in the building when police officers arrived “within 60 seconds” of receiving news of the incident. He said there was “no exchange of fire.”
The Capital Gazette publishes several local newspapers, including a daily called The Capital, which has a history dating back to 1884.
It is owned by the Baltimore Sun Media Group.
The Baltimore Sun reported that police gathered outside Mr. Ramos’ house on Thursday after the attack.
It said the alleged suspect has a “long-running feud” with The Capital over a 2011 report on a criminal harassment case against him.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Krampf said an item “we believed to be an explosive device” had been found at the premises and destroyed.
He said it turned out to be a smoke bomb.
He added that more than 170 people had been escorted safely from the building, which houses other businesses.
Staff at the Capital Gazette’s titles were left reeling from the shooting, but vowed to put out an edition on Friday.
“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” tweeted reporter Phil Davis.
Mr. Davis described the shooting at the newspaper’s office in Annapolis, just east of Washington DC, as being “like a war zone.”
Brexit: May urges EU leaders to put citizens’ safety first
Citizens could be less safe if the UK has to leave key policing agreements after Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May has warned EU leaders.
The UK says EU negotiators are blocking agreement on tracking terrorists and sharing information after March 2019.
The EU says once the UK becomes a “third country” it cannot have the same access to policing initiatives.
Mrs. May urged EU leaders to “consider what is in the best interests of the safety of your citizens and mine.”
Speaking at a dinner in Brussels the prime minister said obstructing UK participation in law enforcement schemes would mean their ability to fight terrorism would be reduced.
“We would no longer be able to share real-time alerts for wanted persons, including serious criminals,” she said.
“We would be able to respond less swiftly to alerts for missing people on either side of the Channel and reunite them with their loved ones.
“Our collective ability to map terrorist networks across Europe and bring those responsible to justice would be reduced.
“That is not what I want and I do not believe it is what you want either,” the prime minister said.
She said EU leaders should tell their negotiators to allow the UK to continue to take part in schemes like the Prum mechanism for sharing DNA profiles, the Second Generation Schengen Information System – a database of “real time” alerts about certain individuals – and the European Criminal Records Information System.
She urged them to “consider what is in the best interests of the safety of your citizens and mine and give your negotiators a mandate that will allow us to achieve this crucial objective.”
BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg said Mrs. May hoped to persuade the 27 other EU leaders to move away from what the UK government regards as a rigid approach from the EU Commission in negotiations and to ease up on their “red lines.”
Earlier this month, EU chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the UK would be kicked out of the European Arrest Warrant deal after Brexit – which allows EU members to request the arrest and detention of criminals in other countries without extradition talks between them.
He argued it could not remain a part of it because the UK wanted to leave the European Court of Justice and free movement rules.
The prime minister has been briefing EU leaders at a summit for the last time before October, when both sides hope a deal will be done on the UK’s March 2019 departure.
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Iraqi PM orders immediate execution of ‘all convicted terrorists’
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadion Thursday ordered the immediate execution of all convicted “terrorists” of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, on death row, in swift retaliation for the group’s execution of eight captives.
Abadi “ordered the immediate execution of terrorists condemned to death whose sentences have passed the decisive stage,” his office said, referring to convicts whose appeals have been exhausted.
He had vowed to avenge the deaths of ISIL captives, a day after their bodies were found along a highway north of the capital, Baghdad.
“Our security and military forces will take forceful revenge against these terrorist cells,” he told senior military officials and ministers.
“We promise that we will kill or arrest those who committed this crime,” he said.
The corpses, found on Wednesday at Tel Sharaf in Salaheddin province, were decomposing and had been strapped with explosive vests, the army said.
They included six abductees who had appeared in an IS video with badly bruised faces.
IS claimed they were Iraqi police officers or members of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force.
More than 300 people, including around 100 foreign women, have been condemned to death in Iraq and hundreds of others to life imprisonment for membership of the ISIL group, a judicial source said in April.
Most of the convicted women are from former Soviet republics, while a Russian man and a Belgian national are also on death row.
Iraq declared victory over IS in December after expelling the fighters from all urban centres including second city Mosul in a vast military campaign.
But the Iraqi military has kept up operations targeting mostly desert areas along the porous border with Syria.
China slashes tariffs for Asian countries as US trade fight escalates
China is slashing tariffs on imports from five Asian countries in a move that could strengthen its defenses in a trade war with the United States.
Beijing will reduce tariffs on thousands of products from India and South Korea, as well as the smaller economies of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Laos, China’s commerce ministry saidThursday.
The reductions are due to take effect on July 1.
They’re part of an agreement between the six countries called the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) that covers more than 10,000 goods in total, the ministry added.
China has identified more than 8,500 goods from the five countries on which it will “reduce or cancel tariffs,” China’s Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui said on Twitter.
They include soybeans, steel, aluminum as well as other agricultural and chemical products, he added.
Many of those products could help replace imports from the United States that will become more expensive in China if the two countries go ahead with tariffs on $34 billion of each other’s exports next week.
Although the Asian trade agreement was planned before the US-China dispute escalated, some experts say Beijing is highlighting it now to send a message to the White House.
“This is basically a tactical measure to counter the Trump administration’s tariff rise,” said Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“They are trying to tap into other markets if the United States goes ahead with a trade war,” he added.
The trade in soybeans is particularly important for both sides.
Soybeans are America’s leading agricultural export and China is its biggest customer, buying them from US farmers to use as a protein source in animal feed.
China plans to hit American soybeans with a 25% tariff in response for planned US tariffs on Chinese goods.
