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Fri, 15 Oct 2021
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3 Dead, 1 Critical after Canada Campus Shooting

Travis Baumgartner
© Edmonton Police
Travis Baumgartner
Edmonton, Alberta - Police were searching Friday for a security company employee charged with murder in the attempted robbery of an armored truck at a western Canada university that left three armed guards dead, police said.

Police said Travis Baumgartner, a 21-year-old employee of G4S Cash Services, was wanted on three counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder for critically injuring a fourth employee. Canadian authorities said U.S border officials had been notified as well.

Baumgartner's mother issued a statement pleading for her son to surrender and apologizing for an argument they had.

The armored truck was found abandoned but running not far from the security company's offices. Police believe Baumgartner was working alongside his co-workers when they were shot.

"We now believe this is the person that is responsible for this horrific and terrible crime," Police Supt. Bob Hassel said.

Police said no University of Alberta students were involved. The university was quickly put on lockdown, but that was later lifted.

G4S Cash Services spokeswoman Robin Steinberg confirmed that two male employees and a female employee were among the dead. She said the guards were armed, but she did not have further details.

Steinberg said the company, which operates in more than 100 countries, had never had a fatality in Canada. "It's horrible to lose this many," she said.

Newspaper

TSA Dismisses Seven at Philadelphia Airport

TSA uniform
© unknown
The Transportation Security Administration on Friday dismissed seven employees at Philadelphia International Airport for paying bribes to an instructor in exchange for passing annual proficiency exams.

TSA management at the Philadelphia airport removed 10 employees from security duties in November pending results of an investigation of bribery by the Homeland Security Department's Office of Inspector General.

Since then, three of the employees have resigned. The seven others were notified Friday of the TSA's intent to terminate their employment for professional misconduct. The TSA did not disclose their identities.

"A TSA training instructor responsible for administering annual proficiency exams was found to have accepted payment from TSA security officers to ensure passing grades," the TSA said in a statement.

The training manager, Shannon Gilliam, 29, of Sharon Hill, pleaded guilty Feb. 28 in U.S. District Court to a single count of bribery. Prosecutors said Gilliam was responsible for training TSA officers and administering mandatory certification to officers who handle passenger and baggage screening at the airport.

Roses

Woman Sues City of Tulsa For Cutting Down Her Edible Garden

Tulsa garden
© NewsOn6
A Tulsa woman is suing the city's code enforcement officers after she said they cut down her garden with no cause.

Denise Morrison said she has more than 100 plant varieties in her front and back yards and all of them are edible and have a purpose.

She knows which ones will treat arthritis, which will make your food spicy, which ones keep mosquitoes away and treat bug bites, but she said none of that matter to city inspectors.

Last August, Morrison's front and back yards were filled with flowers in bloom, lemon, stevia, garlic chives, grapes, strawberries, apple mint, spearmint, peppermint, an apple tree, walnut tree, pecan trees and much more.

She got a letter from the city saying there had been a complaint about her yard.

She said she took pictures to meet with city inspectors, but they wouldn't listen, so she invited them to her home so they could point out the problem areas.

"Everything, everything needs to go," Morrison said they told her.

Arrow Up

Black Death Discovered In Oregon

The Black Death, a strain of bubonic plague that destroyed nearly a third of Europe's entire population between 1347 and 1369, has been found in Oregon. Health officials in Portland have confirmed that a man contracted the plague after getting bitten by a cat. The unidentified man, who is currently in his 50s, had tried to pry a dead mouse from a stray cat's mouth on June 2 when the cat attacked him.
Black Death
© International Business Times
A few days after getting bitten, the resident from the rural town of Prineville in Crook County developed a fever. By June 8, the man was so sick that he checked himself into St. Charles Medical Center in Redmond, Ore. He has since been transferred to the larger St. Charles facility in Bend. He was believed to be suffering from septicemic plague -- meaning the bacteria was spreading into his bloodstream -- and he is currently in critical condition.

"This can be a serious illness," said Emilio DeBess, Oregon's public health veterinarian. "But it is treatable with antibiotics, and it's also preventable."

The Black Death originated in rats -- black rats in particular -- but the bacteria thrives in forests, grasslands and any wooded areas inhabited by rats and squirrels. Even though rats were carriers, the disease was spread by the fleas that infested their bodies. Fleas would bite the rat, and the plague bacterium -- later identified as Pasteurella pestis, and renamed Yersinia pestis -- would stay in the intestinal track of the flea until the insect regurgitated it on its next victim; rodent populations can carry the plague bacteria without it killing them off, and the bacteria can travel back and forth from rats to fleas, also known as the sylvatic or enzootic cycle. When the fleas bit humans during this period, humans became exposed to the bacteria -- and became likely to die. Without the help of modern medicine, Europeans in the Middle Ages could do little to combat the plague.

Bizarro Earth

81 Year Old Man Killed By 70 Year Old Man

Image
© Unknown
Robert Mix
An 81-year-old Paynes Creek man died today after hitting his head during a fight with another man in the parking lot of the Redding Costco, police said.

Just before 11 a.m. Monday police responded to a report of the fight in the Costco parking lot at 1300 Dana Drive.

There, officers found Robert Leonard Mix lying on the sidewalk in front of the store. He was conscious and speaking with medics, Redding police Sgt. Al Mellon said.

Witnesses told police Mix was sitting in his Dodge pickup waiting for a parking space, which was causing congestion in the parking lot.

Info

Jesus' Birthplace May Become First Palestine World Heritage Site

Grotto of the Nativity
© Zvonimir Atletic | Shutterstock
Two entrances (one shown here) now lead to the Grotto of the Nativity. Originally, in the fourth century, there was only one entrance to the grotto from the main body of the church.
The holy city of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, thought to be the birthplace of Jesus, may become the first World Heritage Site in the Palestinian territories, according to UNESCO.

In its 36th yearly session, the World Heritage Committee - consisting of representatives from 21 of the States Parties to the Convention - will consider 36 possible World Heritage sites, from June 24 to July 6 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The list currently includes more than 900 properties deemed by the committee as having "outstanding universal value" as part of the world's natural and cultural heritage.

Palestine, which became a member of UNESCO in October 2011, will be presenting the church and the surrounding route used for religious pilgrimages as its first site for inscription on the World Heritage List.

That vote, to accept the Palestinians into UNESCO, proved controversial, according to a CNN news report, suggesting the United States held the view that a peace deal should be reached with Israel before the Palestinian territories were granted full UNESCO membership.

Located in the holy city of Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity, a Byzantine basilica, is built on top of the cave where, according to a tradition first documented in the second century, Jesus was born, UNESCO notes. Helena, mother of Christian Emperor Constantine, is said to have intended the basilica to commemorate Jesus' birth.

Handcuffs

3rd Teen in Prostitution Ring Nabbed in Gatineau

Image
© CBC News
Staff Sgt. John McGetrick called the teen human trafficking case shocking as three girls are accused in the prostitution of three other teenaged girls.
Girl, 16, appears in court Friday afternoon on several charges

Canada - Police in Gatineau, Que., have arrested the third suspect in a human trafficking case where three teenage girls are accused in the prostitution of three other teenage girls in Ottawa.

The youth, 16, was apprehended Thursday at about 8 p.m. and returned to Ottawa, police say. She appears in an Ottawa courtroom Friday afternoon on charges of human trafficking, procuring for prostitution, forcible confinement, robbery, assault and uttering threats.

The search for the third suspect was made more difficult, police say, because they could not release info about her due to provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Police had also originally said she was 17 years old.

Police said the three accused allegedly used social media to lure a trio of other girls, who are between 13 and 17 years old, to a home at a Walkley Road community housing project in southeast Ottawa. That is also where the accused live, neighbours say.

Bizarro Earth

Water, the next flash-point: tensions rising in the Middle East over shrinking water supplies

Image
© UPI/Ismael Mohamad
A Palestinian child drinks water in the southern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Rafah on April 08, 2012. Israelis use 66 gallons a day, while Palestinians are limited to 15.4 gallons, even though they claim a major underground aquifer and access to Jordan River.
There are moves to rewrite contentious water-sharing agreements that are becoming a major source of friction in the Middle East as water supplies shrink.

Amid the profound political changes sweeping the Arab world, there are moves to rewrite contentious water-sharing agreements that are becoming a major source of friction in the Middle East as water supplies shrink.

In May, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned his neighbors, with Turkey and Syria his main targets, that the region faces conflict unless the issue of dwindling water resources is addressed by regional governments.

Baghdad is increasingly angry and frustrated at the failure of Turkey, in the north, and Syria, to the west, to resolve a growing crisis over the reduced flow and the deteriorating quality of water from the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers they allow Iraq.

Bizarro Earth

India's capital in water crisis after supplies cut in searing heat-wave

Image
© Unknown
Large parts of New Delhi were struggling with acute water shortages on Friday after a neighbouring state cut its supplies at the peak of summer, officials said.

The sprawling Indian capital, with a population of 16 million sweltering in 43 degree C (109.4 F) summer heat, relies on four neighbouring states for its water -- Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand.

Haryana, the biggest supplier, cut its flow to the city on Thursday and about three million people have suffered shortages or been completely cut off, according to the Delhi Jal Board, a government agency responsible for water supply.

Handcuffs

Police Arrest Last Fugitive in Japan Gas Attack

Image
© Reuters/Yuriko Nakao
Police officers stand in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan police department as they wait for Katsuya Takahashi, the last remaining fugitive of the Aum Shinrikyo, to be escorted by police officers to the building in Tokyo June 15, 2012.
Tokyo - Japanese police Friday arrested the last fugitive suspected in a doomsday cult's deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo subways 17 years ago: the cult leader's former bodyguard, who was finally tracked down at a comic-book cafe.

Katsuya Takahashi, 54, a former member of Aum Shinrikyo cult, was arrested on suspicion of murder, a Tokyo police spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules. An employee at the downtown Tokyo cafe had recognized him and called police, she said.

Mr. Takahashi admitted who he was when approached by the police at the cafe.

His trail had been cold for years, but it heated up after another fugitive from the cult was arrested June 3. Thousands of officers had been hunting for him across the capital, handing out fresh photos of the suspect and monitoring transportation hubs to keep him from escaping.