Security Council condemns attack

Security Council condemns attack

new york

The U.N. Security Council has condemned the Taliban attack in Kabul “in the strongest terms” and urged that those involved be brought to justice.

In Tuesday’s attack, militants stormed an Afghan government security agency with a suicide car bomb and gunfire, killing 28 people and wounding hundreds in a sign of the insurgency’s continued strength.

The Security Council said in a statement it condemned all forms of terrorism and noted the dangers that the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Islamic State group present in Afghanistan.

Freeway shooting suspect leaves jail

PHOENIX

A man charged in freeway shootings that rattled Phoenix last year was released from jail Tuesday amid questions about the evidence that authorities say links him to the crimes.

The release of Leslie Merritt Jr. came after a judge reduced his bond to zero and said he can return to his home under electronic monitoring.

“I am just ready to go home and be with my kids,” Merritt said moments after walking out of jail.

The reduction of the bond – once $1 million – was a major victory as defense lawyers contend that ballistic tests cast doubt on the claim by authorities that Merritt was behind four of the freeway shootings.

School district arms guards with rifles

DENVER

A suburban Denver school district is arming its security staff with military-style semiautomatic rifles in case of a school shooting or other violent attack, a move that appears unprecedented even as more schools arm employees in response to mass violence elsewhere.

The Douglas County School District guards are former law-enforcement officers and already carry handguns.

District security director Richard Payne said he decided to spend more than $12,000 on the Bushmaster brand rifles for the district’s eight armed officers to give them the same tools as law enforcement, including the sheriff’s deputies they train with. Payne said the rifles will be kept locked in patrol cars, not in the schools.

Syrian opposition digs in heels

GENEVA

Syria’s top opposition leader vowed to fight “even with stones” to depose President Bashar Assad, shifting sharply to a tone of conflict over conciliation as peace talks in Geneva teetered near collapse Tuesday amid a new surge in fighting – including government airstrikes that left dozens dead.

Angry and defiant, Riad Hijab of the Western-backed Syrian High Negotiations Committee thundered home the opposition coalition’s decision to walk back – if not entirely away – from U.N.-brokered peace talks in Geneva. He demanded more Security Council oversight of an increasingly wobbly cease-fire as Assad’s troops battled rebel fighters in various parts of the country.

Criminal charges over Flint water

LANSING, Mich.

Michigan’s attorney general will announce criminal charges today against two state regulators and a Flint employee, alleging wrongdoing related to the city’s lead-tainted water crisis, according to government officials familiar with the investigation.

The charges – the first levied in a probe that is expected to broaden — will be filed against a pair of state Department of Environmental Quality officials and a local water treatment plant supervisor, two officials told The Associated Press late Tuesday.

Associated Press