USA

CHICAGO (AP) — Moments before her ex-fiance fatally shot her in the parking lot of the hospital where she worked, a Chicago doctor called 911 to report that she had spotted the man and feared for her life.

As investigators tried to piece together the events that ended with the deaths of the doctor, a police officer, a hospital employee and the gunman, they were able to fill in details about the attack Monday at Mercy Hospital on the city’s South Side.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Holiday shoppers should enjoy more spending power thanks to the recent sharp drop in oil prices, though cheaper energy could also weigh on the U.S. economy by dampening investment in shale oil production.

While the fall in oil prices doesn’t yet match the 2014-2016 slump to $26 per barrel, the current decline should soon make itself felt through the global economy.

The international crude benchmark, Brent, has fallen under $65 per barrel from a four-year high in early October over $86, and U.S. crude has dropped below $55 a barrel.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the fallout from the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (all times local):

President Donald Trump is thanking Saudi Arabia for plunging oil prices amid criticism over his decision not to further punish the kingdom for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi (jah-MAHL’ khahr-SHOHK’-jee).

Trump tweeted Wednesday from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida it’s “Great!” oil prices are getting lower and it’s “Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World.”

NEW YORK (AP) — A nearly silent, drone-sized aircraft has shown it can fly, thanks to a scientist who was inspired by watching “Star Trek” as a child.

With neither propellers nor jets, the airplane gets its thrust by applying a strong electric field to the air. That general idea has been demonstrated at science fairs, but the new work shows it can power a free-flying airplane.

So can people look forward to traveling in planes that are almost silent and emit no air pollution?

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — For NASA’s InSight spacecraft, it all comes down to the final six minutes of a six-month journey to Mars.

The lander will enter the Martian atmosphere at supersonic speed, then hit the brakes to get to a soft, safe landing on the alien red plains.

After micromanaging every step of the way, flight controllers will be powerless over what happens at the end of the road Monday, nearly 100 million miles (160 million kilometers) away.

20 Nov 2018; AFP: NASA has picked an ancient river delta as the landing site for its uncrewed Mars 2020 rover, to hunt for evidence of past life on Earth's neighboring planet, officials said Monday.

Even though the Red Planet is now cold and dry, the landing site, Jezero Crater, was filled with a 1,600-foot (500-meter) deep lake that opened to a network of rivers some 3.5 to 3.9 billion years ago.

20 Nov 2018; AFP: An argument in a hospital parking lot escalated into a shooting that killed three people, including a police officer, in the US city of Chicago on Monday.

The violence only ended when police engaged in a shootout with the gunman inside Mercy Hospital.

"We have four deceased individuals: police officer, two female staff employees at the hospital, and the offender," police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told journalists.

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — Christopher Watts cried, shook and stared into his lap as a judge told him he would spend the rest of his life in prison for the murders of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters.

But he spoke only once at his sentencing hearing and that was to decline the opportunity to give a statement and perhaps answer the question gnawing at his relatives, his suburban Denver neighbors, and others: Why?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump faces increasing pressure to take tougher measures against Saudi Arabia over the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump says that Saudi Arabia is a “spectacular ally” and that he’s not convinced that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, was directly responsible for the Oct. 2 slaying of the editorial columnist for The Washington Post inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — At first, the outlines of the mass shooter’s 28 years appeared unremarkable.

Ian David Long enlisted in the Marines out of high school and married at 19. Within five years, he was honorably discharged, divorced and in college.

As the picture sharpened, troubling details emerged — the kinds of clues that, in hindsight, make people wonder out loud whether the impulse that led Long to kill 12 people at a country music bar had been forming in plain sight.