Motive sought in California law firm shooting with 2 dead

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police are trying to learn what motivated a man to walk into a law firm where he worked and shoot two of his colleagues before turning the gun on himself.

Police arrived at the office building in Long Beach on Friday to find the gunman and one victim dead and learned that the second victim had driven himself to a hospital, police Sgt. Brad Johnson said at a news conference.

The injured man was in stable condition.

Police didn't fire any shots, Johnson said. A SWAT team searched the rest of the building and no other victims were found.

The gunman's motive had not yet been determined, but authorities emphasized it was not a case of an active shooter targeting as many people as possible.

___

Iran hard-liners rally as new protests challenge government

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian hard-liners rallied Saturday to support the country's supreme leader and clerically overseen government as spontaneous protests sparked by anger over the country's ailing economy roiled major cities in the Islamic Republic.

The demonstrations, commemorating a mass 2009 pro-government rally challenging those who rejected the re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad amid fraud allegations, had been scheduled weeks earlier.

However, they took on new importance after the economic protests began Thursday, sparked by social media posts and a surge in prices of basic food supplies, like eggs and poultry.

Thousands have gone into the streets of several cities in Iran, beginning first in Mashhad, the country's second-largest city and a holy site for Shiite pilgrims. Demonstrators also have criticized Iran's government during the protests, with social media videos showing clashes between protesters and police.

The semi-official Fars news agency said protests on Friday also struck Qom, a city that is the world's foremost center for Shiite Islamic scholarship and home to a major Shiite shrine.

___

From sniper to saint, showing Iraqi Shiite militias' power

BASRA, Iraq (AP) — In his martyrdom, he has virtually become a new saint for Iraq's Shiites. His poster adorns shop windows, men and women wear his image as badges. Poems praise his valor. His sniper's rifle, with which he's said to have killed nearly 400 Islamic State group militants, is now enshrined in a museum in the holiest Shiite city.

Ali Jayad al-Salhi, an expert sniper in his early 60s and veteran of multiple wars, was killed in September in clashes with IS in northern Iraq. He then was vaulted into legend. Shiites around Iraq trade stories of how, out of piety, he left his home, wife, 10 children and 20 grandchildren to join a Shiite militia to fight in what he saw as a war between humanity and evil.

Al-Salhi is a powerful symbol in the religious, near messianic mystique that has grown up around Iraq's Shiite militias in tandem with their increasing political and military might after they helped defeat the Islamic State group. Known as the "Popular Mobilization Forces" or "Hashed" in Arabic, the militias have emerged from the war with the image of an almost holy force protecting the Shiite Muslim majority. That popular aura helps enshrine the Hashed as a major player in post-IS Iraq.

It's a stark contrast to how the Sunni Muslim minority views the fighters. The Hashed controls significant areas in northern and western Iraq seized back from IS, and they are accused of abuses against the Sunni population. Sunnis see the militias as a tool for Shiite powerhouse Iran to dominate Iraq.

The war against the Islamic State group left a divided legacy in Iraq. The Sunni community has been shattered, its cities wrecked, its population scattered and unsure of their future, with some 3 million people uprooted and mostly languishing in camps. Meanwhile, Shiites are riding on victory, having defeated a fanatical group that targeted their sect as heretics.

___

Enduring cold snap creates headaches at home, on highways

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Already winter-weary parts of the Midwest and East Coast are dealing with a mounting number of weather-related headaches, from highway pileups to frozen pipes and a rash of car thefts. And there's more to come.

Bitter temperatures and snow squalls have been blamed for a handful of deaths and canceled a long list of New Year's celebrations.

Icy roads in central Michigan caused more than 30 crashes Friday on highways near Flint while a chain-reaction crash involving about 40 vehicles in the southwestern part of the state left three hurt.

Coastal South Carolina saw a rare bout of freezing rain and drizzle on Friday that forced bridges from Charleston to Myrtle Beach to shut down for de-icing.

Police in the Cincinnati area say a half-dozen cars have been stolen in recent days after being left running unattended by owners trying to warm them up. Cincinnati police warned in a tweet that leaving your car running means "the only person who will be warm is the thief who stole your car."

___

Bad to worse: How diplomatic hopes with North Korea plunged

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the first month of Donald Trump's presidency, an American scholar quietly met with North Korean officials and relayed a message: The new administration in Washington appreciated an extended halt in the North's nuclear and ballistic missile tests. It might just offer a ray of hope.

North Korean officials responded defiantly. The nearly four-month period of quiet wasn't a sign of conciliation, they retorted, insisting supreme leader Kim Jong Un would order tests whenever he wanted. As if to ram the point home, North Korea only two days later launched a new type of medium-range missile that ended Trump's brief honeymoon.

The February launch heralded a year of escalating tensions that have left the U.S. and North Korea closer to hostilities than at any time since the Korean War ended in 1953. The North is now at the brink of realizing its decades-old goal of being able to strike anywhere in America with a nuclear weapon. And two leaders untested in the delicate diplomacy of deterrence have exchanged personal insults and warned of the other nation's annihilation.

"Pyongyang and Washington are caught in a vicious cycle of action and reaction," Korea expert Duyeon Kim wrote in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. "If nothing happens to break the cycle, it will continue until one side either stands down, which is very unlikely, or, far worse, takes military action."

The exchanges at the unofficial U.S.-North Korean talks 10 months ago hadn't been reported before. They were recounted to The Associated Press by a participant who requested anonymity to describe them. No U.S. government officials took part.

___

Officials: Deadly NYC fire lit by child playing with stove

NEW YORK (AP) — A preschooler toying with the burners on his mother's stove accidentally sparked New York City's deadliest fire in decades, an inferno that quickly overtook an apartment building and blocked the main escape route, the fire commissioner said Friday.

A dozen people died , and four others were fighting for their lives a day after the flames broke out in the century-old building near the Bronx Zoo.

The 3½-year-old-boy, his mother and another child were able to flee their first-floor apartment. But they left the apartment door open behind them, and it acted like a chimney that drew smoke and flames into a stairwell. From there, the fire spread throughout the five-story building, authorities said.

The city housing department said investigators would look into why the door did not close automatically, though Mayor Bill de Blasio said there was "nothing problematic about the building that contributed to this tragedy."

At least 20 people scrambled out via fire escapes on a bitterly cold night, but others could not.

___

Gunman opens fire on Cairo church; shootout kills at least 9

CAIRO (AP) — A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire Friday outside a church in a Cairo suburb and at a nearby store, sparking a shootout that killed at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, authorities said. It was the latest attack targeting Egypt's embattled Christian minority.

The gunman was also killed, along with at least one police officer, officials said.

The local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack late Friday, saying it was carried out by a "security detail" and that one of its men was "martyred" in the strike. The claim was carried by the group's Aamaq news agency.

The attack began when the gunman tried to break through the security cordon outside the Coptic Church of Mar Mina. It was not clear how many assailants were involved. Egypt's Interior Ministry referred to only one, but the Coptic Orthodox church mentioned "gunmen."

Five people were wounded, including another police officer, Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said.

___

In strife-torn Myanmar, love trumps hate for a rare couple

THETKABYIN, Myanmar (AP) — In her dreams, Setara walks hand in hand with her Muslim husband through the streets of the seaside Myanmar town they grew up in. They visit old friends, share a meal with family, dip their toes into the warm surf of the Bay of Bengal.

But in the hate-filled reality of the world they live in, Setara can only do these things alone — when she takes off her Islamic veil and crosses through a pair of checkpoints into the predominantly Buddhist state capital, where her government will not allow the love of her life to set foot.

That's because Setara's husband is an ethnic Rohingya Muslim, a group the United Nations has called one of the most persecuted on the planet. Setara, meanwhile, was born a Buddhist and part of the ethnic Rakhine, who despise the Rohingya and see them as foreign invaders from Bangladesh.

Marriage between the two communities is extraordinarily rare. It's also risky in a nation where security forces have driven more than 730,000 Rohingya into exile since 2016, carried out large-scale massacres and burned hundreds of villages in a campaign the U.N. and human rights groups have described as "ethnic cleansing."

In Sittwe, Setara tells no one she is married to a Rohingya. Because "if they knew, they would kill me right away. So I'm always careful."

___

Secret Sauce? Kim Jong Un applies science to kimchi-making

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Kim Jong Un wants to turn the art of kimchi-making into a science. And the North Korean leader is putting his money where his mouth is.

On the outskirts of Pyongyang, surrounded by snow-covered farms and greenhouses, stands one of Kim's latest pet projects, the Ryugyong Kimchi Factory, which produces 4,200 tons of the iconic Korean pickled vegetable dish a year. The shiny new facility replaces an older factory and opened in June last year after getting Kim's final seal of approval, according to manager Paek Mi Hye.

The factory is intended to showcase Kim's efforts to boost North Korea's domestic economy and produce more, and better, consumer products. His strategy, known as "byungjin," aims to simultaneously develop the national economy and North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

North Korea's repeated underground nuclear tests and launches of long-range missiles that could conceivably reach the U.S. mainland have brought more sanctions down on the North than ever before. But outside experts believe the country — while still struggling in many areas — is showing signs of modest economic growth and improved agricultural production. It could be just a year or two away from having an operational, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile.

Applied science, according to the North's policymakers, is absolutely essential on all fronts.

___

Ringo Starr, Bee Gee Barry Gibb tapped as British knights

LONDON (AP) — A Beatle and a Bee Gee are among the celebrated citizens who have been selected for knighthood and other awards given in the name of Britain's monarch.

Britain's Cabinet Office publishes a list of the people receiving honors for merit, service or bravery twice a year: just before New Year's Eve, and on the Saturday in June when Queen Elizabeth II's birthday is officially observed.

The New Year's Honors List made public late Friday revealed that Beatles drummer Ringo Starr and Barry Gibb, the oldest and last surviving of the brothers who made up the pop group the Bee Gees, have been tapped as knights.

The process starts with nominations from the public, which first are reviewed by a specialist committee and then by a main honors committee. The nominations are then sent to the prime minister before the various honors are bestowed by the queen or senior royals.

The children's author celebrated for "War Horse," a politician who fought in vain to keep Britain in the European Union, and many others, including renowned researchers, volunteers and actors, also made the honors list.