The suspect — who was being questioned in custody — was described as a white adult male armed with a rifle or a shotgun, who appeared to have acted alone and whose motive remained unknown.

Here are some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in the past three decades:

Vegas concert: 58 killed

A 64-year-old retired accountant shoots down from his hotel room at a crowd attending an outdoor country music concert on October 1, 2017, killing 58 people and wounding around 550 before committing suicide. It is the worst mass shooting in modern US history.

Florida club: 49 killed

A heavily-armed gunman opens fire inside a gay nightclub in the city of Orlando on June 12, 2016, killing 49 people. The attacker is killed in a shootout with police. He pledges allegiance to the Islamic State group, which later claims responsibility.

Virginia Tech: 32 killed

A 23-year-old student of Korean descent goes on a rampage at Virginia Tech University in the town of Blacksburg in April 2007. He kills 27 students and five teachers before committing suicide.

Sandy Hook: 26 killed

A 20-year-old man kills his mother in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 before blasting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and shooting dead 20 six- and seven-year old children and six adults. He commits suicide.

Texas church: 26 killed

A 26-year-old man who was court-martialed while in the Air Force shoots dead 26 worshippers during Sunday services and wounds at least 20 others at a Baptist church in the small rural community of Sutherland Springs outside San Antonio, Texas, on November 5, 2017. The shooter flees and is later found dead in his car with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Texas restaurant: 22 dead

In October 1991, a man shoots dead 22 people at a restaurant in the town of Killeen, Texas and then kills himself. Another wounded victim dies later.

Florida high school: 17 dead

A 19-year-old former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who was expelled for disciplinary reasons returns to the school in Parkland, Florida, and opens fire on February 14, 2018, killing 14 students and three adult staff members.

California office party: 14 dead

A radicalized Muslim couple storm a Christmas office party at a social services center in San Bernardino in December 2015 and gun down 14 people, wounding 22 others. They are shot dead by police.

Fort Hood military base: 13 dead

In November 2009, a US army psychiatrist opens fire at his military base in Killeen, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 42, before being overpowered by police.

New York immigrant center: 13 dead

A Vietnamese immigrant shoots dead 13 people at a civic center in Binghamton, New York in April 2009, before killing himself.

Columbine High: 13 dead

Two teenage boys shoot and kill 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999, before killing themselves.

Washington Navy Yard: 12 dead

A former serviceman shoots randomly at workers at the Washington Navy Yard headquarters in September 2013, killing 12 people before he is shot dead by officers.

Denver cinema: 12 dead

A young man wearing body armor opens fire in a movie theater showing a late-night premiere of a Batman film in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012. Twelve people are killed and 70 wounded. He is sentenced to life in prison.

Police described the suspect — who was being questioned in custody — as a white adult male who was armed with a rifle or a shotgun and appeared to have acted alone.

A reporter for the daily, Phil Davis, tweeted a chilling account of how the “gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees.”

“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” Davis said.

There were five known fatalities, the acting police chief of Anne Arundel county, Bill Krampf, told a news conference in Maryland’s capital.

Lieutenant Ryan Frashure, a police spokesman, said three other people had been injured.

Anne Arundel county executive Steve Schuh added on CNN that the suspect “has not been particularly cooperative.”

Krampf said police had disposed of a suspected explosive device and that the four-story office building was now secure.

Still going to print

Capital Gazette editor Jimmy DeButts tweeted that he was “devastated & heartbroken. Numb.”

“I’m in no position to speak, just know @capgaznews reporters & editors give all they have every day. There are no 40 hour weeks, no big paydays – just a passion for telling stories from our community,” DeButts wrote.

Chase Cook, a reporter at the newspaper, said the shooting would not stop The Capital — the local print edition — from going to press.

“I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow,” he tweeted.

Gracie Rustin, a dental assistant who was in the middle of a procedure on the second floor of the building when the attack took place, heard “loud noises” but did not immediately realize it was a shooting.

Then police rushed in and “were like, ‘Leave, leave, leave!'” Rustin told AFP.

While it was not yet clear if journalists were deliberately targeted, the shooting revived memories of a 2015 incident in Roanoke, Virginia in which two journalists were shot dead during a live broadcast on local television.

“Every shooting like this is horrific but one that occurs in a place of journalism is particularly disturbing and brings back the flood of memories of that tragic day for me,” said Andy Parker, whose daughter Alison was one of the Roanoke victims.

President Donald Trump, who has been at loggerheads with much of the media since taking office, tweeted a message of support.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene,” he wrote.

‘Attack on every American’

“A violent attack on innocent journalists doing their job is an attack on every American,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders tweeted.

Several lawmakers also weighed in.

“My heart is with the families, friends and loved ones of the victims as we learn more about this terrible situation,” Chris Van Hollen, the state’s junior senator said. “We must unite to end the violence.”

“The senseless attack on a Maryland newspaper today is sickening. God bless these journalists,” House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted.

A recent study found that Americans own 40 percent of the world’s firearms despite accounting for only four percent of the global population.

Of the 857 million guns owned by civilians, 393 million are in the United States — more than all of the firearms held by ordinary citizens in the other top 25 countries combined, according to the Small Arms Survey.

Advocates of tougher gun laws have stepped up their efforts in the wake of numerous school shootings this year, including the killing of 17 people at a Parkland, Florida high school in February and the killing of 10 people at a Texas high school in May.

So far the results have been relatively modest. Florida has raised the legal age to buy firearms from 18 to 21, while Texas Governor Greg Abbott focused on mental health and improving school safety in his list of recommendations following the Santa Fe shooting in the rural southeast of his state.

Images broadcast on Indian news channels showed flames and black smoke billowing from the area, which sits right next to several high-rise residential towers.

There were four people on the 12-seater aircraft, disaster management officials said, with witnesses reporting hearing a loud blast as it smashed into a half-built structure.

“There was a huge explosion and the adjacent tree caught fire and the fire spilled on the streets,” a man was quoted as saying on the NDTV news channel.

“Initially we assumed an electric box in the under-construction building must have caught fire but when we checked out the spot, we found the charred body of a man who apparently was on bike when the plane crashed,” he added.

Indian firemen work in the wreckage of a small plane that crashed into a construction site, killing five people, in Mumbai on June 28, 2018. A small plane crashed into a construction site in a densely populated area of India’s financial capital Mumbai on June 28, killing five people, officials said. // AFP PHOTO

A woman, who was also not named, reported hearing three loud explosions and described seeing a “major fire”.

Video footage posted online showed bright orange flames licking the side of a building next to a construction site.

Other images shot after the fire was put out showed firemen sifting through the twisted wreckage of the twin-prop plane as crowds looked on.

The white tailfin seemed to be the only recognisable part of the aircraft not consumed in the blaze.

India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said the plane was a turbo-prop King Air C-90 and had been on a test flight from the nearby Juhu airstrip.

“There were two pilots and two aircraft maintenance engineers on board. All on board (the) aircraft along with one person on ground are dead,” the DGCA statement read.

– ‘Completely charred’ –

A medical officer at Rajawadi hospital, where the victims were taken, said the dead included three men and two women.

“There bodies were completely charred due to the fire,” she told AFP, adding that two injured had also been admitted and were in a stable condition.

It was not raining at the time of the accident and weather did not appear to have been a factor in the crash.

DGCA said it was sending a team to investigate the cause, adding that the aircraft was owned by a private operator who had purchased it from the Uttar Pradesh state government.

Indian rescue firemen (C) and aviation officials gather around the wreckage of a small plane that crashed into a construction site, killing five people, in Mumbai on June 28, 2018. A small plane crashed into a construction site in a densely populated area of India’s financial capital Mumbai on June 28, killing five people, officials said // AFP PHOTO 

P Rahangdale, Mumbai’s chief fire officer, said several fire engines had rushed to the spot.

India’s National Disaster Response Force said it was also sending a team to make sure no there were no injured trapped under any rubble at the crash site.

Former Indian Aviation Minister Praful Patel tweeted his condolences and praised the pilot for the guiding the plane into an open area.

“Salute to the pilot who showed presence of mind to avoid a big mishap, saving many lives at the cost of her own life,” he wrote.

There have been several crashes involving small planes in India in recent years.

In 2015 a light aircraft belonging to India’s paramilitary border force crashed after taking off from New Delhi airport, killing 10 people on board.

Ten people were killed in 2011 after an air ambulance crashed into a residential area in Faridabad, near the capital. Seven people on board and three on the ground were killed.

The last deadly air crash involving a commercial plane happened in 2010 when an Air India Boeing 737-800 over shot the runway while landing at Mangalore airport in southern India.

At least 158 passengers were killed and nearly a dozen others survived the crash.

“We have lost 15 people from this tragedy this morning,” said regional coordinator Kangethe Thuku.

“We’re yet to establish the cause of this fire,” he said, which is believed to have started in a timber yard.

Shoddy wiring has been blamed for past fires at Gikomba, with traders saying there have been numerous smaller fires in recent months.

Thursday’s pre-dawn blaze began at 2am (2300 GMT) and left over 70 people injured, destroying many of the market’s wood and tarp stalls where second-hand clothes, shoes, vegetables and other items are sold on the eastern edge of the city.

A police officer at the scene said emergency services continued to search the area and that several people were missing

“We are still trying to get to some corner (of the market) which has heavy smoke, because part of the area has not been accessed due to live electric wires,” the officer said.

– Lives lost, property destroyed –

Hundreds of people crowded around the smouldering ruins of the market, desperately trying to retrieve their goods as gas canisters, swept up in the inferno, could be heard exploding.

“Oh God! What have we done to deserve this?” exclaimed one trader who had lost everything in the fire.

Maggy Njeri, a second-hand clothes trader, wept by the ruins of her stall. “This was my life. I don’t know where to start from,” she said.

Vincent Kimani stood by his stall clutching a wodge of burned banknotes in his hand. “What do you want me to say? You can see for yourself I am totally finished.”

Police officers stand in front of smouldering timbers after a huge fire burned down timber shops in Gikomba market in Nairobi, Kenya, 28 June 2018. // EPA-EFE PHOTO

Nine of the dead were found in a six-storey apartment block next to the market while six others — including four children — died of burns and smoke inhalation in hospital.

Many of the injured were taken to the city’s main Kenyatta National Hospital were distraught relatives roamed the corridors.

Rushing from ward to ward, Betty Kaveke desperately sought her three missing children.

“I have only found one, aged 14, the rest are nowhere to be seen and the house is destroyed,” she said.

– ‘Fires are mysterious’ –

Traders said there have been at least four fires at Gikomba in the last seven months, while the last major blaze, in October last year, destroyed much of the market.

“Gikomba fires are mysterious,” said George Basweti, a security guard who has worked there for many years and seen numerous blazes destroy part, or all, of the market.

“I am tired of losing property every now and then. There’s no progress,” said stallholder Esther Mwaniki, who complained that investigations into the causes of the fires were never carried out and safety measures never implemented.

Some suspect arson. “This is not just another fire incident. There’s more to it,” said a detective who did not want to be named.

In May 2014, 10 people died in a bombing at the market blamed on Al-Qaeda-aligned Shabaab militants.

Malaysian officers under the crackdown codenamed “Ops Mega 3.0” will reportedly arrest illegal workers and their employers. They may face fines of up to 50,000 ringgit (Bt410,000), five years in jail and six cane strokes, according to the Thai Labour Office’s Facebook page (facebook.com/ThaiEmbassyKL/).

It urged Thai workers who had already applied to the programme and were pending approval to ask their employers to contact the Malaysian Immigration Bureau for updates of the progress while calling for illegal workers, who had not joined the programme, to return to Thailand legally.

Those who later find that they are not eligible under the Rehiring Programme can also submit to the voluntary surrender “3+1 Programme” that will run until August 30 to return to Thailand voluntarily.

To apply to 3+1, each illegal Thai worker must pay a fine, buy a special pass for 400 ringgits and a ticket to Thailand, the office said.

The 2016 Rehiring Programme received applications from 744,942 illegal migrants by May 28, the statement said. Of these, 307,557 applicants qualified for work permits but over half of them were still pending medical certificates from the Foreign Workers Medical Examination Monitoring Agency (Fomema).

Only 110,489 immigrants were granted work permits, the Facebook post said.

On the night Liu Jinsong approached Yueyang in Hunan province, he admits he was a bit scarThe streetlights were dim and the road hilly and pebbly, with barely visible sections under repair looming here and there as he rode toward his first destination on a marathon mountain bike trip, his figure dwarfed by the trucks and tractors that roared past.

Liu, 46, had set out that morning, on April 26, from his hometown in Changsha, the capital of Hunan, bound for Moscow, more than 11,000 kilometres away.

Why Moscow? The 2018 FIFA World Cup is being held in Russia, with the final in the capital on July 15, and Liu is a soccer fan.

“I’ve always wanted to relate to the World Cup in my own way,” Liu said. “I can always show up in the stadium easily as long as I have money, but that’s not my way.”

Liu fixed his eyes on his bike, bought a year ago but left in a corner because he was busy running his little barbecue restaurant. Cycling to Russia would be difficult, but also fun and unique, he thought.

“I’m also a fan of rock music, and my understanding of rock is to follow you heart,” he said. “If I think about doing it, then I will do it. That way my heart remains the same, even if I fail to complete the task.”

After three days repairing and preparing his bike, Liu left his business, wife and son behind and hit the road on a drizzly morning, with no prior physical training or route planning. Smiling and motivated, he took pictures in front of his barbecue restaurant and announced his departure on social media.

Liu cycled past the Yangtze River and across vast canola plains, but the journey was far tougher than he expected. Five days after setting out he had serious bruises on his thighs and a strained tendon in his left leg, and he had to push his bike some of the time.

He reached Beijing on May 8, planning to collect his passport, Russian visa and credit card while taking a brief rest. The two-day break in Beijing, sharing a few drinks with friends, rejuvenated him. He said his body had grown accustomed to long-distance cycling and it would be no problem to stay in the saddle for more than 10 hours at a time.

But the adventure beyond Beijing was a journey into the unknown.

“I have no idea how and where I’ll stay next or if I will be able to find accommodation or food along the way, but it is these unknown things that make traveling most interesting,” he said.

On May 12, Liu ran into heavy rain that later turned into hailstones, forcing him to stop and seek shelter. As the night wore on, his GPS guided him onto a narrow country road, with the nearest hotel 100 km away.

A few dogs barked aggressively when he attempted to pitch his tent in a village, so he set it up in a clearing in front of an old temple, falling asleep with the chanting of monks as a lullaby.

On day 28, with 3,300 km conquered, Liu reached the China-Russia border at Manzhouli, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and crossed into a foreign country for the first time in his life.

Siberia was vast, but not flat, and the rough roads posed a constant risk of punctures to his tires. Wild animals could have been lurking in the primeval forest and valleys, but Liu was too tired to think about the danger.

“I’ve lost track of time,” he said. “I never want to stop, I’m just a bit tired and sleepy.”

Luckily, the people Liu met on the way greeted him warmly, offsetting Siberia’s chilly winds. He was offered cosy bedrooms more than once by Russian villagers when he was about to pitch his tent in the cold. He was also offered a ride by a truck driver when the road was too bad for cycling in the dark. The time Liu spent with his new Russian friends forged memories as strong as the vodka they offered him.

Liu is still heading to Moscow at full speed, averaging 160 km a day. He will make it to Moscow on July 15 if all goes as planned and will see if anyone is kind enough to give him a free ticket to the final.

“At this stage watching the World Cup is no longer necessary,” he said. “I will be satisfied just to feel the World Cup vibes.”

Liu’s social media posts on his journey have earned him the criticism of some netizens, because his journey has led to the closure of his restaurant, with his wife and son alone at home. He said he plans to start his business all over again and spend more time with his family after he flies home.

“I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone,” he said. “I just want to do it, and I believe I can.”

Soranet – set up in 1999 – held tens of thousands of illegal porn videos, including “revenge porn” and spycam porn videos of women secretly filmed at public locations.

Distributing pornography is illegal in South Korea, although many such videos are widely consumed on servers based in foreign countries or secretly shared on file-sharing sites.

Soranet – which once boasted more than one million members – was closed two years ago following complaints from women’s rights groups.

She was arrested on Monday for distributing or aiding the distribution of sex videos featuring minors, police said.

Her husband and another couple known to be co-owners of the site – all of whom have Australian citizenship or permanent residency – remain overseas.

They are also accused of abetting illegal activities by Soranet members who shared videos in which women were secretly filmed in public toilets, classrooms, changing rooms, subways and other public locations.

Some members were also accused of jointly planning gang rapes – some of which targeted minors – and posting videos of the victims on the site.

The owners are believed to have earned tens of millions of dollars from advertising promoting websites that arrange prostitution and gambling – both technically illegal but widespread in South Korea.

So-called spycam videos have become increasingly common in the country, where men caught secretly filming women – in schools and workplaces, toilets and changing rooms – make headlines on a daily basis.//AFP

The duo Wan Han, 37, and Zhang Na, 25, from China will be jailed seven days if they fail to pay the fine after pleading guilty to disorderly behaviour in public places before Magistrate Cindy Mc Juce Balitus on Wednesday (June 27).

They had committed the offence at about 4.30pm on June 23, on top of the wall outside the city mosque here.

During mitigation at the court, both of them whom were unrepresented, urged for a lenient sentence as they did not know what they did was wrong.

Prosecuting officer Inspector Albert Basiri asked for an appropriate sentence to serve as a lesson to them and others.

The duo paid their fines and were later escorted to the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) where they flew back to China.

Their acts were taped on video and went viral, causing uproar among netizens.

The city mosque management later issued a temporary ban for visitors and vehicles to the area, except for taxis registered with them. A police report was lodged against them the day after the incident.

Kennedy’s departure at the end of July will give Trump the opportunity to appoint his second justice to the nine-seat bench, which exerts a deep and far-reaching influence on American life.

“It has been the greatest honor and privilege to serve our nation in the federal judiciary for 43 years, 30 of those on the Supreme Court,” Kennedy was quoted as saying in announcing his decision.

Nominated by president Ronald Reagan, the 81-year-old Kennedy took his oath of office in 1988. He said he was stepping aside to spend more time with his family.

Paying tribute to Kennedy as “a great justice of the Supreme Court,” Trump told reporters the replacement process will “begin immediately.”

“Hopefully we will pick someone who is just as outstanding,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

He said Kennedy’s successor — who like all Supreme Court justices will be appointed for life — would be selected from among a list of 25 possible candidates, 20 identified during his presidential campaign, and five added since.

“We have a very excellent list of great, talented, highly intelligent, hopefully tremendous people,” he said.

Nomination battle

In a statement, the White House said that “Justice Kennedy has been a tireless voice for individual rights and the Founders’ enduring vision of limited government. His words have left an indelible mark not only on this generation, but on the fabric of American history.”

His departure sets the stage for a brutal battle over his succession, a blueprint for which was established by Republican lawmakers in 2016 when they denied then-president Barack Obama the opportunity to fill the seat left vacant following the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia.

Now, Democrats argue that Trump’s pick should not be put to a vote until after new legislators are elected in midterm polls this fall.

“Millions of people are just months away from determining the senators who should vote to confirm or reject the president’s nominee, and their voices deserve to be heard,” said Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the US Senate.

“Anything but that would be the absolute height of hypocrisy.”

But Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated he was opposed to waiting, saying that “we will vote to confirm Justice Kennedy’s successor this fall.”

Kennedy’s vote, positioned at the very center of the court, gave him a place of special prominence among the nine justices.

He has cast the deciding vote in a number of historic cases, including the high court’s groundbreaking decision in 2015 legalizing gay marriage, a five-to-four decision for which he wrote the opinion.

Infuriated liberals, exasperated conservatives

For years, Kennedy infuriated conservatives with decisions striking down prayer at public school graduations and upholding abortion rights — and exasperated liberals with decisions on affirmative action and campaign finance laws.

His departure gives Trump his second Supreme Court pick since arriving at the White House, following the nomination of Neil Gorsuch, and could spell a decisive shift to the right for the top judicial body.

Gorsuch was sworn in in April last year to fill a more than year-long vacancy left by the death of Scalia, a delay orchestrated by McConnell to deny Obama the nomination.

Democrats were enraged, but with Republicans controlling both the Senate and the House, they have limited leverage to push back over Trump’s second pick for the court, the final arbiter on such divisive issues as gun rights or abortion.

Control over Supreme Court nominations has become a hot-button issue for the US electorate, with 70 percent of respondents in a 2016 CNN poll saying it was an important factor in their vote.

November’s midterm elections are expected to produce a bitter struggle for control of Congress in a deeply polarized country, especially if a court seat is still in play.

Gorsuch’s influence has already been felt in a series of recent court decisions that have backed a modified version of the president’s travel ban on visitors from Muslim-majority countries, bolstered anti-abortion activists and dealt a serious blow to labor unions.

If Trump, as expected, nominates a steadfast conservative to the bench, that shift is likely to become entrenched for many years to come.

Japan, which co-chaired the conference with Thailand and Palestine in a Bangkok hotel, called for more participation of members in the second phase of the Jericho Agro-Industrial Park (JAIP) in the West Bank, |to expand economic development and create jobs for Palestinians.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono co-chaired the conference with his Thai counterpart Don Pramudwinai and Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki to mobilise support from member-countries and the international community in boosting living standards for Palestinians.

“The participants expressed deep concern over recent developments in Palestine and recognised the situation is a substantial obstacle to the state building efforts of Palestine as well as peace through the two-state solution,” said a joint statement issued after the meeting yesterday.

The statement did not elaborate but plainly referred to the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem in May, a move that triggered protests in Gaza that led to an Israeli crackdown that killed scores of Palestinians.

Japan has taken a leading role in the conference since CEAPAD launched in 2013 with the aim of mobilising the resources and experience of economic development in East Asia countries to aid Palestine’s progress.

The conference also drew representatives from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea, the United Nations, the World Bank and Islamic Development Bank. Cooperation from Israel and Jordan are also crucial to its aims, a Japanese official |said.

At the meeting, Japan called for cooperation and participation in the JAIP. Tokyo has provided over $21 million for the development of the Agro-Industrial Park since 2008.

Located in the West Bank near the Jordan border, the industrial park has created jobs for more than 200 Palestinians. The second phase, which started recently, will create another 3,400 jobs, says the Palestine Authority.