Eateries In Chinese Town Hold Dog Meat Festival Amid Outcry

A man roasts dogs at a restaurant in Yulin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Restaurateurs in a southern Chinese town are holding an annual dog meat festival despite international criticism. (Chinatopix via AP) CHINA OUT

BEIJING (AP) — Restaurateurs in a southern Chinese town held an annual dog meat festival Monday despite international criticism of the event as cruel and unhygienic.

The Yulin government distanced itself from the festival and announced new restrictions, but eateries reached by telephone reported brisk business during the event ostensibly held to mark the summer solstice.

Restaurant owners say eating dog meat is traditional during the summer, while animal rights activists say the festival has no cultural value and was merely invented to drum up business. As many as 10,000 dogs, many of them stolen pets, are slaughtered for the festival held deep inside the largely rural and poor Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Adam Parascandola, director of animal protection and crisis response at the Washington D.C.-based charity Humane Society International, said he and Chinese activists had witnessed dogs being maltreated in a Yulin slaughterhouse on Sunday morning.

"A man would go in the cage with a club and just start clubbing the dogs, just beating them and beating them, not killing them at that point ... the dogs are screaming and trying to get away and it's really heartbreaking."

He said he was struck by "the huge variety of breeds" of live dogs, delivered on the backs of scooters and trucks, on sale at a market. "I saw a Dalmatian and a chow and many dogs wearing collars that indicated the likelihood they were stolen pets," he said.

Apparently concerned about the adverse publicity, the local government disavows any ties to the event, issuing a statement saying it did not officially sponsor or promote the festival. It said authorities would tightly control public order and punish any incidents of stealing or poisoning dogs. Traders would no longer be permitted to slaughter dogs in public, place carcasses on display or serve meals outdoors, it said.

Despite such restrictions, restaurant owners said the festival continued to attract enthusiasts for the dish. "Eating dog meat is a local tradition, it has nothing to do with the local government," said a receptionist at the Longmen Dog Meat Restaurant reached by phone.

Parascandola said he had met people who had traveled to Yulin to try and save dogs by buying them, but that the festival was proving popular and there were lines outside many of the restaurants as people waited for seats.

Celebrities such as British comedian Ricky Gervais and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen have called for an end to the festival, and more than 3 million people have signed petitions protesting it, according to Shareeza Bhola, communications manager for change.org.

Dog lover Yang Xiaoyun traveled from her hometown, Tianjin, in northern China to Yulin and spent about 7,000 yuan ($1,150) over the weekend buying up 100 dogs at a market to save them, news website 163.com reported.

Dog is eaten in some parts of China but is not a common dish. Owning dogs as pets was discouraged under early Communist Party rule but has become increasingly popular among the Chinese public, especially the urban middle class.

AP news assistant Henry Hou contributed to this report.

German Prosecutors Meet Over Detained Al-Jazeera Journalist

Staff members of Al-Jazeera International work at the news studio in Doha, Qatar. Ahmed Mansour, a prominent Al-Jazeera Arabic journalist, was detained Saturday, June 20, in Germany over an Egyptian arrest warrant, the Qatar-based broadcaster reported(AP)

BERLIN (AP) — A prominent Al-Jazeera journalist who was detained in Berlin spent the night in German custody while prosecutors hold meetings to decide whether he will be extradited or set free. Dozens of protesters, meanwhile, called for his release on Sunday.

Ahmed Mansour, 52, a senior journalist with the Qatar-based broadcaster's Arabic service, was detained at Tegel airport on Saturday on an Egyptian arrest warrant, Al-Jazeera said. Mansour, who holds dual Egyptian-British nationality, was trying to board a Qatar Airways flight heading to Doha, the station reported.

Mansour's detention is the latest in a long series of legal entanglements between Egypt and its satellite news channels. The station said he previously had been sentenced in absentia in Egypt to 15 years in prison over allegedly torturing an unnamed lawyer in Tahrir Square in 2011, a charge both he and the channel rejected.

"During the course of the day there will be several meetings and of course there can be at any time also a decision to set him free again," said Martin Steltner, a spokesman for the Berlin prosecutor's office.

Steltner added, however, that it would be very unlikely there would be a decision on a possible extradition of Mansour as early as Sunday. A post on Mansour's Facebook page called for a "Freedom for Mansour Ahmed" protest outside the Berlin courthouse where he is being held. A video of Mansour was also posted to the Facebook page, after he was questioned, and he lashes out at German authorities for detaining him.

"Regrettably, they told me that the request to arrest me is a German request and it is not based on Interpol," he said, accusing Germany of complicity with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's government in Egypt and speculating that there may be a special arrangement concerning him alone.

It wasn't immediately clear who was posting to Mansour's Facebook account, or who made the video. Mansour, who is known for his "Without Borders" program, recently conducted an interview with the head of the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida branch fighting in Syria's civil war, which was aired last month from an undisclosed location in Syria.

About 80 protesters gathered outside the courthouse where Mansour is being held, calling on authorities to set him free. "We don't understand why Mansour was detained in Berlin," said Ali Alawady, a member of the German-Egyptian Union for Democracy who helped organize the protest. "He is an innocent journalist who is unrightfully persecuted in Egypt."

Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report from Cairo.

Austere Brand Of Islam On The Rise In Europe, Stirring Concerns

A Muslim woman walks by a poster for French magazine Marianne reading "Radical Islam Accomplice", on the Champs Elysees in Paris. Its imams preach austere piety, its tenets demand strict separation of sexes _ and some of its most radical adherents are heeding the call of jihad. Salafism, an Islamic movement based on a literal reading of the Quran, is on the rise in France, Germany and Britain, security officials say, with Salafis sharply increasing their influence in mosques and on the streets. (AP)

PARIS (AP) — Its imams preach austere piety, its tenets demand strict separation of sexes — and some of its most radical adherents are heeding the call of jihad. Salafism, an Islamic movement based on a literal reading of the Quran, is on the rise in France, Germany and Britain, security officials say, with Salafis sharply increasing their influence in mosques and on the streets.

The trend worries European authorities, who see Salafism as one of the inspirational forces for young Europeans heading to Syria or Iraq to do battle for the Islamic State group. Experts, however, point out that the vast majority of Salafis are peace-loving.

In Germany, there are currently about 7,000 Salafis in the country — nearly double the 3,800 estimated four years ago, the Interior Ministry said last month. About 100 French mosques are now controlled by Salafis, a small number compared to the more than 2,000 Muslim houses of worship, but more than double the number four years ago, a senior security official told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. France does not do head-counts by religious practices or origins.

In Britain the numbers are on the rise, too. Seven percent of Britain's 1,740 mosques are run by Salafis, according to Mehmood Naqshbandi, an expert on Britain's Muslims and counter-extremism adviser to the British government who keeps a database of the various currents of Islam in Britain. He says those numbers are steadily growing, especially among young people — and that a quarter to half of British Muslims under 30 "accept some parts or all of the Salafi theology."

Today, the Internet is largely seen as the main route for youth to quickly radicalize. But radicalization can be cultivated in places where Muslims socialize, like mosques. And there, said the French security official, it is Salafis who are considered the principle purveyors of radical ideology.

Experts say Salafis in France have been waging a campaign of stealth to take over mosques. First they develop a following, then begin criticizing the imam in order to win control over the faithful, security officials and moderate Muslims say. Youth and converts to Islam are considered the most vulnerable to such messages.

Experts of Islam divide Salafis into three groups: the traditional brand of "quietists" who eschew politics; those who become politicized; and the hardcore worshippers who follow the call of jihad. Today, Salafism has become a buzzword for danger. In Germany, authorities consider all Salafis as extremists, and security officials in Europe believe there is a direct line from the peaceful version to the version that embraces jihad — and risks tempting the fragile into fanaticism.

"The bridge is short," said Alain Rodier, a former intelligence officer who is now a terrorism specialist. Salafism, in principle, should not be a cause for concern, said Naqshbandi, the British expert. But, he said, the very simplicity of its message means anyone can warp it to his own ends.

"People who want to pursue militant political Islam have a set of tools available ... which they can twist to argue their case," Naqshbandi said. He called the Islamic State group, which champions Salafism, the prime example of how the theology can be abused.

Those who practice Salafism — which comes from the word "salafs," or ancestors — seek to emulate the Islam of the prophet Muhammad and his early followers, which they consider the purest form of the religion. Salafis, who are Sunni Muslims, are easily identifiable. Men wear beards and robes above the ankle and women often cover their faces.

A mosque outside Lyon won an unusual case last week against a Salafi worshipper taken to court after months of tension. Faouzi Saidi, 51, was convicted of troubling public order inside a house of worship and fined. He admitted to criticizing the imam for what he claimed were theological lapses, but claimed he only once held "parallel prayers" in a corner with a group of followers.

The case was thought to be the first in France by Muslims against a Muslim invoking a 1905 law to guarantee secularism — used by the government to pass bans on headscarves and face-covering veils. France has worked to put a safety ring around Islam since deadly January terror attacks in Paris, seeking to stifle the spread of extremism in areas considered fertile terrain. Authorities have notably started taking down Internet sites that glorify terrorism and are pressing ahead with a training program to instill imams with French values.

Critics say police often infringe upon the freedom of worship in their mission to monitor Salafi extremists. "It would be naive to think there is never a risk," said Samir Amghar, a specialist on Salafism. But to consider that every sign of ultraconservative Islam presents a danger "risks stigmatizing a large majority of Muslims."

And some Salafis say that the common image of their lives as being one of rigid worship — with no enjoyment — is a myth. Olivier Corel, a Salafi who reportedly figured in the religious life of Mohammed Merah — who killed three children, a rabbi and three paratroopers in 2012 — went skiing with his wife in the Pyrenees in January.

"We have fun. We have fun. We have fun," his wife told the AP by telephone, before hanging up. Rachid Abou Houdeyfa, a Salafi imam in the western French city of Brest known for his You Tube sermons of do's and don'ts, created one video showing himself and a buddy in a pleasure boat and titled it "Can One Have Fun?"

"We're going swimming," he said before diving into the water.

David Rising in Berlin and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

World Shocked At Enduring Racism, Gun Violence In US

Charleston, S.C., shooting suspect Dylann Storm Roof, second from left, is escorted from the Shelby Police Department in Shelby, N.C., Thursday, June 18, 2015. Roof is a suspect in the shooting of several people Wednesday night at the historic The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. (AP)

BEIJING (AP) — Often the target of U.S. human rights accusations, China wasted little time returning such charges following the shooting at a historic black church in South Carolina that left nine people dead. Elsewhere, the attack renewed perceptions that Americans have too many guns and have yet to overcome racial tensions.

Some said the attack reinforced their reservations about personal security in the U.S. — particularly as a non-white foreigner — while others said they'd still feel safe if they were to visit. Especially in Australia and northeast Asia, where firearms are strictly controlled and gun violence almost unheard of, many were baffled by the determination among many Americans to own guns despite repeated mass shootings, such as the 2012 tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults.

"We don't understand America's need for guns," said Philip Alpers, director of the University of Sydney's GunPolicy.org project that compares gun laws across the world. "It is very puzzling for non-Americans."

A frontier nation like the U.S., Australia had a similar attitude toward firearms prior to a 1996 mass shooting that killed 35. Soon after, tight restrictions on gun ownership were imposed and no such incidents have been reported since.

Ahmad Syafi'i Maarif, a prominent Indonesian intellectual and former leader of Muhammadiyah, one of the country's largest Muslim organizations, said the tragedy shocked many. "People all over the world believed that racism had gone from the U.S. when Barack Obama was elected to lead the superpower, twice," he said. "But the Charleston shooting has reminded us that in fact, the seeds of racism still remain and were embedded in the hearts of small communities there, and can explode at any time, like a terrorist act by an individual."

A 21-year-old white man, Dylann Storm Roof, is accused of fatally shooting nine people at a Bible study at the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. An acquaintance said Roof had complained that "blacks were taking over the world."

Racially charged shootings in the U.S. have received widespread global attention. Prominent Malaysian social commentator Marina Mahathir said many in her country find it puzzling why the U.S. government won't restrict gun ownership laws. The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to keep and bear arms.

"We are mystified by the freedom of guns there. It's a bizarre idea that everyone should have their right to arms," said Marina, the daughter of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Indian writer and documentary filmmaker Sohail Hashm said the American gun culture was linked to racial discrimination and America's insistence on being the global policeman.

"Everybody (in America) loves to have guns. This is the dominant culture because this is what they have built," Hashmi said. "And with guns available so freely, is it any surprise that such incidents happen?"

In Britain, the attack reinforced the view that America has too many guns and too many racists. The front-page headline of The Independent newspaper said simply, "America's shame." The newspaper said in an editorial that America seems to have moved backward in racial relations since Obama's election. It said the "obscene proliferation of guns only magnifies tragedies" like the church shooting.

In China, the official Xinhua News Agency said the violence in South Carolina "mirrors the U.S. government's inaction on rampant gun violence as well as the growing racial hatred in the country." "Unless U.S. President Barack Obama's government really reflects on his country's deep-rooted issues like racial discrimination and social inequality and takes concrete actions on gun control, such tragedy will hardly be prevented from happening again," Xinhua said in an editorial.

On China's Twitter-like Weibo microblogging service, some users compared the United States to lawless Somalia and said racial discrimination was fueling violence and high crime rates. Many reflected the official view that gun ownership and violent crime are byproducts of Western-style democratic freedoms that are not only unsuited to China but potentially disastrous.

Recalling the recent killings of Chinese and other foreign students in the U.S., office worker Xie Yan said he was still eager to visit the U.S., but would be "extremely careful" there. Xie said he had heard much about racism in the U.S., but was uncertain about the underlying dynamics.

"We tend to see the U.S. as a violent place, but I don't think we understand a lot about racism there. Chinese are free to study, visit and live there so it doesn't feel like we're discriminated against," Xu said while waiting for a train on Beijing's busy subway line 1.

Like Australia, China has had its problems with racial and ethnic discrimination. China is overwhelmingly dominated by one ethnic group, the Han, and activists decry the lack of awareness about discrimination in jobs and housing faced by minorities such as Tibetans and Turkic Muslim Uighurs from the northwest.

Chinese police have been accused of heavy-handed tactics against those labeled separatists or terrorists, although such measures appear to be supported by most Chinese. In Japan, discrimination tends to be based less on skin color than on national origin, resulting in biases against Chinese and Koreans, said Hiroko Takimoto, 41, a patent attorney in Tokyo.

Racially motivated killings are "simply something Japanese as a people cannot understand," she said. Yukari Kato, vice president of the company Ryugaku Journal that assists Japanese students on overseas programs, including about 2,000 in the U.S., said violence there was nothing new and most of the country remained perfectly safe.

"It's no different from Japan. There are places where you can become a victim of crime. You just have to be prepared to defend yourself," she said. However, Yuka Christine Koshino, 21, a political science student at Tokyo's Keio University, said she was devastated by the shootings, particularly after having participated in racism awareness campaigns while studying at the University of California, Berkeley. Those interactions had given her hope that the situation was improving. The shootings "shocked me," said Koshino.

Chairman of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates Max de Mesa shared the sentiment of civil rights activists in South Carolina who pointed out that the Confederate battle flag, the symbol of the pro-slavery South during the Civil War, continued to fly over the state even as it mourned for the nine people killed.

"Some of the (old) structures and some of the attitudes remain and they were even nurtured, at least that is being shown now," de Mesa said. "That would be no different from a suicide bomber," he said. "For a jihadist, 'I will be with Allah if I do that.' The other says, 'I am proving white supremacy here.'"

Indonesian intellectual Syafi'i Maarif said he hoped the incident would help Americans stop equating terrorism with Islam. "Terrorism and radicalism can appear in every strata of society under various guises and in the name of ethnicity, religion and race," he said.

Associated Press writers Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Gregory Katz in London, Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines, Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nirmala George in New Delhi and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.

Across US, Over 130 Prison Escapees On The Loose

Richard Matt. Matt and accomplice David Sweat escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y. on June 6, 2015, and are still at large. Matt is among more than 160 state prison escapees nationwide who are listed as on the loose, The Associated Press found in a coast-to-coast survey. (New York State Police via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Somewhere out there are an admitted killer who crawled through a Texas prison's ventilation ducts, a murderer who apparently escaped from an Indiana institution in a garbage truck, and a Florida convict who got other inmates to put him in a crate at the prison furniture shop and had himself delivered to freedom by truck.

They're among more than 130 state prison escapees nationwide who are listed as on the loose, The Associated Press found in a coast-to-coast survey. Most have been gone for decades, meaning the chances of finding them have dwindled dramatically — that is, if they're even alive.

Still, "you don't forget about them," said former Oklahoma corrections chief James Saffle, who worked for 11 years tracking escaped convicts. "Sometimes, some little action they take will trigger something."

For the past two weeks, up to 800 federal, state and local law enforcement officers have been searching the woods and swamps around a maximum-security state prison in far northern New York for two convicted killers who used power tools to break out. The hunt is still in the early and intensive on-the-ground phase.

After the sightings wane and the dragnets come up empty, some states regularly revisit escape cases, keep an eye on vanished prisoners' associates and check fingerprint databases, death certificates other sources for new leads.

But investigators largely have to hold out hope that they will get a tip out of the blue or that the convict will slip up, perhaps by contacting a relative or getting arrested for another crime. Successful escapes from secure, fenced prisons are rare. At least 24 states say they have no such prisoners at large.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported about 2,000 state and federal inmates escaped or went off without leave in 2013. But the figure doesn't indicate how many were caught and does not distinguish between breaking out of prison and walking away from work release or other unfenced settings.

The AP asked all states for a current total of escapees from secure, locked state prisons where they were held full time. Some states — including California, the most populous — couldn't immediately provide an answer, and others responded only for recent decades, so the total is almost certainly higher than the 134 the AP counted.

Officials say most of the breakouts are decades old because prisons have become more secure. Some escapees have probably died. One 1955 absconder from Illinois would now be 112. One escape on Alabama's list happened in 1929.

Some fugitives' whereabouts are no mystery. Joanne Chesimard was granted asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from the New Jersey prison where the former Black Panther was serving a life sentence in the killing of a state trooper. Jose Fernando Bustos-Diaz, the Texas inmate who squeezed through the ventilation system in 2010 to get out of a 35-year sentence for cutting his boss' throat, is believed to be in Mexico.

But others could be anywhere, as New York officials acknowledged after Richard Matt and David Sweat cut their way out of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, close to the Canadian border, on June 6.

In the early going, law officers can search on the ground and send out a "bolo" — for "be on the lookout for" — through a federal clearinghouse that disseminates alerts electronically to virtually every U.S. criminal justice agency. It's a crowded message center: By the end of 2014, there were 13 million active records, including wanted notices, lists of sex offenders and stolen property records.

Investigators also "have to crawl into the mind of the fugitive," said Howard Safir, a former U.S. Marshals Service operations chief and New York City police commissioner. Pursuers try figure out their target's past addresses, associates, likes and dislikes, even survival skills, looking into such things as whether the convict had military experience or grew up hunting and fishing.

Captures often are quick. But after six months, a fugitive's trail generally goes pretty cold, said Chuck Jordan, president of the National Association of Fugitive Recovery Agents. Pursuing decades-old cases is complicated by the difficulties of working with paper records and the passage of time.

Prison systems say they keep pushing. Michigan said it reviews all escapees' cases every six months and runs their fingerprints through databases every few years in the hope of a match. The Ohio State Highway Patrol checks criminal records, death certificates and social media annually for clues on cold cases, spokesman Lt. Craig Cvetan said.

"You don't say, 'Well, if we haven't found the person by five years, we're not going to do anything else with it,'" he said. A convicted killer who escaped a California prison work camp in 1975 was arrested in 2011 after authorities heard his dying mother had sought to contact him. They checked her phone records. A 1977 fugitive from the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was caught last year after facial-recognition technology matched an old photo of him with the present-day Florida driver's license he obtained under an alias. A North Carolina thief who spent four decades on the run simply called Kentucky authorities in April, saying he wanted "to get this behind me."

"Nobody lives on an island," Safir said. "It's very hard not to leave some trail these days."

Associated Press writers Jason Dearen in Gainesville, Fla.; Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; Don Thompson in Sacramento, California; Corey Williams in Detroit; and others around the U.S. contributed to this report. Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter @ jennpeltz.

Gunman Feared 'Blacks Were Taking Over The World'

Dylann Roof, Thursday, June 18, 2015. Roof, 21, was arrested Thursday in the slayings of several people Wednesday, including the pastor, at a prayer meeting inside The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. (Charleston County Sheriff's Office via AP)

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A former friend who had reconnected with the man accused of a shooting massacre inside a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, said Dylann Storm Roof had become an avowed racist.

Joey Meek reconnected with Roof a few weeks ago and said that while they got drunk together on vodka, Roof began complaining that "blacks were taking over the world" and that "someone needed to do something about it for the white race."

Roof, 21, is accused of fatally shooting nine people during a Bible study at The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on Wednesday night, ripping out a piece of South Carolina's civic heart and adding to the ever-growing list of America's racial casualties.

Police captured Roof in Shelby, North Carolina, after a motorist spotted him at a traffic light on her way to work. His apprehension ended an intense, hours-long manhunt. Roof waived extradition and was back in Charleston on Thursday night with a bond hearing pending, authorities said.

Charleston officials announced a prayer vigil for Friday evening. The city's mayor described the shooting at the church as an act of "pure, pure concentrated evil." The victims included a state senator who doubled as the church's minister, three other pastors, a regional library manager, a high school coach and speech therapist, a government administrator, a college enrollment counselor and a recent college graduate — six women and three men who felt called to open their church to all.

President Barack Obama called the tragedy yet another example of damage wreaked in America by guns. NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said "there is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people." Others bemoaned the loss to a church that has served as a bastion of black power for 200 years, despite efforts by white supremacists to wipe it out.

"Of all cities, in Charleston, to have a horrible hateful person go into the church and kill people there to pray and worship with each other is something that is beyond any comprehension and is not explained," said Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. "We are going to put our arms around that church and that church family."

Surveillance video showed the gunman entering the church Wednesday night, and Charleston County Coroner Rae Wilson said he initially didn't appear threatening. "The suspect entered the group and was accepted by them, as they believed that he wanted to join them in this Bible study," she said. Then, "he became very aggressive and violent."

Meek called the FBI after recognizing Roof in the surveillance footage, down to the stained sweatshirt he wore while playing Xbox videogames in Meek's home the morning of the attack. "I didn't THINK it was him. I KNEW it was him," Meek told The Associated Press after being interviewed by investigators.

Meek said during their reunion a few weeks ago, Roof told him that he had used birthday money from his parents to buy a .45-caliber Glock pistol and that he had "a plan." He didn't say what the plan was, but Meek said it scared him enough that he took the gun out of Roof's car and hid it in his house until the next day.

It's not clear whether Roof had any connection to the 16 white supremacist organizations operating in South Carolina, but he appears to be a "disaffected white supremacist," based on his Facebook page, said Richard Cohen, president of Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama.

On his Facebook page, Roof displayed the flags of defeated white-ruled regimes, posing with a Confederate flags plate on his car and wearing a jacket with stitched-on flag patches from apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, which is now black-led Zimbabwe.

His previous record includes misdemeanor drug and trespassing charges. Spilling blood inside a black church — especially "Mother Emanuel," founded in 1816 — evoked painful memories nationwide, a reminder that black churches so often have been the targets of racist violence.

A church founder, Denmark Vesey, was hanged after trying to organize a slave revolt in 1822, and white landowners burned the church in revenge, leaving parishioners to worship underground until after the Civil War. The congregation rebuilt and grew stronger, eventually winning campaigns for voting rights and political representation.

Its lead pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney — among the dead — recalled his church's history in a 2013 sermon, saying "we don't see ourselves as just a place where we come to worship, but as a beacon and as a bearer of the culture."

"What the church is all about," Pinckney said, is the "freedom to be fully what God intends us to be and have equality in the sight of God. And sometimes you got to make noise to do that. Sometimes you may have to die like Denmark Vesey to do that."

Pinckney, 41, was a married father of two and a Democrat who spent 19 years in the South Carolina legislature after he was first elected at 23, becoming the youngest member of the House. The other victims were Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Myra Thompson, 59; Ethel Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; and the reverends DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49; Sharonda Singleton, 45; and Daniel Simmons Sr., 74.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the attack would be investigated as a hate crime.

Contributors include Alex Sanz, Meg Kinnard and David Goldman in Charleston, South Carolina; Mitch Weiss in Columbia, South Carolina; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; Eric Tucker in Washington; and Jacob Jordan in Atlanta.

Uncertainty Over US Strike Against Al-Oaida Leader In Libya

This wanted poster from the website of the U.S. State Department's Rewards For Justice program shows a mugshot of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, charged with leading the attack on a gas plant in Algeria in 2013 that killed at least 35 hostages, including three Americans. The U.S military said on Monday, June 15, 2015 it likely killed the al-Qaida-linked militant leader when it launched airstrikes in eastern Libya over the weekend. (U.S. State Department Rewards For Justice via AP)

CAIRO (AP) — Pentagon officials say they believe they hit their target — the one-eyed, al-Qaida-linked commander who led a deadly attack on an Algerian gas facility in 2013. But uncertainty still surrounds the U.S. airstrike in eastern Libya, and whether Mokhtar Belmokhtar was actually among the militants said to have been killed in the bombing.

Libyan officials say Sunday's airstrike hit a gathering of militants on a farm outside Ajdabiya, a coastal city about 850 kilometers (530 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli, but there were conflicting reports on how many died.

An initial assessment shows the bombing that targeted Belmokhtar was successful, and "post-strike assessments" were still underway Monday to determine whether the Algerian militant was killed, said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

"But we're not prepared to confirm that because we haven't finalized our assessment," he said, adding that the strike had hit a "hard structure." Maj. Mohammed Hegazi, a military spokesman from Libya's internationally recognized government based in the east, also said tests were needed to identify the dead, which numbered at least 17, with their bodies badly burned. Among those killed were three foreigners — a Tunisian and two unidentified militants, he said.

Hegazi criticized his own government for rushing to confirm late Sunday that Belmokhtar was among the dead. "I don't confirm or deny. We are waiting confirmation," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "It is not easy."

He said the raid was based on solid intelligence that indicated militants forced out of the eastern city of Benghazi by fighting there had taken refuge in Ajdabiya. No civilians were killed, Hegazi said, adding that the militants took the fatally wounded Tunisian to a hospital in Ajdabiya, clashes erupted with local troops that left three soldiers dead.

In the airstrikes, two F-15 fighter jets had launched multiple 500-pound bombs, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss details of the attack. Authorities say no U.S. personnel were on the ground for the assault.

A Libyan Islamist with ties to militants said the airstrikes missed Belmokhtar, but killed four members of a Libyan extremist group linked to al-Qaida, Ansar Shariah, in Ajdabiya. That group was tied to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The Islamist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal in Libya, told the AP that Belmokhtar wasn't at the site of the airstrike. However, a news website that has previously carried statements from Belmokhtar said he was in Ajdabiya, meeting with affiliates. The Mauritanian website quoted informed sources in Libya as saying six people were killed in the raid, and a Tunisian and Yemeni were wounded.

Abdel-Basit Haroun, a security adviser to the eastern government, said a total of 29 people were killed in the airstrike, which hit a meeting of al-Qaida affiliates as they tried to "rearrange their ranks."

If Belmokhtar's death is confirmed, it would be a major success for U.S. counterterrorism efforts. He is one of the most-wanted militants in the region, with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, and it is not the first time authorities claimed to have killed him.

Believed to be 43 years old, Belmokhtar fought in Afghanistan and was reported to have lost his eye in combat. He was one of a number of Islamist fighters who have battled Algeria's government since the 1990s, later joining al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the group's North Africa branch.

He was also known as "Belaouer the One-Eyed," ''Abou al-Abbes" and "Mr. Marlboro," because he was accused of smuggling cigarettes through the Sahara and the Sahel region. He formed his own group and led the January 2013 attack on Algeria's Ain Amenas gas complex that killed at least 35 hostages, including three Americans. He later emerged in Libya, and is believed to have been based in the western and southern parts of the country.

The U.S. filed terrorism charges against Belmokhtar in connection with the Algeria attack. Officials have said they believe he remained a threat to U.S. and Western interests. Belmokhtar had just split off from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb to start his own franchise.

The charges filed against him by U.S. law enforcement officials included conspiring to support al-Qaida, use of a weapon of mass destruction and conspiring to take hostages. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara had said Belmokhtar "unleashed a reign of terror years ago, in furtherance of his self-proclaimed goal of waging bloody jihad against the West."

Intelligence officials said Belmokhtar had essentially built a bridge between AQIM and the underworld, creating a system where various outlaws support each other and enroll youths. He's been linked to terrorist attacks and the lucrative kidnapping of foreigners in the region.

Libya has been plagued by chaos since the civil war in 2011, which drew in U.S. and European airstrikes that helped topple longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. He was killed by armed groups, which have since grown to roil the country in violence.

Recently, the internationally recognized government, backed by its own militias, has been forced out of Tripoli by Islamist militias and their affiliated politicians who set up their own government and parliament.

U.N.-sponsored talks have bogged down as the two sides exchange accusations. The weekend U.S. bombing raid could cause more disarray among the rival Libyan groups. A Facebook page associated with Libya Dawn, the Islamist militia backing the Tripoli-based government, denied that the airstrikes targeted al-Qaida and instead said they targeted Islamists who are "Libya's revolutionaries ... considered the safety valve for the revolution." It said U.S. warplanes were allied with the forces led by powerful Gen. Khalifa Hifter and backing the internationally recognized government.

The east-based government hailed the U.S. raid as a "piece of the international support that it has long requested to fight terrorism that represents a dangerous threat to the regional and international situation."

It added that the government would like more help fighting terrorism, including the Islamic State group, which controls Sirte, west of Ajdabiya, and is spreading to the west and south. Militants have taken advantage of Libya's chaos, with fighters flowing into the country's vast ungoverned spaces.

Al-Qaida militants in eastern Libya are battling the Islamic State group for power and resources. But as IS has grown in power, fueled by successes in Iraq and Syria, some al-Qaida fighters have switched loyalties.

It was not the first time the U.S. has been involved in the fight against Libyan extremists. U.S. special forces went into Tripoli in 2013 and took Abu Anas al-Libi out of the country. Al-Libi, who was accused by the U.S. of involvement in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, died in January in a U.S. hospital from a longstanding medical condition.

Associated Press Video journalist Sagar Meghani in Washington and Rami Musa contributed to this report.

Official: California Balcony Collapse Kills 5 Irish Students

A fourth floor balcony rests on the balcony below after collapsing at the Library Gardens apartment complex in Berkeley, Calif., early Tuesday, June 16, 2015. Berkeley police say several people are dead and others injured after the balcony fell shortly before 1 a.m., near the University of California, Berkeley. (AP)

BERKELEY, CALIF. (AP) — A fourth-floor balcony of a San Francisco Bay Area apartment building collapsed early Tuesday, killing five Irish students and leaving eight other people injured, officials said.

Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan told reporters in Dublin that all five of the dead were in the U.S. on temporary visas. A 21st birthday party was underway in the building in the university town of Berkeley at the time of the accident, he said.

Many of the wounded have critical, life-threatening injuries, said Officer Jennifer Coats, a Berkeley police spokeswoman. Police received a call about the incident shortly before 1 a.m. PDT Tuesday, and officers arrived to find that the balcony on the fourth floor of the building had disintegrated.

Television footage showed that the balcony fell onto the one on the third floor. The building in the heart of downtown Berkeley has apartments in the upper floors and retail shops at ground level. The walkable neighborhood just blocks from the University of California, Berkeley, is dotted with museums, restaurants, coffee shops and chain stores.

The Library Gardens apartments were built in 2006 and are a block from campus, the Los Angeles Times reported. Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs said it was trying to contact families of the victims and could not give details of their identities. Four died at the scene and one in a hospital, Flanagan said.

Irish President Michael D. Higgins said in a statement that he had "heard with the greatest sadness of the terrible loss of life of young Irish people and the critical injury of others in Berkeley, California today. My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of all those involved."

Coats said officers are still investigating and she doesn't have information on how the collapse occurred or what the people were doing on the structure at the time. Jerry Robinson, who lives nearby, told San Francisco news station KGO-TV that he had just gotten out of a movie when two hysterical people flagged down his car asking for a ride to a hospital to check on injured friends.

"They were all trying to notify parents, and things like that," he said. "They were trying to figure out from each other who was on the balcony and what their condition was." Police were working with fire officials and building inspectors to try to determine what caused the accident, Coats said.

She said she also didn't have information on the identities of the victims. "We don't have a lot of specific detail at this point because they (investigators) are still trying to work through it all," she said in a telephone interview.

Flanagan said the Irish consul general in San Francisco would be providing assistance to those affected.

Associated Press writer Bob Seavey in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Egypt Court Confirms Death Sentence For Ousted President

Egypt's ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi gestures in a defendants cage at the Police Academy courthouse in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, June 16, 2015. An Egyptian court on Tuesday confirmed a death sentence handed to Morsi over a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising that eventually brought him to power. On Tuesday a separate ruling upheld a life sentence for Morsi and confirmed death sentences against 16 others over charges of conspiring with foreign groups, including the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AP)

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court on Tuesday confirmed a death sentence handed to ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi over a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising that eventually brought him to power.

Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, was in the courtroom in a glass-covered cage, with mesh wires over it. He listened to the verdict with a slight smile but did not say anything. The ruling was read out by judge Shaaban al-Shami after he consulted with Egypt's Mufti, a religious authority affiliated with the judiciary, as required by law in cases involving capital punishment.

"The court panel has unanimously agreed that there is no room for leniency or mercy for the defendants," al-Shami, who presides over a panel of three, said before confirming the death sentence. The Mufti's opinions are not binding, and the ruling will automatically be referred to Egypt's highest appeals court.

The judge also confirmed death sentences for five other jailed leading members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, including Mohammed Badie, the group's leader, and Saad el-Katatni, the head of its short-lived political party.

Al-Shami said the defendants conspired and attempted to kill police officers when they broke into three of Egypt's prisons, enabling some 20,000 inmates to flee, causing chaos in Egypt and breaching its borders with the Gaza Strip. He said they did so with the help of foreign militants from the Palestinian Hamas movement, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Sinai militants.

Another 21 imprisoned defendants received life sentences in the case, which in Egypt is equivalent to 25 years in prison. Another 93 defendants were tried in absentia and sentenced to death. Now Morsi will change his blue prison outfit to an orange one in future cases. Morsi is already serving a 20-year sentence for his part in the killings in 2012 of protesters outside his palace when he was still president.

Morsi was forced out of office in July 2013 by the military amid massive protests demanding his resignation. He has been detained since then, and his Muslim Brotherhood has been labelled a terrorist organization.

Earlier Tuesday, the same judge sentenced Morsi to life in prison over charges of conspiring with foreign groups, including the Palestinian militant group Hamas. That sentence can also be appealed. Al-Shami confirmed death sentences against 16 other Islamists, including three jailed senior Brotherhood members. The other 13 were tried in absentia. Morsi was among 17 defendants sentenced to life in prison in that case.

Al-Qaida Confirms US Strike Killed Leader Of Yemen Affiliate

The leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, identified by the IntelCenter as Nasir al-Wahishi, in Yemen. Al-Qaida on Tuesday, June 16, 2015 confirmed that al-Wahishi, its No. 2 figure and leader of its powerful Yemeni affiliate, was killed in a U.S. strike, making it the harshest blow to the global militant network since the killing of Osama bin Laden. (IntelCenter via AP, File)

CAIRO (AP) — A U.S. airstrike has killed Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, who commanded its powerful Yemeni affiliate, dealing the global network its biggest blow since the killing of Osama bin Laden and eliminating a charismatic leader at a time when it is vying with the Islamic State group for the mantle of global jihad.

In a video statement dated June 14 and released Tuesday by the Yemeni affiliate, a senior operative announced the death of Nasir al-Wahishi, a veteran jihadi who once served as bin Laden's aide-de-camp, and said his deputy, Qassim al-Raimi, has been tapped to replace him.

"Our Muslim nation, a hero of your heroes and a master of your masters left to God, steadfast," Khaled Batrafi said in the video, vowing that the group's war on America would continue. "In the name of God, the blood of these pioneers makes us more determined to sacrifice," he said. "Let the enemies know that the battle is not with an individual... the battle led by crusaders and their agents is colliding with a billion-member nation."

Yemeni security officials had earlier said a U.S. drone strike killed three suspected militants in the al-Qaida-held southern port city of Mukalla last week. U.S. officials had said they were trying to verify whether al-Wahishi was killed.

Al-Qaida's Yemen affiliate has long been seen as its most lethal, and has been linked to a number of foiled or botched attacks on the U.S. homeland. The group claimed responsibility for January's attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that killed 12 people.

In addition to leading the Yemeni affiliate, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Wahishi also served as deputy to Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's top leader, who succeeded bin Laden in 2011. Al-Wahishi's death is a major loss for al-Qaida as it struggles to compete with the Islamic State, a breakaway group that has seized vast swaths of Syria and Iraq and spawned its own affiliates elsewhere in the region.

Both groups are dedicated to bringing about Islamic rule by force, but al-Qaida does not recognize the IS group's self-styled caliphate and has maintained that the priority should be to wage jihad against America in order to drive it out of the Middle East.

Batrafi vowed to make the United States "taste the bitter flavor of war and defeat until you stop supporting the Jews, the occupiers of Palestine, until you leave the lands of the Muslims and stop supporting apostate tyrants."

Al-Raimi, the new leader of AQAP, is thought to have masterminded a 2010 plot in which bombs concealed in printers were shipped to the U.S. on cargo planes before being detected and defused. Yemen's government has mistakenly announced al-Raimi's death three times since 2007. He is believed to direct training camps in Yemen's remote deserts and mountains, where he organizes cells and plans attacks.

AQAP's master bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, is also believed to still be alive. He is thought to have designed the bombs used in the cargo planes plot and in a failed attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger plane in December 2009 by a man who had explosives concealed in his underwear.

Al-Asiri is also believed to have dispatched a suicide bomber in 2009 to assassinate Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, then head of Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism agency. The attack failed, and Mohammed bin Nayef is now the crown prince.

Al-Wahishi had fought alongside bin Laden at Tora Bora in Afghanistan in late 2001 before the al-Qaida leader slipped across the border into Pakistan. Al-Wahishi fled to Iran, where he was detained and deported to Yemen in 2003.

He was among 23 al-Qaida militants who broke out of a detention facility in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in February 2006. Three years later, al-Wahishi announced the creation of AQAP, which gathered together Yemeni and Saudi militants following a sweeping crackdown on the extremist group by Riyadh.

AQAP has been able to expand its reach in recent months as Yemen has slid into chaos. Shiite rebels known as Houthis captured Sanaa last year and are battling southern separatists, Islamic militants, and local and tribal militias across the country. Yemen's military, once a close U.S. ally against al-Qaida, has split between opponents and supporters of the rebels, and a Saudi-led coalition has been bombing the Houthis and their allies since March.

In April, AQAP took advantage of the chaos to seize Mukalla and freed several prisoners, including Batrafi. It then struck a power-sharing deal with local tribesmen. But despite such gains, it is engaged in battles with the Houthis and allied forces on at least 11 fronts, Batrafi said.

And Mukalla has proved something of a death trap, with U.S. strikes killing al-Wahishi, two senior militants and scores of fighters there since the city fell in April.