Motive likely not terror-related in ‘brutal’ Danish shooting

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A gunman who killed three people when he opened fire in a crowded shopping mall acted alone and apparently selected his victims at random, Danish police said Monday, all but ruling out that the attack was related to terrorism.

Authorities filed preliminary charges of murder and attempted murder against a 22-year-old Danish man, who will be held for 24 days in a secure mental health facility while authorities investigate the crime, prosecutor Søren Harbo told reporters.

PORTLAND, Ore. — In the central Oregon city of Bend, the sole Planned Parenthood clinic serving the eastern half of the state is bracing for an influx of patients, particularly from neighboring Idaho, where a trigger law banning most abortions is expected to take effect this summer.

“We’ve already started hiring,” said Joanna Dennis-Cook, the Bend Health Center Manager.

Across the U.S. West, many abortion providers serving rural areas were already struggling to meet demand in a vast region where staffing shortages and long travel distances are barriers to reproductive services for women. Oregon alone is larger geographically than the entire United Kingdom.

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials said Monday the bullet that killed veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was likely fired from an Israeli position. But they said it was too badly damaged to reach an absolute determination, and that there is “no reason to believe” she was deliberately targeted.

State Department spokesman Ned Price, announcing the results of the probe, said “independent, third-party examiners” had undertaken an “extremely detailed forensic analysis” of the bullet that killed her after the Palestinian Authority handed it over to them.

The results, announced ahead of President Joe Biden’s visit to the region next week, were unlikely to lay the matter to rest.

NEW YORK — The rent has come due for America’s small businesses and at a very inopportune time.

Landlords were lenient about rent payments during the first two years of the pandemic. Now, many are asking for back rent, and some are raising the current rent as well. Meanwhile, most of the government aid programs that helped small businesses get through the pandemic have ended while inflation has sharply pushed up the cost of supplies, shipping, and labor.

Martin Garcia, owner of gift and décor store Gramercy Gift Gallery in San Antonio, Texas, survived the first part of the pandemic in part by paying his landlord whatever rent he could each month. Then in August 2021, after the federal moratorium on evictions ended, his landlord asked for the full amount of back rent that he owed.

BAKHMUT, Ukraine — Torched forests and cities burned to the ground. Colleagues with severed limbs. Bombardments so relentless the only option is to lie in a trench, wait and pray.

Ukrainian soldiers returning from the front lines in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region — where Russia is waging a fierce offensive — describe life during what has turned into a grueling war of attrition as apocalyptic.

In interviews with The Associated Press, some complained of chaotic organization, desertions and mental health problems caused by relentless shelling. Others spoke of high morale, their colleagues’ heroism, and a commitment to keep fighting, even as the better-equipped Russians control more of the combat zone.