In brief: Shooting, standoff end with 3 dead

PHILADELPHIA – A career criminal suspected of shooting five people, two of them fatally, inside a suburban home over an alleged insurance-fraud scheme was killed by SWAT team members after a six-hour standoff Monday, authorities said.

Since leaving prison last year, Mark Richard Geisenheyner, 51, had been vowing revenge on Paul Shay, one of the victims of a weekend shooting in rural Montgomery County, authorities said.

Geisenheyner broke into Shay’s vacation home late Saturday and said, “Guess you never thought you’d see me again,” before shooting Shay in the head, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman said Monday, citing a survivor’s account.

He then shot four others, killing Shay’s nephew and a toddler, authorities said. Shay, his wife and the toddler’s mother remained in critical condition Monday.

Geisenheyner was arrested for possessing artwork that had been reported stolen from Shay’s home in 2006, Ferman said.

Teachers union backs Obama for 2012

CHICAGO – The nation’s largest education union has endorsed President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Members of the National Education Association voted to support Obama on Monday at their annual convention in Chicago.

Cathedral denies ousting founder

SANTA ANA, Calif. – A Crystal Cathedral spokesman on Monday denied reports that the church’s founder, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, was voted off the board of directors in a meeting more than a week ago.

Schuller “was not voted off the board,” said John Charles, the Garden Grove church’s spokesman. “He is still board chairman emeritus.”

The church released its statement a day after Schuller’s son, Robert Anthony Schuller, said his 84-year-old father had been ousted because he had proposed adding new members to the board.

In Monday’s statement, Charles said the move would free up Schuller’s time for more speaking engagements and a writing project.

For years, the church has been gripped by family discord. In 2006, Robert H. Schuller stepped down from the pulpit and Robert Anthony Schuller took over. Two years later, the younger Schuller resigned, and his sister, Sheila Schuller Coleman, became senior pastor. The church filed for bankruptcy in October, citing more than $50 million in debt.

Twitter hacker pulls assassination hoax

WASHINGTON – A series of false tweets that claimed President Barack Obama had been assassinated were finally erased on Monday, 10 hours after a hacker used a Fox News Twitter account for the hoax.

FoxNews.com said that the “malicious and false” tweets had been removed and that it had alerted the U.S. Secret Service.

“We will be requesting a detailed investigation from Twitter about how this occurred, and measures to prevent future unauthorized access into FoxNews.com accounts,” said Jeff Misenti, vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital.