Reports: Istanbul nightclub attacker who killed 39 caught
ISTANBUL (AP) — A gunman suspected of killing 39 people during a New Year’s attack on an Istanbul nightclub has been caught in a police operation, Turkish media reports said early Tuesday.
The suspect was captured in a special operations police raid on a house in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district, private NTV television reported. The broadcaster said he had been staying in the house belonging to a friend from Kyrgyzstan.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the nightclub massacre, saying the attack in the first hours of Jan. 1 was in reprisal for Turkish military operations in northern Syria. The man identified as the suspect had been on the run since the attack.
Hurriyet newspaper and other media have identified the gunman as Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbekistan national. The suspect was to undergo medical checks before being taken to police headquarters for questioning, the paper said in its online edition.
Dogan news agency published what it said was the first image of the attacker. It showed a bruised, black-haired man in a grey, bloodied shirt being held by his neck. Private NTV television said the gunman had resisted arrest.
Gene Cernan, last astronaut to walk on the moon, dies at 82
HOUSTON (AP) — Former astronaut Gene Cernan, who as the last person to walk on the moon returned to Earth with a message of “peace and hope for all mankind,” died on Monday, his family said. He was 82.
Cernan was with his relatives when he died at a Houston hospital following ongoing heath issues, family spokeswoman Melissa Wren told The Associated Press. His family said his devotion to lunar exploration never waned.
“Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation’s leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon,” his family said in a statement released by NASA.
Cernan was commander of NASA’s Apollo 17 mission and on his third space flight when he set foot on the lunar surface in December 1972. He became the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon on Dec. 14, 1972 — tracing his only child’s initials in the dust before climbing the ladder of the lunar module the last time. It was a moment that forever defined him in both the public eye and his own.
“Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make,” Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. “I didn’t want to go up. I wanted to stay a while.”
Officials: FBI arrests widow of Orlando nightclub shooter
WASHINGTON (AP) — The wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter, who was extensively questioned by federal agents in the days after the massacre, has been arrested by the FBI on in connection with the attack, authorities said Monday.
Noor Salman was taken into custody Monday morning in the San Francisco Bay area and is facing charges in Florida including obstruction of justice. A Twitter post from the United States attorney’s office in Orlando said Salman will make her initial court appearance Tuesday morning in Oakland, California.
Noor Salman moved to California after her husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members during the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
FBI agents repeatedly questioned Salman in the aftermath of the shooting about whether she had advance knowledge of her husband’s plans. Salman told The New York Times in an interview published last fall that she knew her husband had watched jihadist videos but that she was “unaware of everything” regarding his intent to shoot up the club. She also said he had physically abused her.
“Noor Salman had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night,” her attorney, Linda Moreno, said in a statement.
Ethics watchdog investigating Canadian PM’s vacation
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Canada’s ethics commissioner said Monday she is launching an investigation into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent family holiday at the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.
Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson said Trudeau may have violated the federal ethics code during his holiday with the Aga Khan, a family friend, philanthropist and hereditary spiritual leader to the world’s approximately 15 million Ismaili Muslims. It’s the first time the ethics commissioner has opted to investigate the actions of a sitting prime minister.
In a letter to opposition Conservative lawmaker Blaine Calkins, who was among those who filed formal complaints, Dawson said she is looking into both Trudeau’s stay at the island and his use of the Aga Khan’s private helicopter to get there.
The vacation included Trudeau, his family, Liberal lawmaker Seamus O’Regan and Liberal party president Anna Gainey, all of whom took part in the chopper flight from Nassau to get to the secluded island.
Both the Conflict of Interest Act and Trudeau’s own ethics guidelines bar the use of sponsored travel in private aircraft, allowing it only for exceptional circumstances.
This time, inaugural fashion is intertwined with politics
NEW YORK (AP) — What’ll she be wearing?
It’s a question that fascinates fashion-watchers — and lots of others — every four years: Which designer will the new U.S. first lady choose to wear on Inauguration Day and, more importantly, on Inauguration Night?
This year as never before, the question is a loaded one. Dressing the first lady has long been considered a great honor for a designer — and a huge business boon. But in an industry that leaned heavily toward Hillary Clinton, a number of designers have indicated they have no interest in dressing Melania Trump. So the question is not merely whom she’ll be choosing — if she doesn’t simply buy off the rack — but also, in a sense, who’ll be choosing her.
And the first lady’s inaugural attire is not the only example of how political concerns have seeped into fashion lately in unexpected ways.
The fashion choices of Ivanka Trump, the daughter who many believe will serve as a quasi-first lady, have also come under scrutiny. She recently announced she’s leaving her executive position at the Ivanka Trump clothing and accessories brand, calling it a “formal leave of absence” as she and her husband, Jared Kushner, head to Washington, where he will be a senior adviser to President Donald Trump.
