Japan knife attack: stabbing at care centre leaves 19 dead
A man who claimed he wanted to kill disabled people left at least 19 dead and 26 others injured after a knife attack at a care facility in Japan. The suspect, named Satoshi Uematsu, told police in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo, “it is better that disabled people disappear”. Emergency workers said at least 20 of the wounded had sustained serious injuries, according to the Kyodo news agency.
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Hostage among three dead in Normandy church siege, say French police
A priest and two hostage-takers are dead after a siege that began when two men armed with knives took hostages in a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen. French media reported that five hostages had been held, including a priest, two nuns and two worshippers, and that a sixth escaped and raised the alarm. President Francois Hollande said the incident was a terrorist attack, carried out by “two terrorists who claimed to be from Isis”.
A witness to the attack has described how the two men forced the 86-year-old priest, Father Jacques Hamel, to his knees, slit his throat and filmed themselves appearing to preach in Arabic at the altar.
-- France's Willie Horton? Authorities identified one of the ISIS-linked attackers in the Normandy church slaying as a 19-year-old local who was already known to anti-terrorist investigators. Adel Kermiche had been arrested twice previously for trying to travel to Syria. He was being held under judicial supervision and was required to wear an electronic bracelet and check in with police regularly.Officials said the church attack began at 9:24 a.m. Tuesday, during Kermiche’s unsupervised leave, when his electronic bracelet was apparently deactivated,
The Islamic State’s war on Europe seems to have entered a dangerous new phase, evolving from highly coordinated operations on the grand boulevards of Paris and Brussels to amateur assaults in the hinterlands that have suddenly turned anyone, anywhere into a target. The rapid-fire nature of the attacks in Europe over the past two weeks is confounding European intelligence agencies, at times turning terrorism response into a ground war fought by already stretched local police. … The randomness of the attacks, experts say, is making it even more difficult for security services to do their jobs because the potential targets are virtually limitless, as are the means and the profiles of perpetrators.”
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| John Hinckley |
-- A federal judge ruled that John W. Hinckley, Jr. will be released from a government psychiatric hospital more than 35 years after he attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan and shot three others outside the Washington Hilton. From Spencer S. Hsu: “Hinckley, 61, no longer poses a danger to himself or others and will be freed to live full-time with his mother in Williamsburg, Va., effective as soon as Aug. 5 (and) subject to dozens of temporary treatment and monitoring conditions, U.S. District Judge Paul L Friedman of Washington wrote. If Hinckley adheres to all restrictions, they could begin to be phased out after 12 to 18 months, removing him from court control for the first time since he was confined to St. Elizabeth’s hospital after the shooting … If Hinckley relapses or violates the terms of his ‘convalescent leave,’ he could be returned to St. Elizabeth’s, the judge ordered.
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Democrats have spent the past few days tying Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The aim here is to suggest the Republican presidential nominee is buddying up to one of America's most antagonistic world powers — and clueless about the harm it would do to American interests. Trump — and Russia — have denied that they are in cahoots, which would be an unprecedented relationship in American political history. The evidence of any such relationship is inconclusive at best.
But Trump didn't help his cause when, in a wild press conference Tuesday, he appeared to encourage Russia to spy on Hillary Clinton:
In a tweet later, Trump seemed to indicate he only meant for Russia to turn over to the FBI any emails from Clinton's private sever that she deleted but Russian hackers may have found — there's no evidence they have any, but FBI Director James B. Comey recently said it's possible foreign agents got into Clinton's private server at some point while she was using it.
-- Several Democrats called for Trump to stop getting classified briefings from the intelligence community. Harry Reid suggested Trump should be given fake information. “How would the CIA and the other intelligence agencies brief this guy? How could they do that?” the Minority Reid asked. “I would suggest to the intelligence agencies, if you’re forced to brief this guy, don’t tell him anything, just fake it, because this man is dangerous.”
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| Marilyn J. Mosby |
Baltimore prosecutors dropped all remaining charges against three officers who had been awaiting trial in the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old Maryland man who died from injuries sustained in police custody last year. (Derek Hawkins, Lynh Bui and Peter Hermann), closing the book on one of the most closely watched police prosecutions in the nation without a single conviction — and few answers about precisely how the young man died. The outcome also left the city deeply divided over whether its top prosecutor, Marilyn J. Mosby, 36, had overreached in her initial charges.