Florida TV journalist and child shot dead at scene of earlier murder

TV reporter Dylan Lyons, 24, and a nine-year-old girl have been fatally shot near Orlando, Florida, close to the scene of a murder that took place hours earlier.

A second reporter, Jesse Walden, and the girl’s mother were shot and injured by the same gunman, who is also suspected of the other homicide.

The journalists were covering the killing of a woman when the teenage suspect returned, police say.

It is unclear if they were targeted.

The suspect was armed when he was arrested and was not co-operating with police, said investigators.

The other two victims in Wednesday’s two attacks in Pine Hills, a suburb west of Orlando, have not yet been identified.

In a news conference, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said the journalists were “in or near their vehicle”, which he said did not look like a TV station’s official vehicle, when they were attacked at around 16:00 local time (22:00 GMT).

He said the Spectrum News 13 journalists had been reporting on a shooting that took place earlier in the day at around 11:00 local time, which saw a woman in her 20s fatally shot inside a car, when the suspect returned to the crime scene and opened fire.

After attacking the journalists, the alleged gunman - Keith Moses, 19 - went into a nearby home and shot the girl and her mother, the sheriff said.

The mother was in hospital in a critical condition, he added.

Other journalists nearby helped provide first aid to the victims, according to local reporters.

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Spectrum 13 continued live coverage after the death of their reporter was announced.

Swedish police chief Mats Lofving found dead after inquiry

One of Sweden’s most senior police officers has been found dead at his home, in an incident described by police as “extremely tragic”.

Mats Lofving, who was Stockholm’s regional police chief, had just been investigated over decisions he made while allegedly in a relationship with the ex-head of police intelligence.

Police said they were alerted about an injured person in Norrkoping, 160km (100 miles) south-west of Stockholm.

His life could not be saved, they said.

A spokesman told Swedish media that police had begun a preliminary murder inquiry because the circumstances surrounding his death were still uncertain.

Hours earlier, an external investigation had found that Lofving, 61, who was also deputy national police chief, had a conflict of interest in some of the decisions he made relating to Linda Staaf, who was the intelligence chief at the police national operations department (Noa).

Ms Staaf has repeatedly maintained her relationship with Lofving was only ever superficial, and they were never close.

She was appointed intelligence chief in 2015, but Runar Viksten, the special investigator who led the review, found no evidence that she and Lofving were in a relationship at that time.

The police chief was involved in assigning her service weapon in 2020, extending her contract and raising her salary, and also giving her permission to write a crime novel.

While his decisions were neither incorrect nor undeserved, Lofving should not have made them, the investigator found.

Lofving told Sweden’s public broadcaster on Wednesday that the conclusions had been hard to hear. The report had suggested he should either lose his role as police chief or leave the force completely.

Hours before news of his death emerged, Ms Staaf said she had been well qualified for her job and she felt vindicated as the investigation had concluded that decisions made about her had been right.

However, she felt the police authority could have given her greater support. Last December she told Swedish media that she had been the victim of a “smear campaign”.

Mr Viksten was about to enter a Swedish TV studio on Wednesday evening to discuss his findings but cancelled his interview when news emerged of the police chief’s death.

He told Swedish media his conclusions remained unchanged, but “repeating my criticism in a TV broadcast didn’t feel right. What’s happened is extremely tragic”.

The head of the police union, Katharina von Sydow, said Mats Lofving’s death was incredibly sad and that her thoughts went out to his family, friends and colleagues.

Greg Angel, a news presenter for the station, said the injured journalist had “been able to speak with investigators and colleagues”.

The suspect, Mr Mina said, “has a lengthy criminal history, to include gun charges, aggravated battery and assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand theft charges”.

He described him as an “acquaintance” of the woman shot in the morning, “but as far as we know, he had no connection to the reporters and no connection to the mother and the nine-year-old”.

Asked about the possibility that the gunman purposefully targeted the reporters, Mr Mina said “it’s something we’ll be taking a look at”.

He added that it was also possible the suspect mistook the journalists for police.

A reporter for Orlando TV station WESH 2 reported that she and her camera operator had left the crime scene only moments before the shooting.

“We got a gut feeling” and decided to leave for their own safety, said Senait Gebregiorgis.

Charter Communications, the company that owns the TV station, released a statement calling the attack “a terrible tragedy for the Orlando community”.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and the other lives senselessly taken today,” the company said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted condolences, saying: “Our hearts go out to the family of the journalist killed today and the crew member injured in Orange County, Florida, as well as the whole Spectrum News team.”

There were 40 journalists killed in 2022, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Only one of those killed was in the United States.

Alaska lawmaker censured for asking if fatal child abuse saved taxpayer money

An Alaska lawmaker has been censured after asking whether fatal child abuse could actually serve as a “benefit to society”.

Alaska’s House of Representatives voted 35-1 to censure Republican Rep. David Eastman on Wednesday.

Mr Eastman - who has a history of making controversial remarks - was the only dissenter.

His question arose during a Monday hearing where experts testified about the long-term effects of child abuse.

Mr Eastman asked the experts how they would respond to what he said was an argument that “in the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it’s not good for the child, but it’s actually a benefit to society because there aren’t needs for government services and whatnot over the whole course of that child’s life?”

He added that some have made the argument the abuse could amount to a “cost savings” measure because the child would no longer need to rely on state government support.

“Did you say, ‘a benefit for society?’” responded Trevor Storrs, the president and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust.

“I’m not even sure how to answer that,” Mr Storrs said, adding that the loss of a child was “unmeasurable” to a family and society.

His remarks sparked a backlash on social media and among colleagues.

In introducing a measure to censure Mr Eastman, Alaskan Democratic Rep. Andrew Gray - who said he had adopted a child from foster care who previously suffered abusesaid Mr Eastman had brought “great shame on this house”.

“I would just say for me personally, my child is the greatest joy I’ve ever had - that there is no price tag on that,” he said while choking up, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Mr Eastman’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but during a hearing on his censure, the lawmaker denied he supported child abuse.

“The outrageous accusation that somehow I and members of my district support the extermination of people or support child abuse when I’ve staked my entire political career arguing for the opposite is not acceptable in this body,” he said.

Mr Eastman, who is from Wasilla, became the first Alaska House member in history to be censured over a separate incident in 2017, when he claimed some Alaskans tried to get pregnant to take advantage of travel funded by the US health care programme Medicaid for medically necessary abortions.

“You have individuals who are in villages and are glad to be pregnant, so that they can have an abortion because there’s a free trip to Anchorage involved,” he told Alaska Public Media at the time.

Source: BBC

Simon Ekpa: Nigeria’s IPOB faction leader arrested in Finland

Acontroversial leader of a Nigerian secessionist movement has been arrested at his home in Finland, the BBC has confirmed.

Simon Ekpa allegedly used social media to incite violence and called for a boycott of Saturday’s Nigerian poll.

He leads a faction within the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), which is fighting for a breakaway state in south-eastern Nigeria.

Nigeria’s government had asked Finland to act against him.

A leading newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, said that one of its reporters, who had gone to interview Mr Ekpa, saw him being led out of his home by police.

Mr Ekpa had called for a sit-at-home protest from 23 February until after the election.

In 2022, a BBC investigation identified Mr Ekpa as one of the “media warriors” of Ipob, who were allegedly using social media to call for violence.

He did not respond to BBC requests for comment at the time.

Mr Ekpa has declared that his group is “in a revolution and visible state of war”.

He had also called for a five-day sit-athome last December, warning that those who failed to comply should “blame” themselves “for whatsoever that happens” to them.

Source: BBC