Police foil plot to kill people at mall

Police foil plot to kill people at mall

TORONTO

A senior police official said Friday police foiled a plot by two suspects who were planning on going to a mall and killing as many people as they could before killing themselves on Valentine’s Day in Halifax.

The official told The Associated Press the suspects were on a chat stream and apparently were obsessed with killing and death and had many photos of mass killings. Police and other officials said it was not related to Islamic terrorism.

The official said one of the two suspects, a 23-year-old American woman from Geneva, Ill., was arrested at Halifax’s airport and confessed the plot and that the 19-year-old male shot himself to death after police surrounded his parents’ home.

New England braces for another storm

BOSTON

Exasperated New Englanders still digging out from three major storms that left 6 feet or more of snow in many areas are bracing for what’s expected to be another punishing blast of winter this weekend.

The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for all of eastern Massachusetts and coastal areas of Maine and New Hampshire ahead of a storm expected to intensify tonight and last into Sunday, bringing bone-chilling cold behind it.

Last-gasp battle ahead of cease-fire

ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine

Russian-backed separatists mounted a vicious assault Friday in eastern Ukraine ahead of a weekend cease-fire deadline, pummeling a strategic railway hub with wave upon wave of shelling in a last-minute grab for territory. At least 26 people were killed across the region.

The fiercest confrontations focused on the government-held town of Debaltseve, a key transport center that has been on the receiving end of dozens of artillery and rocket salvos in the 24-hour period after the peace deal was sealed Thursday by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France.

Utah House OKs firing-squad plan

SALT LAKE CITY

A hotly contested proposal that resurrects Utah’s use of firing squads to carry out executions narrowly passed a key vote Friday in the state’s Legislature after three missing lawmakers were summoned to break a tie vote.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 39-34 Friday morning to approve the measure, sending it to an uncertain fate in the state’s GOP-controlled Senate.

Embassies close

SANAA, Yemen

Saudi Arabia, Italy and Germany shut down their embassies in Yemen on Friday amid growing political uncertainty as Yemen’s top U.N. envoy warned that the Arab world’s poorest nation is at a crossroads between “civil war and disintegration.”

The new embassy closures come days after similar measures by the United States, France and Britain, threatening international isolation for a country that houses the world’s most active al-Qaida branch.

Barbara Bush gives OK for Jeb to run

In a carefully staged but endearing Bush family moment, former first lady Barbara Bush cleared the path for another son to run for president by announcing that she no longer believes too many Bushes have served in the White House. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said.

Her pronouncement came via Skype on Friday during a dinner in Bonita Springs, Fla., of about 350 supporters of her family literacy foundation and while her son, the state’s former Gov. Jeb Bush, stood on stage gladly welcoming his mother’s approval. “Hey Mom, can I get that in writing, by the way?” he said.

Combined dispatches