1 killed in shooting at Washington state apartment building
VANCOUVER, Wash. — A man opened fire Thursday in the lobby of a building for senior residents, killing a man and wounding two women and then barricading himself inside his apartment before surrendering, police said.
The injuries of the wounded people were critical and they were taken to a hospital, fire department officials said.
The shooter was identified by police Thursday evening, and was a resident of the 15-story Smith Tower building. West Hawaii Today does not publish the names of shooters. Vancouver Police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said he surrendered.
The suspect was booked into Clark County Jail on suspicion of murder and attempted murder charges. It wasn’t known if he has a lawyer.
Some parts of the building had been evacuated during the standoff and other residents were told to stay inside their apartments. All were allowed back into their residences Thursday evening, police said.
Jury convicts man in killing of Chicago boy lured into alley
CHICAGO — A jury convicted a man of first-degree murder Thursday night in the shooting death of a 9-year-old Chicago boy who was lured into an alley with the promise of a juice box.
Prosecutors contended that Dwright Boone-Doty and fellow gang member Corey Morgan planned the November 2015 killing of Tyshawn Lee before Boone-Doty took a gun Morgan gave him and shot the boy.
The Cook County jury that found Boone-Doty guilty deliberated for a little more than two hours after a long day of closing arguments. A separate jury will decide Morgan’s fate, and the judge ordered those jurors sequestered for the night after they didn’t reach a verdict. They will resume deliberations Friday.
Prosecutors said Tyshawn was killed because Boone-Doty and Morgan believed his father belonged to a rival gang they blamed for fatally shooting Morgan’s brother and wounding his mother. The fourth grader, still wearing his school uniform, had headed to a park to play basketball.
Boone-Doty befriended Tyshawn to gain his trust after the boy arrived at the park, prosecutors said. He picked up the basketball that the boy had brought to the park, lured him into a nearby alley and shot him with a .40-caliber handgun multiple times at close range while Morgan watched from an SUV, they said.
MGM Resorts commits up to $800M to victims of Vegas shooting
LAS VEGAS — Two years after a shooter rained gunfire on country music fans from a high-rise Las Vegas Strip hotel, MGM Resorts International has agreed to pay up to $800 million to families of the 58 people who died and hundreds of others who were injured, attorneys announced Thursday.
The out-of-court agreement will resolve lawsuits in at least 10 states seeking compensation from the hotel owner for physical and psychological injuries received in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Publicly traded MGM Resorts acknowledged no liability or guilt with the agreement that attorneys said was reached Monday and made public just two days after the second anniversary of the Oct. 1, 2017, massacre at a country music concert.
No one wanted to upstage victim memorials with the settlement, said attorney Robert Eglet, who represents about 2,500 of the 4,400 people with claims against publicly traded MGM Resorts.
And no one wanted to go through protracted litigation, he said.
White House prepares formal objection to impeachment probe
WASHINGTON — The White House is preparing to formally object to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as soon as Friday, saying it won’t cooperate with the probe because it was initiated without a vote of the House.
The White House Counsel’s Office was preparing to send a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi objecting to the form of the impeachment investigation, a person familiar with the matter said late Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the letter before its dissemination.
Pelosi last week announced that the House was beginning the formal inquiry but didn’t seek the consent of the full chamber, as was done for impeachment investigations into former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, confirmed that the letter was forthcoming.
Trump allies have suggested for days that without a formal vote, the House is merely conducting standard oversight, entitling lawmakers to a lesser level of disclosure from the administration. The Justice Department raised similar arguments last month, though that was before Pelosi announced the impeachment investigation.
From wire sources
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James Franco’s ex-students sue alleging sexual impropriety
LOS ANGELES — Two actresses sued James Franco and the acting and film school he founded Thursday, saying he intimidated his students into gratuitous and exploitative sexual situations far beyond those acceptable on Hollywood film sets.
Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, former students at the actor’s now-closed Studio 4, said in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that Franco pushed his students into performing in increasingly explicit sex scenes on camera in an “orgy type setting.”
Franco “sought to create a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education,” the suit alleges.
The women say students were led to believe roles in Franco’s films would be available to those who went along.
The situations described in the suit arose during a master class in sex scenes that Franco taught at the school, which he opened in 2014 and closed in 2017.