Police link 12 highway shootings

Police link 12 highway shootings

KANSAS CITY, Mo.

Police have connected 12 shootings targeting vehicles on Kansas City-area roads and highways since early March.

Three drivers have been wounded by gunfire, though none of the wounds was considered life-threatening. Police have said they were looking into as many as 20 reported highway shootings, but that number has fluctuated as investigators address new reports and rule out others.

Most of the shootings were reported in an area in the southern part of Kansas City, Mo., known as the Grandview Triangle, where three interstate highways and U.S. 50 intersect. In all cases someone fired shots just before reaching a highway exit ramp or road split, then veered off in a different direction from the victim’s vehicle.

Another quake shakes Nicaragua

MANAGUA, Nicaragua

A magnitude-6.6 earthquake shook Nicaragua on Friday afternoon, sending people running frightened into the streets less than 24 hours after a magnitude-6.1 quake rattled the Central American country.

There were no immediate reports of new casualties or serious damage, but the U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt in El Salvador and neighboring Costa Rica.

The new tremor, centered 35 miles south of the capital city of Managua, surprised people at restaurants and supermarkets, where the shelves swayed strongly, throwing many products to the ground.

NSA surveillance reporters in US

NEW YORK

Two reporters central to revealing the massive U.S. government surveillance effort returned to the United States on Friday for the first time since the story broke and used the occasion to praise their exiled source: Edward Snowden.

Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras of The Guardian became a story of their own amid speculation they could be arrested upon arriving at Kennedy Airport. They were instead confronted by only reporters and photographers before fighting through traffic en route to a midtown Manhattan hotel to receive a George Polk Award for national-security reporting.

In remarks before an audience of other journalists and editors, the pair credited the courage of Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked the information for their story.

US blocks Iran’s envoy to UN

WASHINGTON

In a rare diplomatic rebuke, the United States has blocked Iran’s controversial pick for envoy to the United Nations, a move that could stir fresh animosity at a time when Washington and Tehran have been seeking a thaw in relations.

The Obama administration said Friday that the U.S. had informed Iran it would not grant a visa to Hamid Aboutalebi, a member of the group responsible for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

While U.S. officials had been trying to persuade Iran to simply withdraw Aboutalebi’s name, the announcement amounted to an acknowledgement that those efforts had not been successful.

Associated Press