AP News in Brief at 11:53 p.m. EST
Gunmen attack hotel in Mali's capital, killing at least 20
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) - Heavily armed Islamic extremists seized dozens of hostages Friday at a Radisson hotel, but Malian troops, backed by U.S. and French special forces, swarmed in to retake the building and free many of the terrified captives. At least 20 people, including one American, were killed along with two gunmen during the more than seven-hour siege, a Malian military commander said.
An extremist group led by former al-Qaida commander Moktar Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the attack in the former French colony, and many in France saw it as a new assault on their country's interests a week after the Paris attacks.
While French President Francois Hollande did not link the violence at the Radisson Blu hotel with last week's bloodshed in Paris, he declared that France would stand by the West African country.
"Once again, terrorists want to make their barbaric presence felt everywhere, where they can kill, where they can massacre. So we should once again show our solidarity with our ally, Mali," he said.
President Barack Obama called the attack a reminder of the "scourge of terrorism" and said its barbaric nature only "stiffens our resolve to meet this challenge."
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American killed in Mali worked to improve global health
WASHINGTON (AP) - As a Peace Corps volunteer, expert in global health and the mother of a young boy, Anita Ashok Datar devoted her life to caring for and helping others, her family said.
Datar, of Takoma Park, Maryland, was one of at least 20 people killed in Friday's terror attack on a hotel in Mali, the State Department confirmed in a statement.
No other U.S. citizens were believed to have died in the attack, carried out by heavily armed Islamic extremists at a Radisson hotel in the Malian capital of Bamako.
"We are devastated that Anita is gone," her family said in a statement issued through the State Department. "It's unbelievable to us that she has been killed in this senseless act of violence and terrorism."
Datar, 41, was a senior manager at Palladium Group, an international development organization with offices in Washington, her family said. As a public health expert, she focused on family planning and HIV issues, work that took her to Africa often in the past 15 years. She also worked in Asia and South America, according to her LinkedIn profile.
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1 week after attacks, defiant Parisians honor the dead
PARIS (AP) - A week after the deadliest attacks on France in decades, shell-shocked Parisians honored the 130 victims with candles and songs Friday, knowing that at least one suspect is still at large and fearing that other militants could be slipping through Europe's porous borders.
Having established how the attacks against a soccer stadium, sidewalk cafes and a rock concert were carried out, investigators were still piecing together details on the assailants and how they converged in the French capital.
Prosecutors said Friday that they had determined through fingerprint checks that two of the seven attackers who died in the bloodshed had entered Europe through Greece on Oct. 3.
Previously they had said only one attacker had been registered in Greece, an entry point for many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in Europe. That man carried a Syrian passport naming him as Ahmad Al-Mohammad, though it's unclear whether it was authentic.
The five other attackers who died had links to France and Belgium. One of the seven dead has not been identified, while a manhunt is underway for one suspect who escaped, Salah Abdeslam, 26. French police stopped Abdeslam the morning after Friday's attacks at the Belgian border but then let him go.
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Obama visits Asian refugee center amid raging debate in US
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Pushing back against efforts to bar Syrian refugees from resettling in the U.S., President Barack Obama vowed Saturday that his country will be a welcoming place for millions fleeing violence around the world "as long as I'm president."
Obama commented Saturday at a learning center in the Malaysian capital that serves the poor, including some refugees. He met with boys and girls wearing crisp white and black uniforms and neckties as they sat at tables and worked on painting and puzzle projects.
Obama said the youngsters "represent the opposite of terror, the opposite of the type of despicable violence we saw in Mali and Paris."
Most of the children the president met with are Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar to escape persecution by the country's Buddhist majority, with many ending up in Malaysia, where Obama was attending a regional economic summit.
Obama noted that the world is currently focused on the humanitarian tragedy in Syria, where years of civil war have forced millions to flee to other countries to escape the bloodshed. But he said the world must not forget about some 60 million people who have been displaced around the globe.
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Trump rivals decry his call for registering US Muslims
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential rivals rushed Friday to condemn Donald Trump's support for a government database to track Muslims in the United States, drawing a sharp distinction with the Republican front-runner on a proposal also deemed unconstitutional by legal experts.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called the prospect of a registry "abhorrent." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said the idea was "unnecessary" and not something Americans would support. And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has largely avoided criticizing Trump throughout the 2016 campaign, said, "I'm not a fan of government registries of American citizens."
"The First Amendment protects religious liberty, and I've spent the past several decades defending the religious liberty of every American," Cruz told reporters in Sioux City, Iowa.
The rebukes came after Trump voiced support for a mandatory database for Muslims in the U.S. while campaigning Thursday in Iowa. The real estate mogul was asked by an NBC News reporter about the prospect of a database and whether Muslims would be required to be registered. In a video posted by the network, Trump said, "They have to be."
Asked whether Muslims would have to register at mosques, Trump said: "Different places. You sign up at different places. But it's all about management."
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Muslim-majority Malaysia blasts IS as evil terrorists
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's leader on Saturday denounced the Islamic State as an "evil" terrorist group, saying his Muslim-majority country is ready to join others to defeat it while cautioning that a military solution alone was not enough.
What needs to be "vanquished" is the ideology of the Islamic State, said Prime Minister Najib Razak in a speech to open two days of summits that will also include President Barack Obama.
Najib said the world is in dire need of moderation. "This is how Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King won the hearts and minds of their enemies. They won by transforming their foes into friends," he said.
The summit of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, followed by a series of nine other summits involving Asia-Pacific countries, is taking place in the Malaysian capital in the backdrop of several extremist attacks around the globe, some of which were claimed by the Islamic State group.
The attacks included the bombings and assaults in Paris and Beirut, the bombing of a Russian airliner in Egypt, and the hostage taking in Bamako, Mali, on Friday. Closer to home, a Malaysian hostage was killed by an Islamic militant group in the southern Philippines.
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Convicted spy Pollard is released after 30 years behind bars
NEW YORK (AP) - Jonathan Pollard was released from prison Friday after 30 years behind bars for spying for Israel, and his lawyers immediately went to court to challenge tough parole conditions seemingly designed to ensure he doesn't spill any U.S. military secrets he might have left.
The 61-year-old former Navy intelligence analyst was set free in the middle of the night from a medium-security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, after being paroled from a life sentence that had turned him into a continual source of tension between the U.S. and Israel.
Under the rules of his release, he must wear a GPS unit to transmit his whereabouts at all times, allow the installation of monitoring equipment on any computers he uses at work or at home, and agree to periodic, unannounced inspections of those machines.
"The notion that, having fought for and finally obtained his release after serving 30 years in prison, Mr. Pollard will now disclose stale, 30-year-old information to anyone is preposterous," his lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, said in a statement.
Hours after his release, Pollard checked in with probation officers at a federal courthouse in New York, then emerged into a throng of journalists. He wore a yarmulke.
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E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle expands to 6 states
NEW YORK (AP) - An outbreak of E. coli linked to Chipotle that originated in the Pacific Northwest has spread south and east and has now infected people in six states.
New cases have been reported in California, New York and Ohio, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The first cases were discovered late last month in Oregon and Washington, and more recently in Minnesota.
Investigators have yet to determine the specific ingredient linked to the illness.
So far, 45 people have been infected, with 43 of them saying they ate at Chipotle in the week before they became sick. The CDC said it is aware of illnesses starting on dates ranging from Oct. 19 to Nov. 8. The agency said that illnesses that took place after Oct. 31 may not have been reported yet.
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. closed 43 restaurants in Oregon and Washington in late October after health officials discovered most of the people sickened in the outbreak had eaten at its restaurants. The restaurants have since reopened.
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Man killed in police shooting tried to escape troubled past
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The troubled past that Jamar Clark struggled for years to escape now hangs over the investigation into his death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
Family members and friends say the 24-year-old was on the right track in the months leading up to the shooting early Sunday. He cared deeply about his parents - biological and adoptive - and his 14 siblings, and had a job and hopes of going to college.
But police union representatives point to Clark's criminal history as proof that he was a bad actor, and they contend he was reaching for an officer's gun when he was shot. Beyond the domestic assault call alleging Clark had hurt his girlfriend that brought police to the north Minneapolis neighborhood, he spent three years in and out of prison for a robbery conviction. More recently, he was on probation for threatening to burn down an ex-girlfriend's house after a bitter break-up and was awaiting trial for a July arrest for fleeing police in a high-speed chase.
Black Lives Matter protesters outside the police precinct insist Clark was handcuffed before he was shot, which police dispute. His death laid bare the tension between Minneapolis' black community and law enforcement and, the protesters say, exposed deeply embedded societal problems that made Clark's history impossible to move past.
"None of our children deserve to be shot and killed, and then talked about like they are animals," said Bettie Smith, who joined protesters Monday to discuss her son's death in a 2008 officer-involved shooting.
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Democrats push to prevent gun sales to those on terror list
WASHINGTON (AP) - People on the U.S. government's terrorist watch list often can't board commercial airliners, but they can walk into a gun store and legally buy pistols and powerful military-style rifles.
Sensing a political opening from last week's Paris attacks, Democrats are renewing calls for Congress to pass legislation aimed at preventing terrorists from buying guns. Similar bills - including a post-9/11 measure backed by the Justice Department under Republican President George W. Bush - have been stymied for years, thanks in large part to opposition from gun-rights groups and congressional Republicans.
According to a March analysis by the Government Accountability Office, people on the FBI's consolidated Terrorist Watchlist successfully passed the background check required to purchase firearms more than 90 percent of the time, with more than 2,043 approvals between 2004 and 2014. The office is an investigative branch of Congress.
The FBI is notified when a background check for the purchase of firearms or explosives generates a match with the watch list, and agents often use that information to step up surveillance on terror suspects. Under current federal law, however, association with a terrorist organization doesn't prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives.
About 420,000 people are on the list administered by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, though only about 2 percent of those are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents legally able to buy guns.