Las Vegas shooting near Mandalay Bay - CBS News

Las Vegas shooting near Mandalay Bay - live updates

Last Updated Oct 2, 2017 1:31 AM EDT

LAS VEGAS – A shooting at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 100 others late Sunday, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said.

He said the man authorities think was the sole gunman was killed by police on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Route 91 Harvest Festival, a country music festival.

"We believe it's a solo actor. A lone wolf," Lombardo said.

He said the gunman is a local resident but did not disclose his name.

Asked if authorities think the shooting was an act of terrorism, he replied, "No. Not at this point. ... We don't know what his belief system was at this time."

Lombardo said authorities want to speak to a traveling companion of the deceased gunman, who Lombardo said was the shooter's roommate. Lombardo identified her as Marilou Danley. He added that authorities are trying to track down two vehicles believed associated with the shooting.

Las Vegas police followed up on Twitter:

LVMPD ✔@LVMPD

Marilou Danley is being sought for questioning re the investigation into the active shooter incident. If seen please call 9-1-1!

8:22 PM - Oct 2, 2017

Two off-duty police officers attending the concert were killed, Lombardo said. An on-duty officer was in critical condition and another was wounded, Lombardo said.

A Bakersfield, California police officer was shot and taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The Bakersfield department said its officers weren't in position to return fire when the shooting broke out.

The FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were assisting local authorities with the investigation, the agencies said.

Dozens of patrol vehicles descended on the Strip after authorities received reports of an active shooter near the festival.

Concert-goers reported seeing muzzle flashes from the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay and the sound of what they described as automatic gunfire.

Fifty people were admitted to the University Medical Center, a spokesperson told CBS News. Of those, at least two died and several were in critical condition, the spokesperson added.

CBS News has been told at least three other area hospitals were taking in shooting victims.

Country singer Jason Aldean was playing near the end of the concert when gunfire began.

Later, he took to Instragram, saying, "Tonight has been beyond horrific. I still dont know what to say but wanted to let everyone know that Me and my Crew are safe. My Thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night. #heartbroken #stopthehate."

Las Vegas music festival shooting

Las Vegas music festival shooting

Authorities shut down part of the Las Vegas Strip and Interstate 15.

Some flights destined for the McCarran International Airport were diverted due to the shooting.

Machine gun-like gunfire is clearly audible in this tweet:

One witness told CBS Las Vegas affiliate KLAS-TV he or she heard nearly 100 rounds fired off.

Witnesses at the music festival told the station they heard what sounded like firecrackers going off, but they were rounds fired from a gun.

Witnesses told KLAS people were also seen running with injuries and blood.

Kodiak Yazzie, 36, said he and his girlfriend were watching Aldean's performance when he heard what sounded like fireworks. The music stopped temporarily and started up again before another round of pops sent the performers ducking for cover and fleeing the stage.

Thousands fled as bursts of gunfire could be heard for more than five minutes, Yazzie said.

Jose Baggett, 31, a Las Vegas resident, said he and a friend were in the lobby of the Luxor hotel-casino - directly north of the festival - when people began running. He said people were crying and as he and his friend walked away, they encountered police checkpoints where officers were carrying shotguns and assault rifles.

"There were armored personnel vehicles, SWAT vehicles, ambulances, and at least a half-mile of police cars," Baggett said

Witnesses said they saw multiple victims and dozens of ambulances near the concert venue. Some attendees later huddled in the basement of the nearby Tropicana hotel-casino.

Officers carrying assault rifles ran into the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Marseille suspect was released from custody day before attack - Guardian

Marseille suspect was released from custody day before attack

Man who stabbed two women outside train station had been detained for suspected shoplifting, official says.

Associated Press in Paris

Monday 2 October 2017 20.59 AEDT

A man who fatally stabbed two women outside the main train station in Marseille had been detained for shoplifting and released the day before the attack and used multiple fake identities in a series of previous arrests, officials have said.

French authorities are studying the suspect’s mobile phone and working to determine whether he had accomplices or direct links to Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for Sunday’s stabbing. The assailant was killed by soldiers after the attack, the latest of several targeting France.

The suspect was identified by his fingerprints, which matched those taken during previous arrests, according to two police officials. He was not on France’s extremist watchlist, according to the officials, who were not authorised to be named when discussing an ongoing investigation.

The man did not appear to have French residency papers and was detained for suspected shoplifting at a department store in the Lyon region on Saturday before being released, according to Yves Lefebvre, a police union official.

Lefebvre, of the Unite SGP police union, said while it might shock the public that the suspect was released the day before carrying out the attack it did not shock police.

He said shoplifting usually results in a quick police report and a court summons for a later date, and the suspect is released.

“Nothing allowed us to suspect there was a threat of radicalisation during the [Lyon] arrest,” he told the Associated Press.

Man shot dead by French army after killing two people at Marseille train station

He said the man used multiple pseudonyms and identity papers, making it difficult to determine his true identity or even to find a house to search. He said authorities hoped an iPhone found on the suspect would give clues to his true identity and motives.

The victims were cousins between 17 and 21 years old, according to three police and judicial officials. It is unclear if they had any link to the attacker.

Authorities have opened a terrorism investigation. The Paris prosecutor is giving a news conference about the attack later on Monday.

The interior minister, Gérard Collomb, said police had video footage that shows the man attacking a woman and running away, then coming back and attacking a second woman. Some witnesses reported hearing the assailant shout “Allahu Skbar!” – Arabic for “God is great” – Collomb said.

The Isis-linked Aamaq news agency said the assailant was acting in response to the extremist group’s calls to target countries in the US-led coalition fighting militants in Syria and Iraq. France has been part of the anti-Isis coalition since 2014. The Aamaq statement did not provide evidence of a direct link to the attacker and it is unclear if the claim is merely opportunistic.

Saint-Charles station in Marseille reopened as usual on Monday. Last month, four American college students were attacked with acid at the same station. French authorities said the female assailant who doused the four Boston College students was suffering from mental illness.

Tory members vent about the mismanaged election campaign - BBC News

Tory members vent about the mismanaged election campaign

By Chris Mason

Political correspondent, BBC News

"Why would anybody, let alone a normal person, want to become a member of the Conservative Party?"

"I'm beginning to lose the will to live."

"An utter, total disgrace."

This was some distance from the slick choreography you can become inured to at party conferences.

This was a public post-mortem in a marquee.

A brutally honest dissection of humiliating failure at the general election.

The Conservative Home website hosted a discussion for party members to say it as they saw it - and the room festered with irritation, anger and a forest of raised hands.

For more than an hour, the criticisms came.

The outspoken John Strafford, from the Campaign for Conservative Democracy, predicted Armageddon for the Tories.

Party membership, he said, had been allowed to decline below 100,000 nationally and 300 constituency associations had no more than 100 members - and no more than 10 of them were up for doing stuff or were activists.

It was Mr Strafford who said this was "an utter, total disgrace".

"Eventually there will be no members left, and that will be the end, goodbye," he claimed.

A visibly angry Sir Eric Pickles, who has written a report on the party's failure at the election, sarcastically congratulated him on "getting tomorrow's headlines".

'Predominantly London'

The room by now crackled with irritation - as members set out what they saw as a range of structural, organisational and practical reasons that contributed to the party's failure to win an overall majority.

The party's losing candidate in Halifax in West Yorkshire, the marginal seat where the party published its now widely derided manifesto, was highly critical of the national party.

Labour's Holly Lynch increased her majority in Halifax following June's general election

Chris Pearson said his team had been threatened with disciplinary action if they didn't follow central dictat about the areas of the constituency they targeted, despite what he saw as their superior local knowledge.

"Everything does seem to be quite predominantly London," he added, about the party's organisation and staffing.

It was a party member from Cambridge who questioned why anyone would want to sign up to join the party right now.

Sir Eric Pickles said: "We can't have the manifesto being written quietly in a corner," and insisted "someone should be unambiguously in charge of the election".

His report, complete with 126 recommendations, suggested there was "a clear campaigning deficiency" and a need for more young people and members of ethnic minorities to join and support the Conservatives.

'Blithering idiots'

Paul Goodman, the editor of Conservative Home, fretted that unless someone was charged with ensuring Sir Eric's ideas were implemented over the next 10 years, many could fall by the wayside.

"We will be in such a mess if we don't push this through," Sir Eric said.

Two contributors from the floor said the Tories could learn from Momentum, the grassroots movement inspired by the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The Tory MP Nusrat Ghani agreed: "One of the ways it recruits is pinpointing local campaigns. A local school, a local hospital, to nudge people along to get involved. A bottom-up approach is absolutely key."

Graham Brady says the Tories must work harder to ensure more public sector workers would vote for party

The former minister Edwina Currie, reflecting on everything she had heard, said the meeting left her "losing the will to live".

But she was furious that "blithering idiots" from party headquarters had sent her and fellow canvassers to addresses in Derbyshire which had been picked out to target because the occupiers earned relatively high salaries.

What Central Office hadn't realised, she said, was that in her patch many of the best paid were public sector workers with Labour posters in the windows.

Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs, said it was time the party "tried to convince primary school teachers of the benefit of the free market" and work harder to ensure more public sector workers would consider voting Tory.

But when Mrs Currie complained about the number of white men in senior roles within the party, Mr Brady joked: "There is nothing I can do about being white or being a man. Nothing I'd wish to do anyway!"

As this public inquest rolled into its second hour, hands were still popping up: passionate activists with questions, observations and irritations about an election that went badly wrong.

'Jaw dropping' secret audio tapes smuggled out of North Korea reveal Kim Jong-il criticising his own people - Independent

'Jaw dropping' secret audio tapes smuggled out of North Korea reveal Kim Jong-il criticising his own people

'People here are so closed-minded,' says former dictator

May Bulman @maybulman Wednesday 2 November 2016

The audio tapes of Kim Jong-il have been described as 'jaw-dropping' by a US official Getty

Secret recordings smuggled out of North Korea have revealed how the former leader and father of Kim Jong-un lambasted his own people - as well as making fun out of himself - while he was in office.

A new documentary has unmasked audio clips in which Kim Jong-il, who ruled the country from 1994 to 2011, can be heard openly criticising the “closed-mindedness” of his people and joking about his "small" stature.

According to the documentary, titled 'The Lovers and the Despot', the audio clips were secretly recorded by a South Korean actress and her film director husband, who were kidnapped by the North Korean regime in 1978 and forced to make films for eight years. At the time, the secretive republic was ruled by Kim Il-sung, while his son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-il was in charge of the ministry for culture and propaganda.

Fears for Kim Jong-un's wife after a seven-month public absence

Rare archive footage of Kim Jong-il released

Kim Jong-Il's sushi chef praises dead leader's son after flying visit

The couple are said to have secretly taped some of their meetings with the future dictator with a hidden audio recorder, and later smuggled the tapes to the US state department in 1985.

In the recordings, Mr Jong-il complains about North Korean movies, saying: “Why are there so many crying scenes? All of our scenes have crying scenes. This isn’t a funeral, is it?”

He can also be heard stating his country’s films lack originality and claiming they don't match the quality of South Korean films. He says: “Why do all of our films have the same ideological plots? There is nothing new about them […] People here are so closed-minded”

“We don’t have any films that get into film festivals. In South Korea they have better technology. They are like college students and we are just in nursery schools.”

Mr Jong-il also reportedly makes fun of his small stature in one of the clips, saying: “Look at me. Aren't I small”, before making a crude self-deprecating comparison.

David Straub, who was an official at the State Department when the tapes arrived there, told CNN the recordings would be an “intelligence windfall” for the American government.

Mr Straub said: ”My jaw dropped. Hours and hours of recordings of Kim Jong Il speaking relatively freely would be an intelligence windfall for the American government, since we'd never heard him speak before, much less privately.“

Greg Scarlatoiu, of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said the tapes reveal he shared traits with Mr Jong-il's son and current North Korean leader, Mr Jong-un, in their "complex of inferiority".

He said that the tapes suggested Kim was insecure about everything including the thing he loved most — movies — and this trait was likely shared by his youngest son Kim Jong-un.

Mr Scarlatoiu said: ”Just like his father before, this leader of North Korea must suffer from a complex of inferiority as well. The insecurity was surely something that Kim Jong-un inherited."

* Update: This article originally stated that Kim Jong-il ruled North Korea until 1994. In fact, that is when his leadership of the country began, following the death of his father Kim Il-sung, and he ruled until his own death in 2011. 15/11/16

North Korea crisis: US in 'direct contact' with Pyongyang, says Rex Tillerson - Independent

North Korea crisis: US in 'direct contact' with Pyongyang, says Rex Tillerson

'We have lines of communications to Pyongyang — we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout.' says Secretary of State

Fiona Keating

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Reuters

America's top diplomat has said his country is now in direct communication with North Korea amid an unprecdented deterioration in relations between Washington and Pyongyang.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made the revelation during a visit to China, where he is discussing the crisis on the Korean peninsula with President Xi Jinping and other leaders.

“We have lines of communication to Pyongyang,” Mr Tillerson said. “We’re not in a dark situation.”

He said the Trump administration was “probing” the potential for talks with North Korea, adding: “So stay tuned.”

North Korea seen moving ballistic missiles out of rocket facility

Australia told to prepare for attack from North Korea

North Korea claims almost 5 million have signed up to join its already

When asked about how he would approach Kim Jong-un, Mr Tillerson replied: “We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang — we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang.”

The US Secretary of State declined to comment if the North Koreans had replied to requests to dialogue.

“We can talk to them,” he said, speaking at the residence of Terry Branstad, the US ambassador to Beijing. “We do talk to them."

He denied those lines of communication went via China, saying: “We have our own channels.”

Speaking an hour after meeting the Chinese President, Mr Tillerson said he was keen to tone down the bellicose rhetoric between Mr Trump and his North Korean counterpart.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump was called a “racist Orangutan” by North Korea's news service in response to the American leader's comments about the “poor leadership” of Yulin Cruz, the mayor of Puerto Rico's capital, San Juan.

“The whole situation is a bit overheated right now,” Mr Tillerson said in a New York Times report. “If North Korea would stop firing its missiles, that would calm things down a lot.”

The two countries have been in low-key discussions for months, according to the Associated Press, with “diplomatic contact… occurring regularly” between the US envoy for North Korea policy and a “senior North Korean diplomat at the country’s UN mission”.

Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, said it was not unexpected that the two countries were in communication with one another, despite the increasingly hostile war of words.

“It was perfectly clear that both North Korea and the United States, and others, are in the renegotiation bargaining process,” he said.

Sweden could also play a key role as peacemaker if discussions falter between the US and North Korea. “Sweden has done so on numerous occasions before, especially in relation to imprisoned Americans,” Ulv Hanssen from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs told Reuters.

High Rollers Drive Macau Revenue Growth for 14th Straight Month - Bloomberg

High Rollers Drive Macau Revenue Growth for 14th Straight Month

By Daniela Wei and Blake Schmidt

October 1, 2017, 3:45 PM GMT+10

Gaming receipts increase 16.1% in September vs 20.4% in August

Revenue expansion last month exceeded analyst estimates

Macau’s casino revenue grew for the 14th consecutive month as high rollers lingered around the gambling tables in the world’s largest hub for players, following disruptions caused by typhoons in August.

Gross gaming receipts rose 16.1 percent to 21.4 billion patacas ($2.7 billion) in September, according to data released by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau on Sunday. That compares with the median estimate for a 14 percent increase in a Bloomberg survey of nine analysts. Gaming revenue climbed 20.4 percent in August from a year earlier.

Smaller junket operators, who provide credit to their big gamblers, have opened more gambling rooms in a move that’s expected to drive growth in high-stakes players, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Praveen Choudhary said in a report. The momentum is expected to continue as Golden Week, which started Sunday, has the potential to generate more revenue than last year.

Suncity Group, the largest junket operator in Macau, expects its October betting volume to surge between 30 percent and 35 percent from last year.

Read about the outlook for the Golden Week

The number of tourists this week is expected to increase by as much as 5 percent from about 1.2 million visitors last year, the Macau Tourism Office estimates. The bulk of those, about 970,000, were from China. The number of mainland Chinese visitors to Macau surpassed 2 million in both July and August, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The territory is benefiting from economic expansion in China that’s outpacing the official 6.5 percent target, pent-up demand after the typhoons in August and the Chinese government’s decision not to restrict visas before the upcoming Communist Party leadership gathering in Beijing.

High-rollers from China have helped revive and sustain growth in Macau after President Xi Jinping’s campaign against corruption caused a two-year slump beginning in 2014, before bottoming out last year.

The typhoons disrupted operations in some casinos in the only Chinese territory where gambling is legal. MGM China Holdings Ltd. is delaying the opening of its MGM Cotai to January because of damage, it said Friday.

Kim Jong Un’s weapons milestones have shifted balance of power in east Asia - Financial Times

Trump-Kim barbs obscure new reality for South Korea

Kim Jong Un’s weapons milestones have shifted balance of power in east Asia.

In recent weeks a nervous world has watched on as Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un trade recriminations and threats of annihilation.

But for many in Seoul, the brinkmanship from the US and North Korean leaders has obscured a more profound development: Pyongyang has already succeeded in changing the balance of power in the region.

The reclusive nation’s recent success in bolstering its military capability has not only made it a more formidable potential foe; it has also deepened tensions among the US and its allies by changing the facts on the ground and the strategic calculations based on them.

North Korea has achieved twin milestones this year, successfully testing long-range ballistic missiles and its most powerful nuclear weapon — a device the regime claims was a hydrogen bomb. Analysts and former officials in South Korea say the developments amount to “game-changers” that can fundamentally undermine Washington’s longstanding security commitment to north-east Asia and could spark a nuclear arms race in the region.

“North Korea’s intention is very aggressive. They want to rewrite the regional order to their liking,” says Kim Jae-chun, a professor at Sogang University and a former South Korean government adviser.

“The objective of North Korea is to dismantle the US-Republic of Korea partnership. In this regard, the intercontinental ballistic missile is a game-changer.”

Events this year have aided the goal of sowing dissension among the US and its allies and stoked worries about the escalation of a crisis in which South Korea could be first in the line of fire.

Fears of a rift between a dovish Seoul and a more aggressive Washington gained ground after the nuclear test at the start of September. Mr Trump used the occasion to accuse Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president, of appeasement.

Seoul has also been unnerved by Mr Trump’s combative response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests — including his threat in a UN speech to “totally destroy” the country.

But at the same time South Korea and Japan are also highly aware of Mr Trump’s unpredictability — and the possibility that he might water down longstanding US guarantees to the region.

Analysts say North Korea’s technological advances mean it could now launch military action against South Korea or Japan, while holding US forces at bay with the threat of a nuclear attack on its mainland.

Since the most recent tests, a growing chorus of voices has asked the same question: in a future conflict, would the US be willing to risk one of its own cities to protect Seoul?

Pyongyang could also use dialogue — potentially proposing a freeze in testing in exchange for US withdrawal or reduction of its 30,000 US troops in South Korea — to weaken the alliance between Seoul and Washington.

“In this way Trump can announce victory, saying he has achieved peace on the peninsula, which for him is politically feasible, says Kim Byoung-joo, a professor of international relations at the KDI School of Public Policy. “But the problem is, a freeze now means nothing [since North Korea has increased its nuclear and missile capability so much]. It will be a win-lose game [for South Korea].”

Prof Kim adds that such an outcome would also be a “winning scenario” for China and Russia, “whose top priority is limiting the US presence in the region. They are winning the game of balancing against the US.”

Like most analysts on the peninsula, Bob Kelly, a professor at Busan National University, does not believe war is likely or that North Korea will attack the US — a move that would entail massive retaliation and the destruction of the Kim Jong Un regime.

Kim’s goal: Deterrence or aggression?

China’s hawks emerge as Kim infuriates Beijing

Instead, he argues, Pyongyang will use its nuclear weapons to “shake down” Seoul and Tokyo for concessions and aid: “Coercive nuclear bullying — not war — is the real threat.”

Prof Kelly also maintains that the crisis could spark a wider regional arms race — which many think is already happening. 

Both Tokyo and Seoul are attempting to boost their missile defences, with South Korea this year deploying an advanced US-operated missile shield. There are also growing calls in South Korea to redeploy US tactical nuclear weapons or even develop the country’s own.

“In order to avoid real danger, we have to arm ourselves with nuclear weapons. But it would be nuclear armament for the sake of nuclear disarmament. It would allow us talk evenly with Pyongyang,” says Prof Kim of KDI

Mr Moon has rejected such calls — but he in his turn has been attacked by South Korean hawks for limiting the country’s policy options and weakening its negotiating leverage.

“The only way to ensure survival is to have more power,” adds Prof Kim. the former South Korean government adviser. “This is a really critical time. Everything should be on the table, including South Korea developing its own nuclear weapons.”