Police: Fake officer tried to pull over cop

Police: Fake officer tried to pull over cop

NORTH KINGSVILLE, OHIO

Authorities in Northeast Ohio say a man pretending to be a police officer was caught and charged because the driver targeted by his bogus traffic stop was a real officer.

Police in North Kingsville say an off-duty Youngstown officer was stopped Sunday night by the purported impersonator, who was driving a black sport utility vehicle with red and blue emergency-style lights.

Village police Chief Hugh Flanigan told The Star-Beacon in nearby Ashtabula that the unarmed man in civilian clothes repeatedly tried to convince the Youngstown officer that he was a real lawman, but eventually drove away.

Flanigan says the officer contacted village police, who found the suspect within minutes. A prosecutor says the 42-year-old North Kingsville man faces a misdemeanor charge of impersonating an officer.

Nightclub shooting leaves at least 2 dead

TORONTO

A shooting that started at a Toronto nightclub event hosted by rapper Drake and then spilled outside onto the streets left at least two people dead and three others wounded, police said. It wasn’t clear if Drake was present during the shooting.

Toronto Deputy Police Chief Peter Sloly said shots were fired inside the Muzik nightclub on the Exhibition Place grounds in downtown Toronto, despite a large police presence outside the venue. The shooting took place at about 3:20 a.m. Tuesday when the nightclub was shutting down.

Sloly said at least one victim was shot inside the club.

Officials probe NH circus tent collapse

LANCASTER, N.H.

It’s unclear why after a widespread warning of impending severe weather a circus put on its planned show in a tent that ended up collapsing in a storm, killing a spectator and his 8-year-old daughter, the state fire marshal said Tuesday.

More than 30 other people were taken to hospitals after the collapse Monday night at the Lancaster Fairgrounds, 90 miles north of Concord.

Fire Marshal Bill Degnan said it’s the responsibility of the circus operator to monitor the weather. The show began seven minutes after the National Weather Service issued a severe-thunderstorm warning.

Al-Qaida seeks more lone-wolf attacks

WASHINGTON

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula released a video Tuesday calling for lone-wolf attacks in the U.S., France and other “disbeliever” nations.

The jihadist monitoring group SITE Intelligence said the video praised the purported gunman in an attack last month in the southern state of Tennessee that killed four Marines and one Navy sailor. AQAP official Khalid bin Umar Batarfi, who speaks in the nine-minute video, condemns “America, France and other kufr [disbeliever] nations,” according to SITE Intelligence.

Toxic algae blooms in warmer Pacific

SEATTLE

A vast bloom of toxic algae off the West Coast is denser, more widespread and deeper than scientists feared even weeks ago, according to surveyors aboard a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.

This coastal ribbon of microscopic algae, up to 40 miles wide and 650 feet deep in places, is flourishing amid unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures. It now stretches from at least California to Alaska and has shut down lucrative fisheries. Shellfish managers on Tuesday doubled the area off Washington’s coast that is closed to Dungeness crab fishing, after finding elevated levels of marine toxins in tested crab meat.

Combined dispatches