Man dies after attacking immigration prison, police say

Man dies after attacking immigration prison, police say

TACOMA, Wash.

A man armed with a rifle threw incendiary devices at an immigration jail in Washington state Saturday, then was found dead after four police officers arrived and opened fire, authorities said.

The Tacoma Police Department said the officers responded to the privately run Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security detention facility that holds migrants pending deportation proceedings.

The detention center has also held immigration-seeking parents separated from their children under President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, an effort meant to deter illegal immigration.

The shooting took place about six hours after a peaceful rally in front of the detention center, police spokesman Loretta Cool said. She said another rally was planned for Saturday, but it would have to be held in a different area because of the investigation into the police shooting.

Police said the man caused a vehicle to catch fire and that he attempted to ignite a large propane tank and set buildings on fire. Police said that besides the rifle, he had a satchel and flares.

Police said officers called out to the man, and shots were fired.

More to come: FTC fine doesn’t spell closure for Facebook

Facebook may be close to putting a Federal Trade Commission investigation behind it. But it faces a variety of other probes in Europe and the U.S., some of which could present it with even bigger headaches.

While the $5 billion fine from the FTC, which Facebook has been expecting, is by far the largest the agency has levied on a technology company, the real worries for Facebook – and its investors and the companies that use it to advertise on its service – are the other restrictions and government oversight that might come with it. This goes for the other investigations as well, which span the globe from the European Union, Germany and Belgium to New York, Canada and elsewhere.

“This fine signals that regulators are ratcheting up the pressure,” said Dimitri Sirota, the CEO of BigID, a business-data privacy company, in an email. He said that the FTC action, together with recent European fines on British Airways and Marriott, shows that regulators around the world are getting bolder in cracking down on data privacy violations. Facebook may think the fine is easily affordable, he said, but it hurts its image and trustworthiness.

Beyond the regulatory investigations, Cowen analyst John Blackledge noted that Facebook and other big companies also face broader antitrust concerns .

Islamic extremist attack on Somali hotel leaves 26 dead

MOGADISHU, Somalia

Islamic extremists blew up the gate of a Somali hotel with a car bomb and took over the building for more than 14 hours, leaving 26 people dead before Somali forces who besieged the hotel overnight killed the attackers. The victims included a prominent Canadian-Somali journalist .

Three Kenyans, three Tanzanians, two Americans and a Briton also were among the dead, said Ahmed Madobe, the president of Jubbaland regional state which controls Kismayo. Fifty-six people, including two Chinese, were injured in the hotel attack, he told reporters.

At least four al-Shabab assailants attacked the Asasey Hotel on Friday evening, beginning with a suicide car bomb at the entrance gate and followed by an assault by gunmen who stormed the hotel, which is frequented by politicians, patrons and lawmakers.

The attack lasted more than 14 hours before troops shot dead all attackers inside the hotel compound, Col. Abdiqadir Nur, a local police officer, told The Associated Press.

Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Vatican mystery over missing girl deepens as bones are found

VATICAN CITY

The mystery of the 1983 disappearance of the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee took yet another twist Saturday following excavations this week at a Vatican City cemetery. The Vatican said it had discovered two sets of bones under a stone slab that will be formally opened next week.

The new discovery came after Vatican on Thursday pried open the tombs of two 19th-century German princesses in the cemetery of the Pontifical Teutonic College in hopes of finding the remains of Emanuela Orlandi.

Orlandi’s family had received a tip that she might be buried there. But the tombs turned out to be empty, creating yet another mystery about where the dead princesses were.

The Vatican vowed to keep investigating and noted that any bones in the tombs might have been displaced during structural work carried out on both the college building and a cemetery near St. Peter’s Basilica in the 1800s and in more recent decades.

On Saturday, Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said further searches had centered on the areas adjoining the princesses’ tombs. He said investigators had located two ossuaries, or sets of bones, under a stone slab manhole covering inside the Teutonic college itself.

Russia launches major new telescope into space after delays

MOSCOW

A Russian Proton-M rocket successfully delivered a cutting-edge space telescope into orbit Saturday after days of launch delays, Russia’s space agency said.

Roscosmos said the telescope, named Spektr-RG, was delivered into a parking orbit before a final burn Saturday that kicked the spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit and on to its final destination: the L2 Lagrange point.

Lagrange points are unique positions in the solar system where objects can maintain their position relative to the sun and the planets that orbit it.

Located nearly one million miles from Earth, L2 is particularly ideal for telescopes such as Spektr-RG.

If all goes well, the telescope will arrive at its designated position in three months, becoming the first Russian spacecraft to operate beyond Earth’s orbit since the Soviet era. The telescope aims to conduct a complete x-ray survey of the sky by 2025, the first space telescope to do so.

NY power outage knocks out subways, businesses, elevators

NEW YORK

Authorities scrambled to restore electricity to Manhattan following a power outage that knocked out Times Square’s towering electronic screens and darkened marquees in the theater district and left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled.

The New York City Fire Department said a transformer fire at West 64th Street and West End Avenue affected more than 44,000 customers along a 30-block stretch from Times Square to about 72nd Street and Broadway.

Officials with Con Edison later tweeted that they were working to restore electricity to customers and businesses primarily on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Many Broadway musicals and plays canceled their Saturday evening shows.

The outage comes on the anniversary of the 1977 New York City outage that left most of the city without power.

New area code, 10-digital dialing for Miami Valley in 2020

DAYTON

Parts of Ohio are preparing for a new area code and mandated 10-digit dialing in early 2020.

The Dayton Daily News reports that area code 326 will be rolled out for new phone subscribers alongside the existing 937 area code in the Dayton area in southwest Ohio.

Starting Feb. 8, 2020, all local phone calls will require use of the area code plus the 7-digit number. The 326 area code will take effect on March 8, 2020.

A Public Utilities Commission of Ohio spokesman says available numbers under area code 937 are running low and will run out in 2021.

Associated Press