Rifle-wielding attacker wounds GOP leader, killed by police
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A rifle-wielding attacker opened fire on Republican lawmakers as they practiced for a charity baseball game Wednesday, critically wounding House GOP Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and hitting aides and Capitol police as congressmen and others dove for cover. The assailant, who had nursed grievances against President Donald Trump and the GOP, fought a gun battle with police before he, too, was shot and later died.
Colleagues said Scalise had been fielding balls at second base at a local park in Alexandria, just across the Potomac River from the nation's capital, as the Republicans practiced for their annual game with Democrats. He dragged himself away from the infield leaving a trail of blood before fellow lawmakers could rush to his assistance. He was listed in critical condition Wednesday night at a Washington hospital, which said he will require several more operations.
The shooter was identified as James T. Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old home inspector from Illinois who had several minor run-ins with the law in recent years and belonged to a Facebook group called "Terminate the Republican Party." He had been living out of his van in the Alexandria area in recent months, the FBI said.
Capitol Police officers who were in Scalise's security detail wounded the shooter. He later died of his injuries, Trump told the nation from the White House.
"Everyone on that field is a public servant," Trump said, his tone somber, America's acrimonious politics set aside for the moment. "Their sacrifice makes democracy possible."
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Gunman who shot congressman had history of anti-GOP activity
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - The gunman who shot a top GOP congressman and several other people Wednesday at a baseball practice outside the nation's capital had a long history of lashing out at Republicans and recently frightened a neighbor by firing a rifle into a field behind his Illinois home.
James T. Hodgkinson, 66, wounded House Rep. Steve Scalise before he was fatally shot by police who had been guarding the House majority whip.
In the hours after the attack in Alexandria, Virginia, a picture began to emerge of a shooter with a mostly minor arrest record who worked as a home inspector and despised the Republican Party.
On Facebook, Hodgkinson was a member of a group called "Terminate the Republican Party," a fact that seemed to take on chilling new meaning in light of an account from South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan. He said he was preparing to leave the baseball field when a man politely asked him whether it was a Democratic or Republican team before quietly walking off.
Until recently, Hodgkinson ran a home-inspection business out of his house in southern Illinois. His Facebook page shows that he was a fan of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who last year made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sanders acknowledged Wednesday that Hodgkinson had apparently been among many volunteers on his 2016 campaign.
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A morning's baseball drill becomes an assault on Republicans
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - First came the ping of baseball bats, a familiar sound of the leafy neighborhood's morning. Then the crack of gunfire, which isn't.
It started with a single pop, which for a split second was not alarming to the Republican members of Congress who had gathered for a final practice before a charity baseball game with Democrats this week. As one lawmaker would later note, it could have been a car backfiring.
Then, after a pause, the gunshots came in quick succession and the horror unfolded in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, home to many federal workers, lawyers and lobbyists who commute across the river to Washington.
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, two Capitol police officers, a lobbyist and a legislative aide were wounded as lawmakers, some fighting back tears, sought to understand what had happened and why. In a hail of bullets, police killed the gunman.
"You never expect a baseball field in America to feel like being back in a combat zone in Iraq," said Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Army reservist who served as a combat surgeon in Iraq and was on the field Wednesday when the shooting began. "But this morning it did."
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AP Newsbreak: UPS workers fled gunfire that killed 4
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A UPS employee who had recently filed a grievance opened fire Wednesday inside one of the company's San Francisco packing facilities, killing three co-workers before fatally shooting himself as employees fled frantically into the streets shouting "shooter!," authorities and witnesses said.
The gunman, Jimmy Lam, filed the grievance in March complaining that he was working excessive overtime, Joseph Cilia, an official with a Teamsters Union local that represents UPS workers in San Francisco, told The Associated Press.
Still, Cilia said Lam wasn't angry, and he could not understand why he would open fire on fellow drivers at a morning meeting. Lam appeared to target the three drivers who died, chasing at least one of them out of the building, Cilia said. Cilia said he spoke to witnesses who had been in the meeting of UPS drivers.
"I never knew Jimmy to not get along with people," Cilia said. "Jimmy wasn't a big complainer."
Two other UPS employees were wounded, but Cilia said both were released from the hospital.
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Reports say Mueller probe now examining possible obstruction
WASHINGTON (AP) - The special counsel appointed to investigate Russian influence in the 2016 presidential campaign is now examining whether President Donald Trump tried to obstruct justice, The Washington Post reported Wednesday evening.
Accusations of obstruction arose last month when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Comey testified in a Senate hearing last week that he believed he was fired "because of the Russia investigation."
Comey also testified he had told Trump he was not under investigation.
The Post and The New York Times both reported that Mueller was seeking interviews with three Trump administration officials who weren't involved in Trump's campaign: Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence; Michael Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency; and Richard Ledgett, the former NSA deputy director.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump's personal lawyer, responded Wednesday evening to the Post report by saying: "The FBI leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal."
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The sad duty now his, Trump calls for unity after shooting
NEW YORK (AP) - It was a sadly familiar ritual: an American president addressing the nation at an unsettling time, decrying violence while urging citizens to set aside their differences and pray for the recovery of victims.
But this time, it was President Donald Trump who was called upon to speak words of comfort in such a troubled moment, one fraught with the overtones of gun politics and the heated rhetoric of a nation sharply divided along party lines.
Trump's measured response to Wednesday's shooting at a congressional baseball practice stood in stark contrast to his inflammatory reactions to some previous acts of violence. He delivered a brief address from the White House Diplomatic Room in which he denounced the shooting of a top House Republican and others as a "very, very brutal assault." He said that "many lives would have been lost without the heroic action" of Capitol Police officers who took down the gunman.
"We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation's capital is here because, above all, they love our country," Trump said. "We can all agree that we are blessed to be Americans, that our children deserve to grow up in a nation of safety and peace and that we are strongest when we are unified and when we work together for the common good."
Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot in the early morning fusillade of gunfire, and several other people, including members of Scalise's security detail, also were wounded. The gunman was killed.
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Trump labeling House health care bill 'mean' frustrates GOP
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's labeling of a House-passed health care bill as "mean" is aggravating some of the conservatives he pressed to back it, even as Senate attempts to reshape the measure increasingly threaten to spill into July.
"In terms of strategery, I hope he's just trying to motivate the Senate," Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., said Wednesday, employing a mangled word used by former President George W. Bush. "Because he put all sorts of pressure on us to move the bill we passed."
Congressional sources said Trump described the House bill as mean at a closed-door White House lunch Tuesday with 15 Republican senators. It was an extraordinary slap at a bill Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., guided through the House and that Trump himself had championed and praised. At a Rose Garden ceremony minutes after the bill's 217-213 House passage on May 4, Trump called it "a great plan."
"To call a bill that he pushed 'mean' leaves us scratching our heads," Brat said.
The president's criticism also came as Senate Republican leaders' attempts to write their own health care package have been slowed by disagreements between their party's conservatives and moderates. Trump said he wants the Senate version to be "more generous," the sources said.
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Poll shows most doubt Trump's respect for institutions
WASHINGTON (AP) - Most Americans say they think President Donald Trump has little to no respect for the country's democratic traditions, according to a new poll that underscores the difficulty Trump faces in uniting a country deeply divided about his leadership.
The new survey, conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found more than 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, and nearly half strongly disapprove. The poll was conducted before a shooting spree at a Washington-era baseball field on Wednesday left a congressman wounded and renewed calls for more civil political discourse.
"We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation's capital is here because, above all, they love our country," Trump said Wednesday, responding to the shooting.
The survey suggests Trump faces considerable challenges as he seeks to position himself as a unifying figure.
Two-thirds of Americans, or 65 percent, think Trump doesn't have much respect for the country's democratic institutions and traditions or has none at all. Just a third of Americans, or 34 percent, thinks he has a great deal or even a fair amount of respect for them.
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Death toll rises to 12 in London apartment building inferno
LONDON (AP) - They banged on windows, screamed for help, dropped children from smoky floors in a desperate attempt to save them. Terrified residents of the Grenfell Tower said there was little warning of the inferno that engulfed their high-rise apartment building and left 12 people dead - a toll that officials said would almost certainly rise.
The blaze early Wednesday in the 24-story building in west London's North Kensington district also injured 74 others, 18 of them critically, and left an unknown number missing. A tenants' group had complained for years about the risk of a fire.
More than 200 firefighters worked through the night and were still finding pockets of fire inside later in the day. A huge plume of smoke wafted across the London skyline and left a burned-out hulk in the working class, multi-ethnic neighborhood.
"In my 29 years of being a firefighter, I have never, ever seen anything of this scale," Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said.
Up to 600 people lived in 120 apartments in the Grenfell Tower. After announcing the updated death toll of 12 in the afternoon, Cmdr. Stuart Cundy said that "we believe this number will sadly increase."
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Mayweather coming back to fight UFC star McGregor Aug. 26
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Floyd Mayweather Jr. will come out of retirement to meet UFC star Conor McGregor in an Aug. 26 boxing match that will feature two of the top-selling fighters in the world.
The two fighters both announced the fight Wednesday, after months of speculation about whether Mayweather would return at the age of 40 to face a mixed martial arts fighter who has never had a pro boxing fight.
Oddsmakers immediately made Mayweather a big 11-1 favorite in a fight that will take place in a boxing ring and be governed by boxing rules. It will take place at 154 pounds.
"It's official," Mayweather said on Instagram next to a video poster of both fighters.
"THE FIGHT IS ON," McGregor tweeted several minutes earlier, posting a picture of himself next to one of Mayweather's father, Floyd Sr.