From the Associated Press

SAGINAW TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Animal control officers in Michigan are struggling to capture an elusive peacock that has been on the loose for at least two days.

A student discovered the peacock on Monday as he was driving to Valley Lutheran High School in Saginaw County, MLive.com reported. Rachel Horton, director of the Saginaw County Animal Care and Control Center, said the student decided to bring the peacock with him to school and try to find the owner but the peacock got away, MLive.com reported.

Animal control officers almost captured it Tuesday morning, but it escaped again, leaving the officers with scratches and “a tree-climbing experience that we may need to train on in the future,” Horton said.

The center is now seeking donations to buy a $150 animal capture net.

Citizens have been trying to capture the bird as well, to no avail, Horton said.

The identity of the peacock’s owner remains a mystery, she said.

BY JEROME PUGMIRE AND CIARÁN FAHEY from the Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Clashes between weapon-wielding fans. Organized fights between hundreds of supporters. Late-night attacks. Life-threatening injuries.

A recent surge in violence around soccer games is contributing to concerns over security when Germany hosts the European Championship.

“We’re readying for all imaginable dangers with high levels of deployment from all security authorities,” said German interior minister Nancy Faeser, who added the country was preparing for all manner of threats, from hooligans, to terrorists, to cyber criminals. “The police will have a very visible presence.”

Faeser’s ministry confirmed some 22,000 police officers will be on duty each day for the tournament, with no vacations.

“For the federal police it’s the largest deployment since it was founded in 1951,” ministry spokesman Lars Harmsen told The Associated Press.

German police will be supported by police from countries participating in the tournament, and internal border controls have already been temporarily reintroduced.

A formidable challenge
Euro 2024 features matches in 10 cities, including four in the densely populated Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region — easily accessible from neighboring countries with some of the best rail links in Europe.

The tournament presents multiple opportunities for soccer-related violence, which has been increasing steadily around Europe since 2021. Last season, one fan in Greece and one in France were killed in fights. The season started and ended with attention-grabbing clashes and even saw intense soccer rivalries carried into other sports.

British police in 2022 reported more arrests in any season since 2013-14, and in 2023 they reported issuing more banning orders than at any time since 2010-11, as well as an increase in arrests from the season before. In France, more than 100 police officers were injured in soccer-related incidents during the 2022-23 season. The violence continued last season with multiple incidents, including pre-arranged fights and coaches transporting fans being pelted with objects.

Among the recent incidents, rivals from Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain fought a pitched battle at a motorway stopoff before the French Cup final last month.

That same weekend, fans of Dutch club Utrecht clashed violently with police. One officer needed hospital treatment and others were treated at the scene.

Also that weekend, soccer rivalry spilled into EuroLeague basketball finals in Berlin with coordinated late-night attacks by Olympiakos fans and Serbian allies from Red Star Belgrade against supporters of Olympiakos’ Greek rival Panathinaikos. Police arrived to find blood-covered men, with many injured from baseball bats and batons and one in a life-threatening condition. Red Star were not even playing at the tournament and arrived undetected.

Growing alliances
Alliances among hooligan firms are one of the hazards facing German authorities at Euro 2024. Cross-nation club rivalries carrying into the international scene make it harder to identify and control troublemakers.

Italian ultras from Atalanta joined Eintracht Frankfurt fans to fight Napoli supporters before a Champions League game. The Atalanta fans helped Eintracht fans circumvent a travel ban to enter Italy through a club ally in Calabria.

The season began with the death of a fan in Athens after heavy clashes between supporters of Greek club AEK and Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb before a Champions League qualifier. Dinamo fans were joined by supporters of Panathinaikos, a fierce rival of AEK, underlining dangerous alliances.

“Hooligan firms who are keen on fighting it out, they’re much more organized than before,” German soccer researcher and authorChristoph Wagner told the AP. “Red Star coming down with Olympiakos, that’s the kind of thing people don’t have on their monitors.”

High-risk games
England’s game against Serbia on June 16 in Gelsenkirchen stands out since both fan groups have a history of domestic and international violence.

Euro 2016 in France was marred by violence as Russian hooligans roamed Marseille attacking English fans. Many known English hooligans were absent because more than 2,000 were banned from traveling. But many of those bans will have elapsed before Euro 2024.

Gelsenkirchen’s location in the Rhine-Ruhr region could be a factor. Fans staying in Cologne can reach Gelsenkirchen within an hour. Those staying in Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, Essen or Duisburg are even closer and could arrive by car.

British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, citing German police intelligence, reported Tuesday that up to 500 Serbian hooligans planned to arrive.

Other high-risk games involve Poland, Croatia, Romania, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

Hooligans from Poland are among Europe’s most violent. Last November, police arrested 46 Legia Warsaw fans before a Europa Conference League game against Aston Villa. Four police were injured.

German groups, such as Eintracht Frankfurt or Schalke 04 from Gelsenkirchen, may look for confrontation when teams are playing in their city.

Tensions with police
Rival hooligan groups have a common enemy – the police. Some 155 officers were injured in clashes with Dynamo Berlin and Energie Cottbus supporters last month. Most injuries were from tear gas, suggesting the police struggled to control the situation.

During the disturbances with Utrecht fans, police drove a van at fans to disperse them.

“You would think a police force with more powerful resources available should actually step back,” Wagner said. He added that police are not always accountable and sometimes remove identification before going into clashes.

Avoiding police is easier fighting the night before games, or very early. In May, 200 Schalke and Hansa Rostock supporters fought before 6 a.m. in Gelsenkirchen.

Monetizing violence
Soccer violence seems to have its own market.

Some people filming fights post them online, and there are specialized social network sites dedicated to showing them.

There’s also a hooligan video game. “Dive into the world of street football hooligans, epic battles,” it promises.

Hooligans can buy a T-shirt with the logo “Euro 2024, Festival of Violence,” while one Instagram account tracking hooligan fights pledges to report “events outside the stadium.”

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Pugmire reported from Paris.

BY GREGORY GONDWE AND GERALD IMRAY from the Associated Press

BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) — Hundreds of soldiers, police officers and forest rangers continued to search Tuesday for a missing military plane carrying Malawi’s vice president, a former first lady and eight others that is suspected to have crashed in a mountainous region of thick forests in the north of the country.

The plane carrying 51-year-old Vice President Saulos Chilima and former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri went missing Monday morning while making the 45-minute flight from the southern African nation’s capital, Lilongwe, to the city of Mzuzu, around 370 kilometers (230 miles) to the north.

Air traffic controllers told the plane not to attempt a landing at Mzuzu’s airport because of bad weather and poor visibility and asked it to turn back to Lilongwe, President Lazarus Chakwera said. Air traffic control then lost contact with the aircraft and it disappeared from radar, he said.

Seven passengers and three military crew members were on board. The president described the aircraft as a small, propeller driven plane operated by the Malawian armed forces. The tail number he provided shows it is a Dornier 228-type twin propeller plane that was delivered to the Malawian army in 1988, according to the ch-aviation website that tracks aircraft information.

Around 600 personnel were involved in the search in a vast forest plantation in the Viphya Mountains near Mzuzu, authorities said. They said 300 police officers had been mobilized to join around 200 soldiers and also local forest rangers in the search operation. Malawi Red Cross spokesperson Felix Washoni said his organization also had team members involved in the search and they were using a drone to help with efforts to find the plane.

Gen. Valentino Phiri, the commander of the Malawian armed forces, said Tuesday that the thick forest and hilly terrain were making the search operation extremely difficult. The area has large manmade forests used for lumber.

In a live television address to the nation late on Monday night, the president vowed that search operations would continue through the night and until the plane was found. He said authorities had used telecommunications towers to track the last known position of the plane to a 10-kilometer (6-mile) radius in one of the plantations. That area was the focus of the search and rescue operation, he said.

“I have given strict orders that the operation should continue until the plane is found,” Chakwera said.

“I know this is a heartbreaking situation. I know we are all frightened and concerned. I too am concerned,” he said in a speech after 11 p.m. that was broadcast on state TV. “But I want to assure you that I am sparing no available resource to find that plane. And I am holding onto every fiber of hope that we will find survivors.”

Chakwera said the U.S., the U.K., Norway and Israel offered assistance in the search operation and had provided “specialized technologies” that the president hoped would help find the plane sooner.

The U.S. Embassy in Malawi said it was assisting and had offered the use of a Department of Defense small C-12 plane. Gen. Phiri said Malawi had also asked for help from neighboring Zambia and Tanzania and helicopters and more drones were on their way.

Malawi is a country of around 21 million people and was ranked as the fourth poorest nation in the world by the World Bank in 2019.

Officials with Chilima’s United Transformation Movement political party — a different party to the president — criticized the government response as slow and said there was no transponder on the plane, and that was concerning for an aircraft carrying a high-level delegation.

Chakwera said Dzimbiri, the ex-wife of former President Bakili Muluzi, was also one of the passengers. The group was traveling to attend the funeral of a former government minister. Chilima had just returned from an official visit to South Korea on Sunday.

Chakwera asked Malawians to pray for all those onboard and their families.

Chilima is serving his second term as vice president. He was also in the role from 2014-2019 under former President Peter Mutharika. He was a candidate in the 2019 Malawian presidential election and finished third, behind the incumbent, Mutharika, and Chakwera. The vote was later annulled by Malawi’s Constitutional Court because of irregularities.

Chilima then joined Chakwera’s campaign as his running mate in an historic election rerun in 2020, when Chakwera was elected president. It was the first time in Africa that an election result that was overturned by a court resulted in a defeat for the sitting president.

Chilima had previously been facing corruption charges over allegations that he received money in return for influencing the awarding of government procurement contracts for the Malawi armed forces and the police, but prosecutors dropped the charges last month. He had denied the allegations, but the case led to criticism that Chakwera’s administration was not taking a hard enough stance against graft.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

BY MICHAEL GOLDBERG from the Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minneapolis police officer who was killed by a man he was trying to help at the site of a shooting will be memorialized at a public ceremony Tuesday.

Investigators are calling the May 30 shooting of Officer Jamal Mitchell an ambush. They said he was responding to a call about a double shooting when he tried to help a man he believed was injured. That man then shot Mitchell multiple times. Three other people, including the gunman, were killed.

Mitchell had been with the Minneapolis Police Department for about 18 months. Tori Myslajek, Mitchell’s long-term partner, said Mitchell’s greatest joys were his four children.

“Our family is completely devastated by our recent loss. Jamal was our whole world,” Myslajek said in a statement. “Jamal and I created a beautiful life in Minnesota, and he was deeply passionate about helping and serving the community of Minneapolis. On behalf of our family and from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank our friends, neighbors, loved ones and the entire community for the continued support.”

The memorial service was scheduled for Tuesday morning at a high school in Maple Grove, Minnesota. Thousands of police officers from across the state, region and nation are expected to attend the service, a spokesperson for the police department said.

Mitchell’s killing stunned a department that has struggled to fill its ranks since the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing turmoil. It also added to the state’s trauma of seeing public safety officers die when rushing to help people in need, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said. Mitchell was killed three months after two officers and a firefighter-paramedic in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville were fatally shot while responding to a domestic violence call.

In the May attack, officers responded to a call of a double shooting at an apartment complex in the south Minneapolis neighborhood of Whittier. Mitchell was the first to respond and approached 35-year-old Mustafa Mohamed outside. When the officer asked if Mohamed was injured, Mohamed pulled a gun and shot Mitchell several times.

Another officer arrived and exchanged gunfire with Mohamed, who died of his injuries, Minneapolis Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell said. The second officer sustained non-life-threatening wounds. Another person, believed to be a bystander, was shot and taken to a hospital in critical condition. A responding firefighter also received minor injuries.

Authorities said two people were shot inside the apartment: Osman Said Jimale, 32, and Mohamed Aden, 36. Jimale died in the apartment. Aden died Friday from complications related to multiple gunshot wounds, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said Sunday.

Few details about the initial shooting have been released, and investigators have not speculated on Mohamed’s motives. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he had been convicted of federal gun charges and was released from prison in 2020. He was rearrested with a handgun about two years later. Warrants were issued after he failed to appear at a hearing.

Mitchell was previously lauded by the Minneapolis Police Department for rescuing an elderly couple from a house fire on his third day on the job. In a statement following the shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called Mitchell a hero.

“This officer gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect and save the lives of others,” Frey said. “His life, his service and his name will forever be remembered in the city of Minneapolis.”

From the Associated Press

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Ambulance rates will rise for some in New Mexico, particularly those without health insurance after state regulators approved a rate hike for a Presbyterian-affiliated nonprofit ambulance company.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reported that Albuquerque Ambulance Service cited rising labor costs and inflation when it applied for the rate increase that resulted in 65% in service rate increases and 15% in mileage rate increases. It had initially applied for much higher increases.

The rate hike was approved Thursday.

Patients on Medicaid or Medicare, which make up about 77% of the patients that use Albuquerque Ambulance Service, will not see a rate increase, along with those on veterans health benefits, according to the New Mexican.

The patients most affected are those without health insurance, which makes up approximately 7% of the company’s patients, according to the New Mexican.

Health care spending in the United States has more than doubled in the past two decades, reaching $4.5 trillion in 2022, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Albuquerque Ambulance Service operates nearly 100,000 transports annually in the counties with Albuquerque and Santa Fe, along with Sandoval and Rio Arriba counties, according to the New Mexican.

From the Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A fourth person has died from injuries sustained in a late May mass shooting in Minneapolis that also killed a police officer.

Mohamed Aden, 36, of Columbia Heights, died Friday from complications of multiple gunshot wounds he sustained in the May 30 shooting, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said Sunday in a news release.

Aden was one of two people shot inside an apartment by 35-year-old Mustafa Mohamed, according to police. Osman Said Jimale, 32, died in the apartment.

Officer Jamal Mitchell was the first to respond to reports of the shooting and approached Mohamed outside the apartment. When Mitchell asked if Mohamed was injured, Mohamed pulled a gun and shot Mitchell several times in what investigators have called an ambush.

Another officer arrived and exchanged gunfire with Mohamed, who died of his injuries. The second officer sustained non-life-threatening wounds. Another person, believed to be a bystander, was shot and taken to a hospital in critical condition. A responding firefighter also received minor injuries.

A memorial service for Mitchell has been set for Tuesday morning at Maple Grove Senior High School in Maple Grove, Minnesota.

Investigators have not said what led up to the shooting or speculated on the shooter’s motives.

From the Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Police are now saying at least a dozen people were hurt in a shooting at a rooftop party in Wisconsin’s capital city.

More than 25 people were at the party on the roof of a high-rise apartment building in downtown Madison around 12:45 a.m. Sunday when shots were fired.

Police initially said 10 people were hurt, including nine people who suffered gunshot wounds and another who was injured by broken glass. Police Chief Shon Barnes said at a news conference Monday that two more people have come forward to report injuries. Ten people were shot or grazed by gunfire, one person was hurt by broken glass and one person suffered a shoulder injury while trying to flee the party, Barnes said. At least two people remained hospitalized as of Monday morning, the chief said.

No one has been arrested in connection with the shooting and a motive remains unknown, Barnes said. Detectives were still working Monday to determine who threw the party and why, he said.

From the Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — A massive fire broke out at a four-story apartment complex in Miami on Monday morning.

Firefighters and police officers arrived at the building just west of Interstate 95 near downtown Miami after receiving calls about a fire around 8:15 a.m., and began rescuing residents from the building’s balconies, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said during a news conference.

Suarez said arriving first responders also found a man with gunshot wounds at the scene. He was taken to a hospital, where he was in critical condition. Officials said the shooting is part of an active investigation. They offered few other details.

The mayor said two firefighters were taken to a hospital due to heat exhaustion, and both were in stable condition.

Miami police officials said this was “an isolated incident,” meaning there is no gunman at large.

News helicopters showed flames rising from the building along with large plumes of smoke several hours after the fire started. At least two ladder trucks were pouring water and foam onto the building.

The Temple Court apartment complex is made up of one-bedroom and studio units near the Miami River.

Residents from the building, many of them elderly, were taken to a staging area where they were offered food and any medications they needed, Suarez said.

Smoke from the fire was also drifting over Interstate 95, and much of downtown Miami.

It was not immediately known whether anyone was injured in the fire.

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BY  SUMMER BALLENTINE from the Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri voters in August will weigh in on a constitutional amendment requiring Kansas City to spend more money on police, the state Supreme Court ordered Tuesday.

The high court changed the date when the ballot measure will appear from November to Aug. 6, the same day as Missouri’s primaries. The court in April took the unusual step of striking down the 2022 voter-approved amendment.

Democratic Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas has said voters were misled because the ballot language used poor financial estimates in the fiscal note summary. The measure requires the city to spend 25% of general revenue on police, up from previous 20%.

A lawsuit Lucas filed last year said Kansas City leaders informed state officials before the November 2022 election that the ballot measure would cost the city nearly $39 million and require cuts in other services. But the fiscal note summary stated that “local governmental entities estimate no additional costs or savings related to this proposal.”

Voters approved the ballot measure by 63%.

From the Associated Press

CAMP HILL, Pa. (AP) — A young black bear took a dive from a tree Tuesday, landing in a giant tarp held aloft by a group of wildlife, public safety and rescue officials who tranquilized it after it roamed into a suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood.

The bruin showed up around lunchtime in a residential area of Camp Hill, outside the capital of Harrisburg. Students and staff of a nearby high school were notified to stay indoors, and a stretch of road was closed, Pennlive.com reported.

Fire and rescue officials used a ladder truck to get close to and tranquilize the bear. The sedated animal fell about 20 feet (6 meters) into a large blue tarp held up by several wildlife officials, police and firefighters. The animal was tranquilized again, then moved to a bear trap that had been placed on a trailer, the news outlet reported.

The bear did not seem to be fully grown, and game officials said they would likely take it to state land elsewhere in central Pennsylvania, according to the report. The Associated Press left a message with the Game Commission seeking details.