WORLD DIGEST || 3 dead, 2 wounded in office shooting
3 dead, 2 wounded in office shooting
IRWINDALE, Calif.
Three people were killed and two more injured Friday in a California office complex shooting, police said.
The suspected gunman was among the dead and is believed to have self-inflicted wounds, Baldwin Park police Capt. Michael Taylor said.
“As far as we know, there was one shooting suspect, period,” Taylor said.
The shooting occurred around 1:30 p.m. Friday at Southern California Edison offices inside a larger office complex in Irwindale.
There was no immediate word on what prompted the gunfire. Authorities were not saying whether the gunman worked at SoCal Edison or might have been a former employee.
Report slams Dutch Catholic Church
THE HAGUE, Netherlands
As many as 20,000 children endured sexual abuse at Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years, and church officials failed to adequately address it or help the victims, according to a long-awaited investigative report released Friday.
The findings detailed some of the most widespread abuse yet linked to the Roman Catholic Church, which has been under fire for years over abuse allegations in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
Based on a survey of 34,000 people, the report estimated that 1 in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of sexual abuse — a figure that rose to 1 in 5 among children who spent part of their youth in an institution such as a boarding school or children’s home, whether Catholic or not.
“Sexual abuse of minors,” it said bluntly, “occurs widely in Dutch society.”
Dispute bogs down Manning hearing
FORT MEADE, Md.
Pfc. Bradley Manning, the young soldier accused of aiding the enemy by slipping a trove of national-security secrets to WikiLeaks, sat quietly at the opening session of his pretrial hearing Friday as government and defense lawyers tangled over whether the presiding officer could be impartial.
Manning’s civilian defense lawyer argued that the presiding officer, Paul Almanza, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, is biased and should step aside, but Almanza refused. Almanza also denied a move by Manning’s defense to suspend the hearing while seeking to appeal Almanza’s decision to continue on the case.
The hearing is to determine whether Manning will face a court-martial on charges that he aided the enemy by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents.
Countdown to begin for Dec. 21, 2012
MEXICO CITY
A city in southern Mexico wants to live each moment as if it were the last.
Tourism officials in Tapachula have installed a digital clock to count down the time left before the Dec. 21, 2012, solstice, when some believe the world will end.
The clock starts Dec. 21, a year before the supposed apocalypse.
Chiapas state tourism regional director Manolo Alfonso Pinot said Friday that Mayan priests will perform a ceremony at the nearby archaeological site of Izapa.
Maya experts say the doomsday fears are a misreading of Maya stone inscriptions that mention the date, saying the Mayans considered it only the end of one calendar cycle and the beginning of another.
Pinot said he doesn’t believe the world will end but looks at it as a sort of beginning, in the business sense at least.
“A lot of people know they can fill their body with energy if they come to these exceptional sites,” he said.
Associated Press