7 shot in Fla. during spring break party
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. – Seven people were injured, some critically, during an early-morning spray of gunfire Saturday at a spring break party on the Florida Panhandle, police said. An Alabama man was quickly apprehended and charged with attempted murder.
Multiple 911 calls flooded in just before 1 a.m., reporting the shootings at the house party in Panama City Beach, and deputies found a sprawling crime scene with victims inside the home, outside and across the street from it and in the street’s median, the Bay County Sheriff’s Office said.
Officers set up a perimeter and found a suspect matching witnesses’ description. David Jamichael Daniels, 22, of Mobile, Alabama, was charged with seven counts of attempted murder and was jailed awaiting a first court appearance. A .40-caliber handgun believed to have been used was found in the yard of a nearby home.
The two companions to the accused shooter were questioned but not charged.
100s protest Indiana: ‘No hate in our state’
INDIANAPOLIS – Hundreds of people, some carrying signs reading “No hate in our state,” gathered Saturday outside the Indiana Statehouse for a boisterous rally against a new state law that opponents say could sanction discrimination against gay people.
Since Republican Gov. Mike Pence signed the bill into law Thursday, Indiana widely has been criticized by businesses and organizations around the nation, as well as on social media with the hashtag (hash)boycottindiana.
The law’s supporters contend discrimination claims are overblown and insist it will keep the government from compelling people to provide services they find objectionable on religious grounds. They also maintain that courts haven’t allowed discrimination under similar laws covering the federal government and 19 other states.
Boston cop in coma after shot in face
BOSTON – A decorated Boston police officer remained in a medically induced coma Saturday, a night after he was shot in the face during a traffic stop that ended when other officers fatally shot his attacker, the city’s police commissioner said.
Officer John Moynihan, 34, was struck just below his right eye, and the bullet remains lodged below his right ear. He was listed in critical condition, Commissioner William Evans said.
Evans said Moynihan is undergoing tests and is being monitored for bleeding in his brain.
Moynihan and five other gang task force members, traveling in two cars, stopped a car Friday night after reports of shots fired, Evans said.
The commissioner said the officers had blue lights flashing but none had pulled out their weapons. He said video from the scene shows Moynihan approaching the driver’s door, and the suspect, Angelo West, 41, of Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood, suddenly pull a gun and shoot him at point-blank range.
Evans said West continued firing at the other officers as he tried to run away, emptying his .357 Magnum handgun, then was killed at the scene when police returned fire. West had a violent criminal past with several prior gun convictions, according to Evans.
Afghan officer gets max 20-year sentence
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan’s highest court ruled that the police officer convicted of murdering Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus and wounding AP correspondent Kathy Gannon almost one year ago should serve 20 years in prison, according to documents sent to the country’s attorney general Saturday.
The final sentence for former Afghan police unit commander Naqibullah was reduced from the death penalty recommended by a primary court last year. Twenty years in prison is the maximum jail sentence in Afghanistan, said Zahid Safi, a lawyer for The Associated Press who had been briefed on the decision by the Supreme Court.
Naqibullah, who uses only one name, opened fire on Niedringhaus and Gannon without warning April 4 as the two were covering the first round of the country’s presidential election outside the city of Khost in southeastern Afghanistan.
Top Italian court finds Knox innocent
ROME – Amanda Knox, who maintained she and her former Italian boyfriend were innocent in her British roommate’s murder through multiple trials and nearly four years in jail, was vindicated Friday when Italy’s highest court threw out their convictions – once and for all.
The surprise decision definitively ends the 7½-year legal battle waged by Knox, 27, and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, 31, to clear their names in the gruesome 2007 murder and sexual assault of British student Meredith Kercher.
The supreme Court of Cassation panel deliberated for 10 hours before declaring that the two did not commit the crime, a stronger exoneration than merely finding insufficient evidence to convict.
2 to spend a year away from Earth
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan – Two Russians and an American floated into the International Space Station on Saturday, beginning what is to be a year away from Earth for two of them.
Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly are to spend 342 days aboard the orbiting laboratory, about twice as long as a standard mission on the station. Russia’s Gennady Padalka is beginning a six-month stay.
The three astronauts entered the station about eight hours after launching from Russia’s manned space facility in Kazakhstan. They were embraced by American Terry Virts and Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov, who along with Italian Samantha Cristoforetti have been aboard since late November.
The trip is NASA’s first attempt at a one-year spaceflight; four Russians have spent a year or more in space, all on the Soviet-built Mir space station. The stay is aimed at measuring the effects of a prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body, a step toward possible missions to Mars or beyond.
Associated Press
