ESCAPED PRISONERS
UPDATE: One of two escapees shot and killed
MALONE, N.Y. (AP) – Authorities have intensified efforts to catch a second escaped murderer after one of the men was killed in woods by a border patrol agent.
Helicopters, canines and hundreds of law enforcement officers are hunting for David Sweat after Richard Matt was shot to death Friday in Malone, New York. He was gunned down in a wooded area about 30 miles from the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility. They went missing June 6.
New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico says the fatal confrontation came after a man found a bullet hole in the back of a camper he was towing and alerted police. Authorities found a cabin with the smell of fresh gunpowder and proof someone had just fled out the back. They followed.
A 20-gauge shotgun was found on Matt’s body.
GAY MARRIAGE-WHITE HOUSE LIT
White House lit in rainbow colors after Supreme Court ruling
WASHINGTON (AP) β The White House is lit up in rainbow colors in commemoration of the Supreme Court’s ruling to legalize same-sex marriage.
Gay and lesbian couples in Washington and across the nation are celebrating Friday’s ruling, which will put an end to same-sex marriage bans in the 14 states that still maintain them.
President Barack Obama said earlier Friday that the court ruling has “made our union a little more perfect.”
The colors illuminated the north side of the White House as Obama returned Friday evening from Charleston, South Carolina, where he delivered the eulogy of the funeral of Clementa Pinckney, one of nine people murdered in the massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last week.
SUPREME COURT-GAY MARRIAGE
After ruling, gay marriages begin in states where they were banned
WASHINGTON (AP) β Marriage licenses have been issued to same-sex couples today in at least eight states where gay marriage was previously banned.
That’s after the Supreme Court ruled that gay and lesbian Americans in all 50 states have the same right to marry as any other couples. Four of the court’s nine justices dissented, accusing their colleagues of usurping power that belongs to the states and to voters.
ATTACKS-HOMELAND SECURITY
Officials urge Americans to be vigilant following attacks
WASHINGTON (AP) β Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is urging Americans “to be vigilant and prepared” ahead of the July 4th holiday following attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait.
Johnson says people should attend Independence Day events as planned but “remain vigilant” and report any suspicious activity. He says U.S. authorities will adjust security measures, including those unseen by the public, as necessary.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris issued a similar warning, after a man with suspected ties to French Islamic radicals rammed a car into an American-owned gas factory. The severed head of a local businessman was left hanging at the factory’s entrance.
FRANCE-ATTACK
4 in custody after attack on American-owned factory
SAINT-QUENTIN-FALLAVIER, France (AP) β French prosecutors say four people are in custody in an investigation into a beheading and an explosion at an American-owned gas factory in southeastern France.
Authorities say a man once flagged for ties to French Islamic radicals rammed a vehicle into the factory today, triggering an explosion that injured two people. The severed head of the driver’s employer was left hanging at the factory’s entrance, along with banners with Arabic inscriptions.
Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said the suspect is a local truck driver who was known to workers at the Air Products plant because he came in regularly for deliveries.
Molins says a knife and a decapitated body were found near the crashed truck and the body’s head was found hanging on a gate, surrounded by two flags carrying Islamic declarations.
Molins said the attacker, his wife, sister and another suspect are in custody. He said investigators are trying to determine whether there are accomplices.
KUWAIT
At least 27 dead in mosque attack claimed by Islamic State affiliate
KUWAIT CITY (AP) β A suicide bomber purportedly from an Islamic State affiliate unleashed the first terrorist attack in Kuwait in more than two decades on Friday, killing at least 27 people and wounding scores more in a bombing that targeted Shiite worshippers after midday prayers.
The bombing struck the Imam Sadiq Mosque in a residential neighborhood of the capital, Kuwait City. It is one of the oldest Shiite mosques in Kuwait.
It was the third attack in five weeks to be claimed by a purported IS affiliate calling itself the Najd Province, a reference to the central region of Saudi Arabia where the ultraconservative Sunni ideology of Wahhabism originated.
The upstart IS branch had claimed two prior bombing attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia that killed 26 people in late May. The group was unheard of until the first Saudi bombing.
TUNISIA-ATTACK
At least 37 dead in attack on Tunisian resort
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) β A Health Ministry spokesman says the death toll following the attack against sunbathers at a Tunisian beach resort has increased to 37.
The spokesman said another 36 people were wounded in Friday’s attack and two or three of them are in critical condition.
The attack at a hotel in the Mediterranean resort of Sousse was Tunisia’s deadliest such attack.
COLORADO-DANGEROUS RIVERS
Swollen Colorado rivers force rafters to seek calmer waters
DENVER (AP) β Rapidly melting snow is sending Colorado’s rivers tumbling from the mountains, so far claiming the lives of at least 11 people. It’s also prompting some rafting companies to seek calmer rapids and stock extra safety gear.
Last year, 17 people died in boating accidents, surpassing Colorado’s average of 10 a year.
But the deaths haven’t dampened the attraction of the state’s whitewater rafting industry, which drew about half a million people last year and had an economic impact of $160.1 million.
David Costlow, director of the Colorado Outfitters Association, says having so few deaths with so many people running the rapids amounts to “a hell of a record.”
The deaths this year include nine kayakers and rafters, a man tubing near Pueblo and a fisherman swept away in Boulder Creek.
SHARK ATTACK
UPDATE: Officials say 2 men bitten by sharks in waters off NC, SC
AVON, N.C. (AP) β Authorities say two men were bitten by sharks off the coasts of the Carolinas, bringing to six the number of attacks in the past two weeks.
A 47-year-old man was bitten multiple times in the back in waters off North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Friday. The other, a 43-year-old man, was attacked by a shark near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Both were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.
Sharks have attacked several children along North Carolina’s coast this month, including a 13-year old girl who lost her left arm below the elbow and a 16-year old boy who lost his left arm above the elbow.
BILL COSBY
Cosby lawyer: Unsealing court docs ‘terribly embarrassing’
PHILADELPHIA (AP) β A lawyer for Bill Cosby says it would be “terribly embarrassing” if documents from a 2005 sex-assault lawsuit were unsealed in Philadelphia.
Cosby’s lawyer on Friday fought efforts by The Associated Press to unseal documents from a lawsuit he settled with a former Temple University employee.
Lawyer George Gowen III says Cosby’s deposition could detail his marriage, sex life and prescription drug use.
The lawsuit accuses Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting the woman at Cosby’s home. The settlement is confidential.
U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno asked why Cosby would be “embarrassed by his own version of the facts.”
He did not immediately rule on the AP’s request.
More than a dozen women have since accused Cosby of sexually assaulting them. Three have filed a defamation lawsuit against him in Massachusetts.
