Schools reopen as manhunt continues

Schools reopen as manhunt continues

SWIFTWATER, Pa.

Schools in a northeastern Pennsylvania district have reopened after authorities did a precautionary search to make sure they weren’t harboring the suspect in last month’s deadly ambush of a state police barracks.

The Pocono Mountain School District was closed Tuesday while police searched the district’s campus in Swiftwater. Police scoured the elementary, junior and high-school buildings but found no sign of the 31-year-old suspect, Eric Frein. Police say there have been two reported sightings of Frein near the Swiftwater campus.

Doctors differ on girl’s mental state

WAUKESHA, Wis.

Doctors disagree over whether the second of two 12-year-old girls charged with stabbing a classmate to please the fictional horror character Slender Man is fit to stand trial, a judge and attorneys said Wednesday.

A state psychiatrist filed a report saying he found the girl mentally capable of helping with her defense, but defense attorney Joseph Smith Jr. questioned the state doctor’s qualifications and said he had a report from another doctor who disagreed.

Both reports are sealed, and Smith didn’t offer any details except to question whether Dr. Robert Rawski had the expertise to evaluate juveniles.

Man caught; jumped White House fence

washington

A 23-year-old Maryland man was in custody Wednesday night after he climbed over the White House fence and was swiftly apprehended on the North Lawn by uniformed Secret Service agents and their dogs.

Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said a man he identified as Dominic Adesanya of Bel Air, Md., climbed the north fence line at 7:16 p.m. and was taken into custody immediately by uniformed agents and K-9 teams that constantly patrol the grounds. Adesanya was unarmed at the time of his arrest, Leary said. Charges were pending.

Lawmakers OK fighters for Syria

IRBIL, IRAQ

Lawmakers in Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region Wednesday authorized peshmerga forces to go to neighboring Syria and help fellow Kurds combat Islamic State militants in the key border town of Kobani, providing much-needed boots on the ground.

The unprecedented deployment will almost certainly depend on the support of Turkey, whose president criticized a U.S. airdrop of arms to Kurdish fighters after some of the weapons wound up in the hands of the extremists.

Turkey, which has riled Kurdish leaders and frustrated Washington by refusing to allow fighters or weapons into Kobani, said this week it would help Iraqi Kurdish fighters cross into Syria to help their brethren against the militants, who also are being attacked by a U.S.-led campaign of airstrikes.

Bomb outside Cairo University injures 10

Cairo

A bomb exploded outside Egypt’s largest and most prominent university in the country’s capital Wednesday, wounding 10 people, including six policemen, the Interior Ministry said.

The bomb, described as a rudimentary device, went off after clashes between police and Islamist students who were protesting outside the sprawling campus, security officials said.

It was the second bombing outside Cairo University in the past six months. Egypt has faced regular militant attacks, mostly targeting security forces, since the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last year.

Associated Press