Van strikes people in Shanghai crash police say was accident

SHANGHAI (AP) — A minivan crashed into pedestrians on a busy sidewalk in downtown Shanghai on Friday morning in what police say they believe was an accident with the driver smoking while transporting gas tanks through the heart of the Chinese financial hub.

A total of 18 people were sent to hospitals for treatment after the crash Friday morning, with three reported to be seriously injured.

The van veered onto a sidewalk and burst into flames around 9 a.m. near People's Park, the Shanghai government said.

Local media reported the vehicle was carrying six people and several tanks of gas.

Videos on social media showed injured people lying on the pavement next to a Starbucks cafe.

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Trump will clear way for publication of classified memo

WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the strong objections of his own Justice Department, President Donald Trump will clear the way for the publication of a classified memo on the Russia investigation that Republicans say shows improper use of surveillance by the FBI, White House officials said Thursday.

The memo, prepared by Republicans on the House intelligence committee, is said to allege FBI misconduct in the initial stages of its investigation of potential ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. Trump's Justice Department and Democrats furiously lobbied Trump to stop the release, saying it could harm national security and mislead the public.

A White House official said Congress would probably be informed of the decision Friday, adding Trump was "OK" with its release. A second White House official said Trump was likely to declassify the congressional memo but the precise method for making it public was still being figured out. The officials were not authorized to be quoted about private deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The FBI's stance means Trump, by allowing the memo's release, would be openly defying his own FBI director. It also suggests a clear willingness by FBI Director Christopher Wray, who in the early stretch of his tenure has been notably low-key, to challenge a president who just months ago fired his predecessor, James Comey.

Comey weighed in on Twitter Thursday night, writing, "All should appreciate the FBI speaking up. I wish more of our leaders would."

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Natalie Wood's drowning now considered a 'suspicious death'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — New witnesses have emerged in the 1981 drowning of actress Natalie Wood, prompting investigators to deem it a "suspicious death" and name her former husband, 87-year-old actor Robert Wagner, a "person of interest," Los Angeles sheriff's officials said Thursday.

For nearly four decades, mystery and speculation have swirled around the death of the actress who was nominated for three Academy Awards and starred in "West Side Story" and "Rebel Without a Cause."

She was on a yacht with Wagner, actor Christopher Walken and the boat captain on Thanksgiving weekend of 1981. After a night of drinking, her body was found floating in the waters off Southern California's Catalina Island. She was 43.

Investigators initially ruled it an accident but reopened the case in 2011 to see whether Wagner or anyone else played a role after the boat's captain said he heard the couple arguing the night of her disappearance. The coroner's office amended Wood's death certificate the next year to include "drowning and other undetermined factors."

In a statement Thursday, sheriff's spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said new witnesses interviewed since the case was reopened gave statements that "portray a new sequence of events on the boat that night."

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Cuba state media: Fidel Castro's son has killed himself

HAVANA (AP) — The oldest son of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro killed himself on Thursday after months of treatment for depression, state media reported. He was 68.

Official website Cubadebate said Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart had been in a "deeply depressed state." A brief note read on state television said his treatment had "required an initial hospitalization then outpatient follow-up."

The oldest son of Cuba's late revolutionary leader was known for his resemblance to his father, earning him the nickname Fidelito or Little Fidel.

Castro Diaz-Balart studied nuclear physics in the former Soviet Union and served as scientific adviser to Cuba's Council of State. He was vice president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences. He previously led its nuclear program.

Castro Diaz-Balart was born to Fidel Castro's first wife, Mirta Diaz-Balart, a woman from Cuba's aristocracy who Fidel married in his youth before beginning the revolutionary struggle that later brought him and his brother Raul to power.

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LA school shooting was accidental, 12-year-old in custody

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A shooting at a Los Angeles middle school classroom Thursday that left one boy in critical condition, injured four others and had panicked parents in tears was an accident, police said.

The shooting was reported just before 9 a.m. and within minutes a 12-year-old girl was taken into custody without incident. Police interviewed her and by evening they announced that they would book her on a charge of negligent discharge of a firearm on school grounds.

The determination capped a frantic day at Salvador B. Castro Middle School in downtown Los Angeles and corroborated what some students told reporters after the lockdown was lifted and they were reunited with parents on the school's athletic field.

In a telephone interview with his mother alongside, Jordan Valenzuela, 12, told The Associated Press he was in the classroom next door when he heard a loud bang. He said he talked to the girl just after the shooting and she was sobbing.

"She was like, 'I didn't mean to. I had the gun in my backpack and I didn't know it was loaded and my backpack fell and the gun went off,'" he said.

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GOP legislators gather in search of winning 2018 agenda

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, West Virginia (AP) — Congressional Republicans in sweater vests and fleece gathered at a West Virginia resort Thursday in search of a winning election-year agenda, facing the notion that the best they have to offer in 2018 may be a recitation of the tax cuts approved in 2017 — and well aware of the looming threat of another government shutdown.

The legislators had forums on topics such as infrastructure, national security and the economy — but noticeably not on immigration, the major issue that bedevils them.

They got a pep talk from President Donald Trump reliving passage of the tax bill and highlighting other GOP victories from his first year in office. But the president offered no clear strategy for resolving the immigration-and-spending standoff that produced a three-day government shutdown in January and threatens a second shutdown next week. And he offered no new policy details on infrastructure, prescription drug prices or other items he's mentioned as ripe for attention in 2018.

As for an immigration strategy, Trump said: "We have to get help from the other side, or we have to elect many more Republicans." He then proceeded to take jabs at Democrats just days after calling for bipartisan unity in his State of the Union address.

Trump took a similar tack at a second GOP event Thursday night in Washington.

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Dallas man executed for killing daughters while mom listened

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A former Dallas accountant condemned for fatally shooting his two young daughters while their mother listened helplessly on the phone was put to death Thursday night in Texas.

John David Battaglia was executed for the May 2001 killings of his 9-year-old daughter, Faith, and her 6-year-old sister, Liberty. Battaglia and his wife had separated, and he shot the girls at his Dallas apartment during a scheduled visit.

His lethal injection was the nation's third this year, all in Texas. The punishment was delayed more than three hours until the U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from his lawyers to review his case. They contended the 62-year-old was delusional and mentally incompetent for execution and that a lower court improperly refused Battaglia's lawyers money to hire an expert to further examine legal claims regarding his mental competency.

Battaglia smiled as the mother of his slain children, Mary Jean Pearle, and other witnesses to his execution walked into the death chamber viewing area.

Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, the inmate replied: "No," then changed his mind.

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Rise of 'morality schools' for Chinese women sparks outcry

HONG KONG (AP) — The video shows students at the so-called "female morality school" in northeastern China getting up at 4:30 a.m. to scrub floors and being taught not to resist if their husbands beat them.

Shot with a hidden camera and posted on a popular Chinese video website, it sparked a storm of criticism of the school and highlighted complaints that the status of women is deteriorating under the rule of a Communist Party that promised them equality.

In the recording, students at the Fushun Traditional Culture School were shown being told to put aside career aspirations and, in one instructor's words, "shut your mouths and do more housework." One group of students was shown practicing bowing to apologize to their husbands.

"Don't fight back when beaten. Don't talk back when scolded. And, no matter what, don't get divorced," a female teacher says in the post on Pear Video, a Beijing-based online platform for short videos.

"Women should just stay at the bottom level of the society and not aspire for more," another teacher says.

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Griffin scores 24 in Detroit's 104-102 win over Memphis

DETROIT (AP) — Blake Griffin was Detroit's best player in his debut with the Pistons.

Griffin had 24 points and 10 rebounds, and although his new team is still very much a work in progress, the Pistons edged the Memphis Grizzlies 104-102 on Thursday night.

Detroit traded for Griffin earlier in the week. The Pistons haven't had much time to work with him, but they were clearly a better team when he played against the Grizzlies.

"We were plus-23 with him on the floor in 35 minutes, so we were fairly dominant in that time," coach Stan Van Gundy said. "I don't know why we haven't gotten to all this in the hour and 15 minutes we've had together, but we've really got to get our spacing down and understand where we want people to be."

Griffin's teammates looked uncertain at times, but Detroit was able to outlast a Memphis team that is without Tyreke Evans and Mike Conley.

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Clashes in Maldives after court orders politicians released

MALE, Maldives (AP) — Opponents of the Maldives government clashed with police on the streets of the capital early Friday, demanding the release of imprisoned politicians, included the exiled former president, whose convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court.

The Thursday night court ruling ordered the release of the politicians, including ex-President Mohamed Nasheed, saying their guilty verdicts had been influenced by the government.

Hundreds of flag-waving Nasheed supporters took to the streets of Male, the capital of the Indian Ocean archipelago. But clashes broke out quickly after President Yameen Abdul Gayoom fired the country's police chief, whose department had announced that it would uphold the Supreme Court verdict.

Attorney General Mohamed Anil said Police Chief Ahmed Areef was fired after the president had been repeatedly unable to reach him on the telephone. Yameen named Areef's deputy, Ahmed Saudhee, as interim chief.

The clashes lasted about three hours, with police dispersing rock-throwing crowds using pepper spray and batons. At least one injured police officer was taken to a hospital. It was not immediately clear if anyone was arrested, though some protesters were seen being taken away by police.