LAS VEGAS — The Las Vegas gunman meticulously planned how to carry out the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, researching SWAT tactics, renting other hotel rooms overlooking outdoor concerts and investigating potential targets in at least four cities, authorities said Friday.
But almost four months after Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and wounded more than 800 others with a barrage of bullets from the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel, investigators still have not answered the key question: Why did he do it?
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo released a preliminary report on the Oct. 1 attack and said he did not expect criminal charges to be filed against Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, who had been called a person of interest in the case.
Paddock, who killed himself before police reached him, told friends and relatives that he always felt ill, in pain and fatigued, authorities said.
His doctor thought he may have had bipolar disorder but told police that Paddock refused to discuss the possibility, the report said.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide the legality of the latest version of President Donald Trump’s ban on travel to the United States by residents of six majority-Muslim countries.
The issue pits an administration that considers the restrictions necessary for Americans’ security against challengers who claim it is illegally aimed at Muslims and stems from Trump’s campaign call for a “complete shutdown of Muslims” entering the U.S.
The justices plan to hear argument in April and issue a final ruling by late June on a Trump policy that has been repeatedly blocked and struck down in the lower courts.
The latest of those rulings came last month when the federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the travel ban Trump announced in September violates federal immigration law.
LANSING, Mich. — Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman on Friday confronted her former doctor who has pleaded guilty to multiple sexual assaults, warning him that the testimony of the “powerful army” of 140 survivors at his sentencing will haunt him in prison.
Roughly 80 of the women and girls whom Larry Nassar abused under the guise of medical treatment have stood before the court during a marathon sentencing hearing that began Tuesday, describing with eloquence and sometimes tears the harm Nassar did and the impact he has had on their lives.
“You have not taken gymnastics away from me,” Raisman said. “I love this sport, and that love is stronger than the evil that resides in you, in those who enabled you to hurt many people.”
Facing pressure over how Michigan State University handled allegations made against Nassar when he was employed there, the school’s board of trustees on Friday asked the state’s attorney general to investigate but stood by university president Lou Ann Simon — who is facing growing calls to resign or to be fired by the board.
“Through this terrible situation, the university has been perceived as tone deaf, unresponsive and insensitive to the victims. We understand the public’s faith has been shaken. The Board has listened and heard the victims,” chairman Brian Breslin said after a closed-door meeting that lasted more than four hours.
NEW YORK — A tabloid magazine held back from publishing an adult film star’s 2011 account of an alleged affair with Donald Trump after the future president’s personal lawyer threatened to sue, four former employees of the tabloid’s publisher told The Associated Press.
In Touch magazine published its 5,000-word interview with the pornographic actor Stormy Daniels on Friday — more than six years after Trump’s long-time attorney, Michael Cohen, sent an email to In Touch’s general counsel saying Trump would aggressively pursue legal action if the story was printed, according to emails described to the AP by the former employees.
At the time, Trump was a reality TV star on the NBC show “The Apprentice.”
The ex-employees spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to discuss their former employer’s editorial policies.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, signed a source contract with the magazine, which said a friend and Clifford’s ex-husband corroborated her account of a 2006 tryst. She also passed a lie detector test, the magazine said.
CALERA, Ala. — Kathleen Dawn West described herself as a full-time wife and mom on Facebook but lived another life on other social media platforms, calling herself an exhibitionist and posting risque photos with a chance for subscribers to see sexier images for $15.99 a month.
West, 42, was found dead outside her home near Birmingham, and authorities are now faced with a question: Did West’s online activities play a role in her death?
Police have classified West’s death as a homicide, but they haven’t said how she died. What appears to be the remainder of a blood stain darkens the asphalt across the street from the two-story brick home she shared with her husband and middle school-age daughter.
No charges had been filed by Friday, six days after she died. But the mysterious nature of West’s death — she was found dead early Saturday in the quiet bedroom community of Calera, a town of 14,000 people about 35 miles south of Birmingham — has people buzzing
From Associated Press