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People walk outside the Metropolitan Cathedral after a fatal shooting in Campinas, Brazil, on Tuesday. A gunman fatally shot at least four people and injured four others.
People walk outside the Metropolitan Cathedral after a fatal shooting in Campinas, Brazil, on Tuesday. A gunman fatally shot at least four people and injured four others.

Church gunman kills 4 people in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO -- A man opened fire in a cathedral in southern Brazil after Mass on Tuesday, killing four people and leaving four others injured before turning a gun on himself, authorities said.

The shooting occurred right after Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Campinas, a city about 60 miles north of Sao Paulo, according to Wilson Cassante, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

He said the officiating priest had left before the shooting began.

A spokesman for Sao Paulo state firefighters said that four injured people had been taken to local hospitals. Their conditions were not immediately known.

Cassante said church officials did not recognize the shooter and didn't have any ideas about his motive.

Hamilton Caviola Filho, a police investigator, told the news portal G1 that authorities had reviewed surveillance footage from inside the cathedral.

The shooter "came into the church, sat on a chair, with time to think, and then got up and started shooting," said Caviola Filho.

Don't know accused spy, Putin says

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he had never heard of a woman who is accused of spying for Moscow in the United States until her July arrest.

U.S. prosecutors have alleged that Maria Butina gathered intelligence and worked to develop relationships with American politicians through the National Rifle Association. They also alleged that a former Russian lawmaker who was subject to U.S. sanctions for alleged ties to Putin directed Butina's activities.

Butina is charged with conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the Russian government. U.S. prosecutors indicated in a court filing Monday that she has accepted a plea deal.

Putin said at a meeting of the presidential human-rights council Tuesday that he asked Russian intelligence services for information about 30-year-old Butina after he heard about the "poor girl" who faces 15 years in prison.

"When I heard that something is happening to her, I just went to all intelligence chiefs and asked who she was," he said in televised remarks after a council member raised the issue of defending the rights of Russians abroad. "No one knows anything about her."

New Zealand law eases medical-pot use

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- New Zealand's government on Tuesday passed a law that will make medical marijuana widely available for thousands of patients over time.

The legislation will also allow terminally ill patients to begin smoking illegal pot immediately without facing the possibility of prosecution.

The measures come ahead of a planned national referendum on recreational marijuana use. The government has pledged to hold the referendum some time over the next two years, but it has not yet set a date or finalized the wording.

The new law allows patients much broader access to medical marijuana, which was previously highly restricted. But most patients will have to wait a year until a new set of regulations, licensing rules and quality standards are put in place.

Health Minister Dr. David Clark said in a statement that the new law will help ease suffering.

He said the 25,000 people who are in palliative care with terminal illnesses didn't have time to wait for the new scheme, so the law provided a legal defense for them to use illegal marijuana.

But the opposition's health spokesman, Dr. Shane Reti, said the law is "lazy and dangerous" because it doesn't provide details of the planned medical marijuana scheme and would also allow some people to start smoking pot in public.

Bomber kills 4 troops in Afghan capital

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan official said a suicide car bomber struck a security convoy on the outskirts of Kabul, killing four security force troops.

Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said six other troops were wounded in Tuesday's attack.

No one immediately claimed responsibility, but the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate have both carried out attacks in the capital.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, the Taliban attacked a checkpoint in the southern Kandahar province late Monday, killing eight police officers.

Aziz Ahmad Azizi, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said 11 insurgents were killed in the battle.

A Section on 12/12/2018

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