Shark kills surfer

Shark kills surfer

SYDNEY, Australia

A surfer was killed by a shark early Saturday on Australia’s western coast, the fifth such death in the region in less than a year.

A jet-ski rider who went to the aid of the surfer said that he too was attacked by the shark.

More than 30 shark attacks have been reported during the past 40 years on the west coast, 12 of them fatal.

Statue of Reagan, John Paul unveiled

GDANSK, Poland

Polish officials have unveiled a statue of former President Ronald Reagan and John Paul II, honoring two men whom many Poles credit with helping to topple communism.

The statue was unveiled Saturday in Gdansk, the birthplace of Lech Walesa’s Solidarity movement. In attendance were about 120 former Solidarity activists, many of whom were imprisoned in the 1980s for their roles in organizing or taking part in strikes against the communist regime.

The bronze statue, erected in the lush seaside President Ronald Reagan Park, is based on an Associated Press photograph taken in 1987 on John Paul’s second pontifical visit to the U.S.

No injuries in NYC seaport fire

NEW YORK

A fire on a tourist-friendly New York City pier that sent a huge cloud of smoke billowing above the Manhattan skyline was doused without any injuries Saturday, fire officials said.

Flames enveloped a 100-foot stretch of Pier 17 at South Street Seaport, which was teeming with hundreds of people when the fire broke out about 4 p.m. Officials for the Fire Department of New York said the blaze was burning beneath the pier on the East River.

A music festival was under way not far from where the fire broke out but resumed after the blaze was brought under control. None of the shops and restaurants along the pier was damaged.

Lawyer: Case about rogue cops only

PITTSBURGH

The attorney for a young black man who filed a police- brutality lawsuit against three white Pittsburgh officers says the case is more about rogue cops than past civil-rights problems on the city force.

Jury selection in the federal lawsuit is scheduled to begin Monday.

Jordan Miles was an 18-year-old performing- arts student when he says three plainclothes officers stopped and beat him for no reason while he was on his way to his grandmother’s house in January 2010.

The officers argue their actions were reasonable because Miles ran and fought with police on duty in a crime-ridden neighborhood. A judge later determined Miles wasn’t prowling or armed as police suspected.

Combined dispatches