‘I ain’t fit to live’: Police say Miss. gunman kills 8
BROOKHAVEN, Miss. (AP) — A man who got into an argument with his estranged wife and her family over his children was arrested Sunday in a house-to-house shooting rampage in rural Mississippi that left eight people dead, including his mother-in-law and a sheriff’s deputy.
“I ain’t fit to live, not after what I done,” a handcuffed Willie Corey Godbolt, 35, told The Clarion-Ledger Sunday.
The gunfire erupted Saturday night at Godbolt’s in-laws’ home in Bogue Chitto after the deputy arrived in response to a domestic disturbance call, and spread to two houses in nearby Brookhaven, about 70 miles south of Jackson.
The dead included two boys, investigators said. Godbolt was hospitalized in good condition with a gunshot wound, though it wasn’t clear who shot him.
Mississippi Bureau of Investigation spokesman Warren Strain said that prosecutors planned to charge Godbolt with murder but that it was too soon to say what the motive was.
Authorities gave no details on his relationship to the victims.
Kushner’s Russia ties questioned as President Trump cites media ‘lies’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Democrats on Sunday demanded to hear directly from top White House adviser Jared Kushner over allegations of proposed secret back-channel communications with Russia, saying the security clearance of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law may need to be revoked.
Trump, having returned from a nine-day overseas trip, immediately railed against administration leaks, calling them “fabricated lies,” in a flurry of tweets.
And his Homeland Security head defended the idea of establishing that kind of communication as a “smart thing” and said he didn’t see “any big issue here” for Kushner.
But to the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, it’s “obviously very concerning” that a key Trump campaign figure was possibly seeking secret communications with a country that intelligence experts say intervened in the 2016 election.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California said the government needed to “get to the bottom” of the matter.
SKorea: NKorea fired unidentified projectile
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Monday fired an unidentified projectile off its east coast, South Korea’s military said, in what is likely the latest test-launch of a ballistic missile as the North seeks to build nuclear-tipped ICBMs that can reach the U.S. mainland.
A statement by the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launch came from around the eastern North Korean coastal town of Wonsan, but the agency didn’t say what type of projectile was fired or if it was successful. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, without citing a source, said the projectile is believed to be a ballistic missile, but the South Korean military said it was still analyzing what exactly the North launched.
Muslims thankful for support after rant, deadly attack
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Muslims in Portland, Oregon, thanked the community for its support and said they were raising money for the families of two men who were killed when they came to the defense of two young women — one wearing a hijab — who were targeted by an anti-Muslim rant.
“I am very thankful as a Muslim, I am very thankful as a Portlander … that we stand together here as one,” Muhammad A. Najieb, an imam, said Saturday.
The two young women “could have been the victims, but three heroes jumped in and supported them,” he said.
Police said they’ll examine what appears to be the extremist ideology of suspect Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, who is accused of killing the two men Friday. Christian’s social media postings indicate an affinity for Nazis and political violence.
Fla. could pave new changes in ‘stand your ground’ laws
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Lucy McBath is afraid many more people will die if Florida Gov. Rick Scott signs a bill making it harder to prosecute when people claim they commit violence in self-defense.
She already lost her son, an unarmed black teenager, when a white man angry over loud music and claiming self-defense fired 10 times at an SUV filled with teenagers.
The measure before Scott would effectively require a trial-before-a-trial whenever someone invokes self-defense, making prosecutors prove the suspect doesn’t deserve immunity.
Scott hasn’t revealed his intentions, but he’s a National Rifle Association supporter, and this is an NRA priority.
“If it passes in Florida, then they take that same legislation and they push it on the legislative floors across the country,” said McBath, whose 17-year-old son Jordan Davis was killed by Michael Dunn outside a Jacksonville convenience store in 2012.
