Update on the latest news, sports, business and entertainment at 12:20 a.m. EDT
ACTIVE SHOOTER-VIRGINIA BEACH-THE LATEST
The Latest: Police: We’ll only mention suspect’s name once
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Virginia Beach police say they have identified the suspect in a shooting that left 12 dead but have not released his name because they haven’t been able to notify family members.
Police Chief James Cervera said when he does release the name, it will be only once. He said after that, “he will be forever referred to as the suspect because our focus now is the dignity and respect to the victims in this case and to their families.”
Cervera said the suspect was a longtime employee of the Public Utilities Department.
____
MEXICO-US
Mexico president: won’t react desperately to Trump threat
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says Mexico won’t respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of coercive tariffs with desperation, but instead will push for dialogue.
López Obrador says he has dispatched Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard to Washington to show Trump data that Mexico has been taking action to slow illegal immigration.
Trump threatened Thursday to impose tariffs starting at 5% and increasing incrementally if Mexico does not convince him that it’s doing more against illegal immigration.
López Obrador said Friday the Mexican people “don’t deserve this kind of treatment.”
He noted that most migrants passing through Mexico are Central Americans fleeing their countries because they are unable to find work or live safely there.
He says Mexico will not commit human rights violations.
ABORTION-MISSOURI-THE LATEST
The Latest: Missouri clinic can keep doing abortions
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A judge has issued an order allowing Missouri’s only abortion clinic to continue providing the service.
St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer ruled Friday, just hours before the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic’s license to perform abortions was set to expire. He issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting Missouri from allowing the license to lapse.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services had declined to renew the license. It cited concerns with “failed abortions,” compromised patient safety and legal violations at the clinic. Agency officials also wanted to interview additional physicians at the clinic.
Planned Parenthood officials had said that if the license lapsed, Missouri would become the first state without an abortion clinic since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
IMMIGRANT CHILDREN-DETAINED
Advocates decry delays in release of migrant kids
MIAMI (AP) — Immigrant advocates say the federal government is allowing migrant children at a Florida facility to languish in “prison-like conditions” instead of releasing them promptly to family.
Attorneys filed hundreds of pages in federal court in Los Angeles Friday asking a judge to make the U.S. government honor a decades-old settlement agreement governing the care of detained immigrant children.
Advocates said children who are held at the Homestead, Florida facility after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to sponsors or licensed facilities within 20 days.
In court filings, teens said they longed to be released and complained they were given the same food daily, limited phone calls and told to heed the rules or it could prolong their detention or get them deported.
TRUMP TARIFFS-VULNERABLE COMPANIES
Threat of Mexican tariffs, US companies in the crossfire
The surprise announcement by President Donald Trump of an escalating tariff regime against Mexico is sending ripples through almost every economic sector in the U.S., pulling at the shares of companies that make cars, operate railroads, or sell anything with produce.
And whether it’s avocadoes on a taco or a new Chevrolet Blazer SUV in the driveway if the tariffs go into effect, Americans could feel it.
Shares of General Motors, which imports more vehicles into the U.S. than any other U.S. automaker, tumbled more than 5% Friday. Kansas City Southern operates a commercial corridor of the Mexican railroad system and owns a track between Mexico City and Laredo, Texas. It gets almost half its revenue from Mexico each year. Its shares are down 6%.
Chipotle shares are falling, too.
UNITED STATES-CHINA-THE LATEST
The Latest: Shanahan calls out China over South China Sea
SINGAPORE (AP) — U.S. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan is describing China’s actions to steal technology from other nations and militarize man-made outposts in the South China Sea as a “toolkit of coercion.”
Shanahan warns an international security conference in Singapore on Saturday that the artificial islands could become tollbooths.
While he isn’t specifically naming China in parts of his speech, he made clear whom his target was.
He says the U.S. is willing to cooperate with China and welcomes competition, but behavior that erodes other nations’ sovereignty and sows distrust of China’s intentions must end. He says the U.S. is committed to the region and investing in programs to secure it.
Shanahan told reporters Friday he would use his speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue conference to criticize Beijing’s use of coercion to advance its interests.
HOUSTON-MISSING GIRL-THE LATEST
The Latest: Sheriff: Child’s remains found in Arkansas
HOUSTON (AP) — Houston police say the remains of a child have been found in Arkansas in the vicinity of where a man says he dumped the body of a missing 4-year-old Texas girl.
Houston Police Commander Michael Skillern gave an update on the search for Maleah Davis, who disappeared in Houston.
The search for Maleah shifted to Arkansas after a community activist said the man arrested in connection with her disappearance confessed he disposed of her body there.
Quanell X, a local civil rights activist, says he spoke on Friday in jail with Derion Vence, the ex-fiance of Maleah’s mother, who had claimed Maleah was abducted May 4. Vence told Quanell X he dumped her body in Arkansas.
SPRING FLOODING-THE LATEST
The Latest: Levee fails in North Little Rock
PETERSBURG, Mo. (AP) — The National Weather Service in Little Rock says a levee near the Arkansas capital city has failed and flash flooding is expected.
The weather service said late Friday in a tweet that the breach was in the 3200 block of Gribble Street in North Little Rock.
Residents are advised to “move to higher ground and heed the advice of local officials.”
Water has overtopped levees in several other locations as spring flooding intensifies in the central United States.
CATHOLIC CHURCH-SEX ABUSE
US Catholic Church reports big rise in sex-abuse allegations
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Roman Catholic Church says that allegations of child sex-abuse by clerics more than doubled in its latest 12-month reporting period, and that its spending on victim compensation and child protection surged above $300 million.
The annual report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection was released Friday. It says that from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018, more than 1,300 adults came forward with over 1,400 allegations of abuse.
That was up from nearly 700 allegations in the previous year.
The report says Catholic dioceses and religious orders spent over $300 million during the reporting period on payments to victims, legal fees and child-protection efforts.
That was up 14% from the previous year and double the amount spent in the 2014 fiscal year.
CHINA-HUAWEI
FT: Huawei cuts meetings with US, sends US workers home
BEIJING (AP) — The Financial Times is reporting that tech giant Huawei has ordered its employees to cancel technical meetings with American contacts and has sent home numerous U.S. employees working at its Chinese headquarters.
The moves come amid growing U.S.-China tensions over trade and technology in which Huawei has been a main target.
The newspaper quoted Huawei’s chief strategy architect, Dang Wenshuan, as saying that American citizens working in R&D were repatriated two weeks ago, after the Chinese group and 68 affiliates were placed on a blacklist.
It said a workshop underway at the time was “hastily disbanded, and American delegates were asked to remove their laptops, isolate their networks and leave the Huawei premises.”
It quoted Dang as saying that Huawei is also limiting interactions between its employees and American citizens.