Army veteran who tried to stop Oregon gunman was shot 5 times but expected to survive
ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) — When the gunshots started at Umpqua Community College, some people mistook them for falling books. But Army veteran Chris Mintz quickly recognized the threat.
“He was in the military and knew what it was,” said Mintz’s aunt, Wanda Mintz.
Her 30-year-old nephew, a student at the college, told classmates to remain calm and went to the door as the shooter came across the hallway. He tried to stop the gunman from entering the classroom and was shot three times, his aunt said.
After Chris Mintz fell, he told the suspect: “It’s my son’s birthday today. Don’t do this,’” she said. The gunman then shot him at least twice more and went into the classroom, where he kept firing. Nine people were killed before the shooter died in a shootout with police.
Wanda Mintz said her nephew tried to crawl away but could not move because of his wounds. He was recuperating Friday at a hospital in Roseburg and was expected to survive.
France tells Putin that Russia must confine airstrikes in Syria to Islamic State targets
PARIS (AP) — With Russian warplanes bombing Syria for a third day, French President Francois Holland told President Vladimir Putin on Friday that Moscow’s airstrikes must be confined to attacking Islamic State militants, not other rebels opposing the Damascus government.
Hollande used a meeting on Ukraine to address Western concerns that Russia’s airstrikes would serve to strengthen Syrian President Bashar Assad by targeting rebels — perhaps including some aligned with the U.S. — rather than hitting IS fighters it has promised to attack.
Allies in a U.S.-led coalition that is conducting its own air campaign in Syria called on Russia to cease attacks on the Syrian opposition and to focus on fighting the Islamic State group. A joint statement by France, Turkey, the U.S. Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Britain expressed concern that Russia’s actions will “only fuel more extremism and radicalization.”
The Russian Defense Ministry released images showing that its jets hit an Islamic State-held area near its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria on Thursday. It said there were 14 new missions Friday, including targets in Idlib and Hama provinces.
Hollande said he told Putin that only one of Russia’s strikes in three days hit at the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, ISIS and Daesh. The other strikes, Hollande added, were on areas controlled by the opposition.
East Coast likely to dodge hurricane, but heavy rain and flooding loom during the weekend
Millions along the East Coast breathed a little easier Friday after forecasters said Hurricane Joaquin would probably veer out to sea. But a freakishly powerful rainstorm fueled in part by the hurricane threatened to bring ruinous flooding to parts of the Atlantic Seaboard over the weekend.
With the soil already soggy and roads swamped in places from days of rain, East Coast states braced for what forecasters said could be deadly and unprecedented downpours.
New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and parts of Maryland and Delaware were under states of emergency. Meteorologists said the Carolinas will probably get the worst of it, with 15 inches of rain in places and landslides possible in the mountains.
“It’s going to be enormous,” meteorologist Ryan Maue of Weather Bell Analytics said. “It’s going to be a slow-motion disaster.”
For days, authorities had feared that Joaquin would link up with the rainstorm, multiplying the disastrous effects. Various computer models showed the hurricane hitting North Carolina’s Outer Banks, New Jersey, New York’s Long Island or Massachusetts’ Cape Cod.
Vatican confirms pope met with gay former student and his partner in new twist to Davis affair
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican turned the tables on the Kim Davis affair Friday: Not only did it distance Pope Francis from her claims that he endorsed her stand on same-sex marriage, it said the only “real audience” Francis had in Washington was with a small group that included a gay couple.
The revelations, doled out during the course of the day, put a new twist on Francis’ encounter with Davis after she and her lawyers insisted that her invitation to meet the pope on Sept. 24 amounted to an affirmation of her cause.
The Davis case has sharply divided the United States, and news of Francis’ meeting with the Kentucky clerk, who went to jail after refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, had upended his six-day U.S. tour. During the visit, Francis had tried to steer clear of such hot-button issues, only to see the Davis affair dominate the post-trip news cycle.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, sought to give the Vatican’s take of events in a statement early Friday, saying Francis had met with “several dozen” people at the Vatican’s embassy before leaving Washington for New York.
Davis was among them and had a “brief meeting,” he said. Lombardi said such meetings are common during papal trips and are due to the pope’s “kindness and availability.”
Cautious businesses pull back on hiring as depressed global growth finally catches up with US
WASHINGTON (AP) — A sagging global economy has finally caught up with the United States.
Nervous employers pulled back on hiring in August and September as China’s economy slowed, global markets sank and foreigners bought fewer U.S. goods. Friday’s monthly jobs report from the government suggested that the U.S. economy, which has been outshining others around the world, may be weakening.
Lackluster growth overseas has reduced exports of U.S. factory goods and cut into the overseas profits of large companies. Canada, the largest U.S. trading partner, is in recession. China, the second-largest economy after the United States, is growing far more slowly. And emerging economies, from Brazil to Turkey, are straining to grow at all.
A result is that economists now expect the Federal Reserve to delay a long-awaited increase in interest rates, possibly until next year.
Employers added just 142,000 jobs in September, and the government sharply lowered its estimate of gains in July and August by a combined 59,000. Monthly job growth averaged a mediocre 167,000 in the July-September quarter, down from 231,000 in the April-June period.
