Wal-Mart workers slain in parking lot
Glendale, Ariz. Two Wal-Mart employees were shot to death Tuesday as they gathered shopping carts in the parking lot of one of the retail stores in suburban Phoenix, and police later arrested the suspected gunman.
The shootings occurred in the middle of the parking lot, about 75 yards from the store entrance.
Hours later, police spokesman Mike Pena said a suspect had been arrested without incident in a retirement community in nearby Peoria. Investigators initially sent a robot to Ed Lui’s door, fearing he could still be armed. The man came out with his hands up and was booked on two counts of first-degree murder, Pena said.
Authorities did not have a motive for the shootings. It does not appear Lui knew the victims or had a vendetta against them or Wal-Mart, Pena said. The gunman did not appear to have been under the influence of any substance.
Hacker cracks military database
San Antonio A suspected hacker tapped into a military database containing Social Security numbers and other personal information for 33,000 Air Force officers and some enlisted personnel, an Air Force spokesman said Tuesday.
That figure represents about half of the officers in the Air Force, but no identity theft had been reported as of early Tuesday, said Tech. Sgt. James Brabenec, a spokesman at the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base.
The case was under investigation.
Mont. soldier among dead in Afghanistan
Missoula
A Missoula soldier who enlisted in ROTC at the University of Montana on Sept. 12, 2001 was one of four Americans killed in Afghanistan when a bomb detonated underneath a wooden bridge they were passing over.
Army 1st Lt. Josh Hyland, a 1992 graduate of Loyola Sacred Heart High School, died in the attack Sunday, five months after being deployed to Afghanistan.
Hyland, 31, had served four years in the Army and was pursuing a master’s degree at UM when the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks helped him decide to enroll in ROTC, his family said.
Arctic ice melting at increasing rate
Washington The rate of ice melting in the Arctic is increasing and a panel of researchers says it sees no natural process that is likely to change that trend.
Within a century the melting could lead to summertime ice-free ocean conditions not seen in the area in a million years, the group said Tuesday.
“What really makes the Arctic different from the rest of the non-polar world is the permanent ice in the ground, in the ocean, and on land,” said Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona and chairman of the National Science Foundation’s Arctic System Science Committee that issued the report.
“We see all of that ice melting already, and we envision that it will melt back much more dramatically in the future, as we move towards this more permanent ice-free state,” Overpeck said in a statement.
Bolton prods U.N. to begin negotiations
United Nations U.S. Ambassador John Bolton urged U.N. member nations Tuesday to start negotiations to resolve major differences on a proposal to reform the United Nations and reduce poverty that world leaders are supposed to adopt at a U.N. summit in three weeks.
In a letter to ambassadors from the 190 other U.N. member states obtained by The Associated Press, Bolton said “time is short” and there is a need for flexibility “to maximize our chances of success.”
The latest draft of the proposed final document is nearly 40 pages long, and deep divisions remain on key issues. Among them: defining terrorism, overhauling U.N. management and replacing the ineffectual Commission on Human Rights, preventing future genocides, and expanding the U.N. Security Council.