District Attorney Andrew Womble said Andrew Brown Jr.’s actions caused deputies to believe it was necessary to use deadly force.

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — North Carolina sheriff’s deputies were justified in their fatal shooting of a Black man in April because the man ignored their commands and drove his car directly at one of them before they fired any shots, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Andrew Brown Jr.’s actions caused deputies to believe it was necessary to use deadly force, District Attorney Andrew Womble told a news conference. He said he would not be filing criminal charges against any of the deputies, who were trying to take Brown into custody while serving drug-related warrants at his house.

“I find that the facts of this case clearly illustrate the officers who used deadly force on Andrew Brown Jr. did so reasonably and only when a violent felon used a deadly weapon to put their lives in danger,” Womble said, referring to Brown’s car. He added that he found that “Brown’s actions and conduct were indeed dangerous by the time of the shooting. … Brown posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers and others.”

The prosecutor said he would not release bodycam video of the confrontation between Brown and the law enforcement officers, but he played portions of the video during the news conference that were broadcast by multiple news outlets.

The shooting on April 21 sparked protests over multiple weeks by demonstrators calling for the public release of the body camera video. While authorities have shown footage to Brown’s family, a judge refused to release the video publicly pending the state investigation.

The three deputies involved in the shooting — Investigator Daniel Meads, Deputy Robert Morgan and Cpl. Aaron Lewellyn — have been on leave since it happened. The sheriff’s office said Morgan is Black, while Meads and Lewellyn are white.

Four others who were at the scene were reinstated after the sheriff said they didn’t fire their weapons.

An independent autopsy released by the family found that Brown was hit by bullets five times, including once in the back of the head. Lawyers for Brown’s family who watched body camera footage say that it shows Brown was not armed and that he didn’t drive toward deputies or pose a threat to them. Womble has previously disagreed in court, saying that Brown struck deputies twice with his car before any shots were fired.

The sheriff has said his deputies weren’t injured.

Separately, the FBI has launched a civil rights probe of the shooting.

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The line-up of entertainers will be released at 10 a.m. Wednesday and tickets will go on sale two hours later. Full COVID-19 vaccination or negative COVID-19 test results will be required to attend.

Lollapalooza, Chicago’s premier music extravaganza, will make a triumphant return to Grant Park at “full capacity” from July 29 through Aug. 1, the mayor’s office confirmed Tuesday.

One week after Variety reported Lolla’s return, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office confirmed it with no restrictions.

The line-up of entertainers will be released at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Tickets will go on sale two hours later at www.lollapalooza.com.

Full COVID-19 vaccination or negative COVID-19 test results will be required to attend Lollapalooza 2021. For patrons who are not fully vaccinated, a negative COVID-19 test result must be obtained within 24 hours of attending Lollapalooza each day, officials said.

“Here in Chicago, the word ‘Lollapalooza’ has always been synonymous with summer, great music and four days of unforgettable fun — which made last year’s decision to postpone it all the more difficult,” Lightfoot was quoted as saying in a press release.

“Now, less than a year later and armed with a vaccine that is safe, effective and widely available, we are able to bring back one of our city’s most iconic summer music festivals. I want to thank the Lollapalooza team for working closely with the City to create a reopening strategy that prioritizes safety and can’t wait to see festival-goers return to Grant Park this summer.”

Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said Lolla’s return was made possible by the “tremendous progress” Chicago has made in containing the spread of the coronavirus. Daily case rates, positivity rates and other “leading metrics” are all either stable or declining, she said.

“This is a reason to celebrate and why we’re able to make this announcement today,” Arwady was quoted as saying.

“To ensure we celebrate safely this summer I encourage everyone to continue to be safe and smart. If you’re sick, stay home; wash your hands frequently. Wear a mask if you’re traveling or using public transit; and most importantly get vaccinated if you haven’t already.”

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While past studies have determined global warming was a factor in extreme weather events, either by increasing the chance of them happening or making them stronger, the new study is one of the first to tally the human costs of climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

Climate change-triggered sea level rise added $8 billion in damage during 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, one of nation’s costliest weather disasters, a new study said.

During Sandy — a late fall freak combination of a hurricane and other storms that struck New York and surrounding areas — the seas were almost 4 inches higher because of human-caused climate change, according to a study in Tuesday’s journal Nature Communications. Researchers calculated that those few inches caused 13% of Sandy’s overall $62.5 billion damage, flooding 36,000 more homes. Sandy killed 147 people, 72 in the eastern United States, according to the National Hurricane Center.

While past studies have determined global warming was a factor in extreme weather events, either by increasing the chance of them happening or making them stronger, the new study is one of the first to tally the human costs of climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

“In most cases, flooding was made worse by sea level rise and we show how much worse,” said study co-author Philip Orton, a physical oceanographer at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.

Orton said there were places, such as basement apartments in the New York City area, filled with water that would have been dry without human-caused sea level rise.

“There are people who experienced significant losses from Hurricane Sandy who would not have experienced those losses but for climate change,” said study lead author Ben Strauss, a sea level scientist who is CEO of Climate Central, a science-and-journalism venture.

To come up with its damage totals, the study first calculated how much of the storm surge — as much as 9 feet above the high tide line at the Battery in Manhattan — could be attributed to climate change.

Researchers did this by comparing 2012 observations to climate simulations of a world without global warming. They made calculations for sea level rise overall, then did it for each of the main contributors to sea level rise: warmer waters expanding and extra water from melting glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

The researchers determined globally seas in 2012 were 4.1 inches higher than in 1900 because of climate change, but the amount was slightly less in New York: 3.8 inches.

The reason is that Alaska’s melting glaciers and Greenland’s melting ice sheet are relatively close to the East Coast and the physics of sea level rise puts the biggest increases on the opposite end of the globe from the biggest melts, said study co-author Bob Kopp, director of Rutgers University’s Institute of Earth, Oceans and Atmospheric Sciences.

Then the researchers looked at where the flooding was and what computer simulations showed would have happened with four inches less water. In some places, such as Howard Beach in Queens, it was a big deal, Orton said.

These calculations for sea level rise from climate change alone seem to make sense, said Steve Nerem, a scientist who studies sea rise at the University of Colorado and was not part of the research. Nerem said he wasn’t qualified to comment on the damage calculations but is a bit skeptical because 4 inches on such a large storm surge doesn’t seem so huge.

Susan Cutter, director of the University of South Carolina’s Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute who also wasn’t part of the research, said the study’s damage estimates seem reasonable to her.

Study author Strauss pointed out that Hurricane Irene in 2011 showed that the first five feet of flooding doesn’t do nearly as much damage as what follows. Then, he said, the damage soars at an increasingly higher rate per inch.

One way to think about that, Strauss said, is the extra few inches can put enough water above a house’s lowest electrical outlet to require expensive fixes.

Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency when Sandy struck, said he can’t make a judgement on specific storms like Sandy being more costly because of climate change. But in general, he said, storms are worsening because of climate change.

After Sandy, Fugate said, then-President Barack Obama turned to him and stated: “The debate on climate change is over, we must start talking about climate adaptation.”

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Allen will sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before drivers are called to their cars May 30 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

INDIANAPOLIS — Chart-topping, platinum-selling country recording artist Jimmie Allen will perform the national anthem at this year’s Indianapolis 500.

Allen will sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before drivers are called to their cars May 30 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. NBC will telecast “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” for the third consecutive year.

Allen made history in 2018 as the first Black artist to launch a career with two consecutive No. 1 hits on country radio, with “Best Shot” and “Make Me Want To.”

Allen last month won New Male Artist of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards. His debut picture book, “My Voice Is a Trumpet,” is set for release in June.

His most recent release, “Bettie James.” is named in honor of his late father and late grandmother and features Brad Paisley, Charley Pride, Darius Rucker, Mickey Guyton, Nelly, Noah Cyrus, The Oak Ridge Boys, Rita Wilson, Tauren Wells and Tim McGraw.

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“Teacher Legion” tells the stories of teachers, custodians, lunchroom workers and others who have kept schools going during the worst pandemic in a century.

Kyle James and his mom were sitting around the kitchen table one night, talking about writing.

Takeshi James, a Chicago Public Schools principal, had just finished her first book, “From Our Eyes,” aimed at middle school students.

“He said, ‘You should write a book on teachers,’” Takeshi James recalled. “I said, ‘You should,’ He said, ‘OK.’”

That was the genesis of a new children’s book by Kyle James, a St. Rita wide receiver who is heading off to continue his academic and athletic careers at the University of Chicago this fall.

“Teacher Legion” tells the stories of teachers, custodians, lunchroom workers and others who have kept schools going during the worst pandemic in a century.

The book’s premise? All of these people are modern-day heroes. So James took a cue from pop culture and gave them their moment in the sun.

“I’ve always loved superheroes since I was a little kid,” he said. “So why not make them superheroes?”

James took the idea with him when he went off to Kairos, a three-day student retreat.

“Every night you’re away from your cell phone and social media,” he said. “I wrote the script for the book in, like, three days.”

He then worked with illustrators David Monroy and Wanda Malave to bring the characters to life. There’s Rewind, a history teacher who uses a time machine to take students back to ancient Egypt to learn about the pyramids. And there’s Gourmet Man, a lunchroom worker whose superpower is shooting food from his hands.

James worked with the same self-publishing company his mother used for her book, IngramSpark. The deal came together last December, and now “Teacher Legion” is available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million, among other outlets.

Last month marked another milestone: getting ahold of a physical copy.

“It wasn’t real to me till I felt the book in my hands. ‘Did I really just do this?’” he said.

He did do it, too. Takeshi James made sure of that.

“I made him go through the process himself,” she said. “It’s his work, he made the investment.”

Her influence perhaps was felt in more subtle ways over the years. During her time as principal, Takeshi James always has made sure to hold staff appreciation days as opposed to simply teacher appreciation days.

Takeshi James talked about her son’s book on a recent podcast that was made available to staff at her school. Afterward, she said, a “lunchroom manager came to my office and cried. She said, ‘You guys really have a way of making us feel loved.’”

Kyle James also has seen the impact his book has had on school personnel. His grammar school teachers are interested in getting copies and one of his St. Rita teachers already has bought one.

He received a shipment of books this week and is looking forward to getting autographed copies out soon.

Shining a light on school staffers has been a rewarding experience.

“I felt that they have been underappreciated,” he said. “If you ask a little kid what they want to be, they’ll say doctor, football player. I really wanted to put our teachers and school staff on a pedestal.”

Note: More information on “Teacher Legion” is available from James via his Twitter account: @kylexavierjame1

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Chicago Bears running back David Montgomery feels disrespected on where he ranks among fellow NFL running backs.

The post Chicago Bears RB David Montgomery feels disrespected with ranking first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A strike launched from Gaza killed two Thai workers in southern Israel on Tuesday, police said, hours after Israeli airstrikes toppled a six-story building in the Palestinian territory that housed bookstores and educational centers. With the war showing no sign of abating, Palestinians across the region went on a general strike in a rare collective action against Israel’s policies.

Violence erupted at protests in the occupied West Bank, including at one in the city of Ramallah. Hundreds of Palestinians burned tires and hurled stones toward an Israeli military checkpoint. Troops fired tear gas canisters at the crowd and protesters picked up some of them and threw them back.

One protester was killed and more than 70 others wounded — including 16 by live fire — in clashes with Israeli troops in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and other cities, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli army said two soldiers were wounded by gunshots to the leg.

The general strike was an uncommon show of unity among Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20% of its population, and those in the territories Israel seized in 1967 that the Palestinians have long sought for a future state. It threatened to further widen the conflict after a spasm of communal violence in Israel and protests across the West Bank last week.

Muhammad Barakeh, one of the organizers of the strike, said Palestinians are expressing a “collective position” against Israel’s “aggression” in Gaza and Jerusalem, as well as the “brutal repression” by police across Israel. Israel blames the war on Hamas and accuses it of inciting violence across the region.

Since the fighting began last week between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, the Israeli military has launched hundreds of airstrikes it says are targeting Hamas’ militant infrastructure, while Palestinian militants have fired more than 3,400 rockets from civilian areas in Gaza at civilian targets in Israel.

The latest attack from Gaza hit a packaging plant in a region bordering the territory. In addition to the two people killed, who were in their 30s, Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it transported another seven wounded to the hospital. Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said the wounded were also Thai.

The Israeli military said militants also fired rockets at the Erez pedestrian crossing and at the Kerem Shalom crossing, where humanitarian aid was being brought into Gaza, forcing both to close. It said a soldier was lightly wounded in the attack on Erez.

Israel continued its airstrikes into Gaza, leaving behind a massive mound of rebar and concrete slabs in its attack on the six-story building with centers used by the Islamic University and other colleges. Desks, office chairs, books and computer wires could be seen in the debris. Residents sifted through the rubble, searching for their belongings.

Israel warned the building’s residents ahead of time, sending them fleeing into the predawn darkness, and there were no reports of casualties.

“The whole street started running, then destruction, an earthquake,” said Jamal Herzallah, a resident of the area. “This whole area was shaking.”

Since 2012, Hamed al-Ijla had run a training center in the building, teaching first aid, hospital management and other skills to thousands of students.

When the war is over, “I will set up a tent across the street and resume work,” he said.

Heavy fighting broke out May 10 when Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.

At least 213 Palestinians have been killed in airstrikes since, including 61 children and 36 women, with more than 1,440 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not break the numbers down into fighters and civilians. Hamas and Islamic Jihad say at least 20 of their fighters have been killed in the fighting, while Israel says the number is at least 160.

Twelve people in Israel, including a 5-year-old boy and a soldier, have been killed in the ongoing rocket attacks.

The fighting is the most intense since a 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, but efforts to halt it have so far stalled. Egyptian mediators are trying to negotiate a cease-fire, but the U.S. has stopped short of demanding an immediate stop to the hostilities and Israel has so far vowed to press on.

The war has also seen an unusual outbreak of violence in Israel, with groups of Jewish and Palestinian citizens fighting in the streets and torching vehicles and buildings.

As the fighting drags on, medical supplies, fuel and water are running low in Gaza, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians and has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Nearly 47,000 Palestinians have fled their homes.

Israeli attacks have damaged at least 18 hospitals and clinics and entirely destroyed one health facility, the World Health Organization said in a new report. Nearly half of all essential drugs in the territory have run out.

Essential supplies and aid have only trickled in during the fighting, some from Egypt through the Rafah crossing point it controls and some from Israel when it briefly opened the territory’s main commercial crossing Tuesday before the attack forced it shut.

The WHO said the bombing of key roads, including those leading to the main Shifa Hospital, has hindered the movement of ambulances and supply vehicles in Gaza, which was already struggling to cope with a coronavirus outbreak.

Israel has vowed to press on with its operations, and the United States signaled it would not pressure the two sides for a cease-fire even as President Joe Biden said he supported one.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the bombardments had set the Palestinian militants back many years.

“I am sure that all our enemies around us see the price we have levied for the aggression against us,” he said, speaking in front of an F-16 fighter jet at an air force base in a video released by his office Tuesday.

The Biden administration has declined so far to publicly criticize Israel’s part in the fighting or send a top-level envoy to the region and has blocked a proposed U.N. Security Council statement calling for an end to the crisis.

Among the buildings that Israeli airstrikes have leveled was the one housing The Associated Press Gaza office and those of other media outlets.

Netanyahu alleged that Hamas military intelligence was operating inside the building. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that Israel had given the U.S. information about the bombing.

Blinken, speaking from Iceland, declined to characterize the material received. Israel has not publicly provided any evidence of its claim.

AP President Gary Pruitt reiterated the organization’s call for an independent investigation into the attack.

“As we have said, we have no indication of a Hamas presence in the building, nor were we warned of any such possible presence before the airstrike,” he said in a statement. “We do not know what the Israeli evidence shows, and we want to know.”

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Krauss reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Grant Peck in Bangkok and Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem contributed o this report.

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ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — North Carolina sheriff’s deputies were justified in their fatal shooting of a Black man in April, a district attorney said Tuesday.

District Attorney Andrew Womble said Andrew Brown Jr.’s actions caused deputies to believe it was necessary to use deadly force. Brown ignored deputies’ commands to stop and began to drive his car directly at one of the officers, Womble told a news conference.

He said the first shot fired at Brown’s car went through the front windshield, not the back as was previously reported.

Deputies attempting to serve drug-related search and arrest warrants shot and killed Brown outside his Elizabeth City home on April 21. Three deputies involved in the shooting remain on leave, while four others who were at the scene were reinstated after the sheriff said they didn’t fire their weapons.

An independent autopsy released by the family found that Brown was hit by bullets five times, including once in the back of the head. Lawyers for Brown’s family who watched body camera footage say that it shows Brown was not armed and that he didn’t drive toward deputies or pose a threat to them. Womble has previously disagreed in court, saying that Brown struck deputies twice with his car before any shots were fired.

The sheriff has said his deputies weren’t injured.

The shooting sparked protests over multiple weeks by demonstrators calling for the public release of body camera footage. While authorities have shown footage to Brown’s family, a judge refused to release the video publicly pending the state investigation.

Separately, the FBI has launched a civil rights probe of the shooting.

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A Bolingbrook man was wounded in a shootout with burglars who were breaking into his car Monday night, according to police.

The man told responding officers that he was inside his home in the 600 block of Cambridge Way when he heard a noise outside and noticed the dome light of his car was on shortly before midnight, police said in a statement.

He grabbed his gun and walked toward his car, and one of the burglars opened fire. The man said he returned fire and the burglars fled, according to police.

The man was wounded in the abdomen and taken to a hospital, where he was stabilized, police said.

No one was in custody. Anyone with information can contact the Bolingbrook Police Department Investigations Division at (630) 226-8620.

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Chicago’s job of presenting new musicals on their way to Broadway — halted last year by the pandemic — is set to resume in November with a show about a key moment in the history of Irish Americans and African Americans.

“Paradise Square,” set in the Lower Manhattan slum of Five Points in 1863, will run at the James M. Nederlander Theatre Nov. 2-Dec. 5, producers announced Tuesday. It focuses on the shared lives of African Americans — some free born, some fleeing slavery — and freshly arrived Irish immigrants in that New York neighborhood.

The casting and Broadway plans will be announced later.

The musical is directed by two-time Tony nominee Moises Kaufman (“I Am My Own Wife,” “The Laramie Project”), with choreography by two-time Tony winner Bill T. Jones (“Spring Awakening,” “Fela!”). The writing team includes Larry Kirwan, lead singer of the Celtic rock band Black 47, along with veteran playwrights Christina Anderson, Marcus Gardley and Craig Lucas.

The score, by Grammy winner Jason Howland (“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”) and Nathan Tysen (with contributions by Kirwan and Masi Asare) is built around the songs of Five Points resident Stephen Foster as well as original works.

Tickets for groups of 10 or more are available now, and individual tickets will go on sale June 8 at www.BroadwayInChicago.com.

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