Dutch say shooting suspect confessed
UTRECHT, Netherlands -- The suspect in a deadly tram shooting in Utrecht confessed to the attack and said he acted alone, prosecutors announced Friday, hours before mourners walked in silence through the central Dutch city to honor the victims.
Thousands of people, many carrying red and white flowers to match the colors of the city's flag, walked to the scene of Monday's attack to commemorate the three people killed and three others who were seriously injured in the shooting.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who was among the mourners, said he was "very sad and at the same time proud that we can do this together and show that we will never, never surrender to violent extremism."
The shooting is being investigated as a possible extremist attack, but prosecutors would not say if the suspect, Gokmen Tanis, has said anything about his motive.
"The 37-year-old suspect this morning confessed the criminal acts he is charged with" at a hearing before an investigating judge, the public prosecutor's office said.
Tanis, a Utrecht resident of Turkish descent, was arrested hours after the shooting and is being held on charges including multiple murder or manslaughter with terrorist intent in the deaths of two men and a woman.
Ebola in Congo seen as 'far from' over
LONDON -- The World Health Organization says Ebola has spiked in Congo in recent days because of "increased security challenges," a week after its director-general predicted the outbreak might be contained within six months.
The U.N. health agency said in an update late Thursday that the recent attacks on Ebola clinics slowed response efforts for days. Congolese officials reported dozens of new suspected and confirmed cases recently. Last week, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the outbreak was "contracting" and praised the efforts to avert a larger crisis.
Tariq Riebl of the International Rescue Committee, who is working in Congo, had a starkly different perspective.
"I think all of us in the field are aware that we're very far from being near the end of this outbreak," he said.
In recent weeks, more than 40 percent of new cases in the hot-spot towns of Katwa and Butembo had no known links to other cases, meaning doctors have lost track of where the virus is spreading.
The U.N. health agency reported this week that many people with Ebola are refusing to seek care in health clinics and are dying at home, further increasing the chances of transmission, since the bodies of victims are highly contagious.
2 cyclones whirling to Australia's north
CANBERRA, Australia -- Two powerful cyclones are blowing toward Australia's sparsely populated north where around 2,000 people have been evacuated from the east coast of the Northern Territory ahead of strong winds, mountainous waves and flooding rain.
Cyclones are frequent in Australia's tropical north and rarely claim lives. But in a rarity, large cyclones named Trevor and Veronica are crossing land on the same weekend.
Trevor is expected to cross the eastern shore of the Northern Territory today as a Category 4 storm. It had sustained winds of 80 mph with gusts to 115 mph Friday afternoon. Gusts of 170 mph are expected around the eye when the cyclone makes landfall, Bureau of Meteorology manager Todd Smith said Friday.
The Northern Territory communities nearest the expected landfall were evacuated Thursday, most of the residents going by road or defense cargo planes to the provincial capital, Darwin.
Veronica also is expected to be a Category 4 when it crosses the coast of Western Australia state over Sunday night. Its sustained winds were 110 mph around midday Friday.
A Category 4 severe tropical cyclone is roughly similar to a Category 2 or 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale used in the U.S.
In Italy, Chinese leader notes plant blast
BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping, on a state visit to Italy, demanded "all-out efforts" to find and rescue victims of an explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China that killed at least 62 people and injured hundreds of others, 90 of them seriously.
"Relief work must be well done to maintain social stability. Meanwhile, environmental monitoring and early warning should be strengthened to prevent environmental pollution as well as secondary disasters," Xi said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Thursday's blast in an industrial park in the city of Yancheng, north of Shanghai, was one of China's worst industrial accidents in recent years. State-run television showed crushed cars, blown-out windows and workers leaving the factory with bloodied heads.
Nearly 1,000 residents were moved to safety as a precaution against leaks and additional explosions, the city government said in a statement posted to its microblog.
The cause of the blast was under investigation.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 03/23/2019