Man nabbed in Colo. clinic shooting

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.

- A gunman was arrested yesterday hours after opening fire at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, wounding multiple people and engaging in gunbattles with police inside the building, officials said.

At least 11 people, including five police officers, were taken to hospitals, police Lt. Catherine Buckley said.

An unknown number of people were evacuated during the standoff - some wrapped in blankets in the blowing snow - to a nearby Veterans Administration clinic.

Three officers were injured while responding to the initial report of shots fired at the clinic before noon, authorities said. More than two hours later, the gunman shot and injured a fourth officer in another exchange with police inside the clinic, Buckley said.

Authorities said they don't know the motive of the gunman or whether the shooter had any connection to Planned Parenthood. The name of the suspect was not released.

"We don't have any information on this individual's mentality, or his ideas or ideology," Buckley said.

Planned Parenthood released a statement that said it did not know the circumstances or motives behind the attack, or whether the organization was targeted.

CHICAGO

- A Chicago man was charged with first-degree murder yesterday in connection with the slaying of a 9-year-old boy who police say was lured from a playground and shot in the head because of his father's gang ties.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said the suspect, Corey Morgan, 27, is a gang member with an extensive criminal history. McCarthy said two other men, including one jailed on an unrelated gun charge, also are suspected in the death of Tyshawn Lee, who was shot in an alley near his grandmother's home on Nov. 2.

Prosecutors allege Morgan was intent on settling the score after a shooting last month killed his brother and injured his mother in a long-running gang feud. But his attorney, Jonathan Brayman, said Morgan "absolutely denies" being involved in the boy's death.

McCarthy said the three men's precise roles were still under investigation, but that all were members of the same gang.

"They're going to be obliterated. That gang just signed its own death warrant," McCarthy said during a news conference.

WASHINGTON

- Donald Trump said he couldn't have been making fun of a reporter's disability because he doesn't know the man. Not so, says the reporter.

Serge Kovaleski, of the New York Times, says he has met Trump repeatedly, interviewing him in his office and talking to him at news conferences, when he worked for the New York Daily News in the late 1980s. "Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years," he said in a Times story about the Republican presidential candidate's behavior at a rally in South Carolina last week.

Onstage Tuesday, a mocking Trump flailed his arms in an apparent attempt to imitate mannerisms of the "poor guy." He accused Kovaleski of backing off a story from a week after the 9/11 attacks that said authorities in New Jersey detained and questioned "a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks."

Kovaleski then worked for the Washington Post.

Trump cites the story as proof of his claim that "thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the devastation across the river. But the story did not suggest "thousands" were observed celebrating or that the reports of such a scene were true. Other accounts from that time concluded the allegations were unfounded.

Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that restricts joint movement. In his speech, Trump cited the 2001 story, "written by a nice reporter," and went on: "Now the poor guy, you oughta see this guy - uh, I don't know what I said, uh, I don't remember. He's going like, I don't remember." He made jerking gestures and his voice took on a mocking tone.

- Associated Press