News briefs

Officer wounded, suspect killed inside Atlanta apartment building

ATLANTA — An Atlanta police officer was wounded and the suspected gunman was killed during an exchange of gunfire Wednesday afternoon inside a Midtown apartment building.

The officer was shot at the Solace on Peachtree Apartments , authorities said. A chaotic scene unfolded as police from across the city flooded the area about 1 p.m. local time.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said two officers were “ambushed” while responding to a report of a shooting on the building’s eighth floor.

Police returned fire, killing the suspect, officials said.

The wounded officer was carried outside by his colleagues and rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta police Chief Rodney Bryant said. He was listed as stable Wednesday afternoon.

“It is only through their training and by the grace of God that these officers did not come upon a more tragic situation,” Bryant told reporters.

He said the officer is alert at the hospital, and speaking with his family and colleagues.

Deputy Chief Charles Hampton Jr. said the officers took the elevator to the eighth floor of the building and were immediately shot at before stepping into the hall.

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

NYC mayoral candidate sues over botched primary vote count

NEW YORK — The Democratic mayoral campaign of frontrunner Eric Adams Wednesday filed a lawsuit seeking to have a judge oversee the botched vote count in the convoluted race.

“We petitioned the court to preserve our right to a fair election process and to have a judge oversee and review ballots, if necessary,” the Adams campaign said in a statement.

The Adams campaign urged other campaigns to join the suit, suggesting they share a common interest in having a judge oversee the count by the troubled city Board of Elections.

“We all seek a clear and trusted conclusion to this election,” the Adams campaign said.

The suit is the first one filed since the city Board of Elections released a botched simulation of how ranked-choice voting would play out after the initial count of early and election day in-person votes.

The board inadvertently added some 135,000 dummy ballots to the count, rendering the simulation useless and possibly misleading.

The now-discredited new count showed the race tightening dramatically with Adams’ once-robust lead shrinking to just about 2% over Kathryn Garcia, who leapfrogged Maya Wiley into second place. It’s not clear if the same pattern will be true when the board redoes the simulation without the dummy ballots.

About 130,000 mail-in ballots remain uncounted altogether. They were required to be returned to elections officials by Tuesday, but the board says it will not tabulate them until next week, without offering a reason for the long delay.

Andrew Yang, who finished fourth in the initial camp, had already filed a suit asking for judicial oversight over the vote count.

—New York Daily News

Minneapolis to withdraw plan replacing Police Department

MINNEAPOLIS — Three Minneapolis City Council members on Wednesday agreed to withdraw their proposal asking voters to replace the Minneapolis Police Department, saying they hoped to avoid a scenario that could confuse voters this November.

Because their proposal was similar to one advanced by a new political committee called Yes4Minneapolis, Council Member Jeremy Schroeder said they wanted to "formally withdraw ours, thus freeing up some of that confusion and making it much clearer for the ballot in November."

Schroeder wrote the council version of the proposal, alongside council members Phillipe Cunningham and Steve Fletcher.

The announcement came as the city attorney's office found that a similar proposal from Yes4Minneapolis was legal and should advance to the November ballot.

Proposals to replace the Minneapolis Police Department have become a focal point in discussions about how city leaders should fulfill a promise to transform public safety in the wake of George Floyd's death.

The city's charter, which serves as its constitution, currently says Minneapolis must have a police department, with a minimum number of officers based on the city's population.

—Star Tribune

State lawmaker wears yellow Star of David to protest vaccine mandates

SEATTLE — A Washington state lawmaker critical of COVID-19 vaccine mandates wore a yellow Star of David at a speech over the weekend — a symbol the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust.

State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, had the star affixed to his pink shirt during a speech to conservative activists at a Lacey church basketball gym on Saturday.

"It's an echo from history," Walsh wrote on a Facebook page where a video of the event was posted. "In the current context, we are all Jews."

The misappropriation of the infamous star symbol — used to identify Jews first for exclusion, and then for extermination — was criticized as deeply offensive by a local Holocaust education leader.

"Our government is making an effort to protect their own citizens, not kill them," said Dee Simon, Baral Family executive director of the Seattle-based Holocaust Center for Humanity, which works to teach people about Nazi Germany's murder of 6 million Jews during World War II. "It not only trivializes it, it distorts history."

Washington state has not imposed a requirement to be vaccinated for COVID-19, working instead to encourage people through education and enticements such as $250,000 lottery drawings.

But the state Department of Labor and Industries is requiring that employers verify employee vaccination status before lifting masking requirements in their workplaces, and be able to demonstrate how they did so.

—The Seattle Times

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