Officials say 2 dead in fighter jet crash in Calif.
LEMOORE, Calif. — A fighter jet crashed into a field near a central California air base on Wednesday, killing the two people on board, officials said.
Fresno County deputy coroner Sarah Davis confirmed the deaths with The Associated Press, but did not release other details.
Officials from the Naval Air Station in Lemoore said the F-18 aircraft went down shortly after noon in a grassy field about half a mile from the base. Military officials said the two men killed included a pilot and weapons system officer. Officials did not identify the men. Navy spokeswoman Melinda Larson said the crash was under investigation.
Man arrested in deadly Ala. college shooting
OPELIKA, Ala. — A man was arrested in a deadly east Alabama shooting Wednesday after he walked up to reporters and told them he was the person police were seeking.
The shooting at Southern Union Community College in Opelika killed a 63-year-old woman, wounded two women ages 36 and 94, and injured a 4-year-old who was hit with flying glass.
Afterward, Opelika police said they were looking for 34-year-old Thomas Franklin May III.
The man who surrendered to the media was driving a white Jeep Liberty with the same tag number police had been seeking. Reporters called 911 and within minutes, police arrived, handcuffed the man and led him away.
He appeared to be the same person in a photograph law enforcement distributed of May, but police wouldn’t say whether he was the main suspect.
Prosecutors: More than 40 bodies found in Mexico
MEXICO CITY — A spokesman for prosecutors in the northern Mexico state of Tamaulipas says more than 40 bodies have been found in a mass grave in that border state.
Spokesman Ruben Dario says investigations are continuing to determine the exact number and identity of the dead.
Tamaulipas has suffered bloody drug cartel turf battles.
Ivory Coast forces renew attack on presidential residence
JOHANNESBURG — Forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the U.N.-recognized president of Ivory Coast, on Wednesday called off a brief cease-fire and renewed attacks on the presidential residence where his rival is clinging to power.
While heavy-weapons fire had stopped later in the day, there was still shooting heard in the vicinity of the residence, where Laurent Gbagbo is believed to have retreated to an underground bunker guarded by youth militia and presidential guards, according to news agencies.
Earlier, residents had reported fierce fighting around the residence, which is in the upscale Cocody neighborhood of the Ivorian commercial capital of Abidjan.
“The fighting is terrible here, the explosions are so heavy my building is shaking,” resident Alfred Kouassi told Reuters news service. “We can hear automatic gunfire and also the thud of heavy weapons. There’s shooting all over the place.”
Gbagbo doesn’t have a strong hand: He is surrounded by the enemy, isolated by the world, was deserted the day before by his military and is deprived of his propaganda arm, RTI state television.
— From Wire Service Reports