North America

May 6 (Reuters) - At least nine people were shot and wounded by a gunman at a busy mall north of Dallas on Saturday, but police said they were not yet able to confirm how many people may have died in the incident.

The gunman, who authorities said they believe acted alone, was killed by a police officer after he began firing outside of the Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, Texas, the city's police chief Brian Harvey said at a press conference.

WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden said on Friday he was not yet ready to invoke the 14th Amendment to avoid the United States defaulting on its debts as early as June 1, comments which for the first time suggested he has not ruled out the option.

"I've not gotten there yet," Biden said in an interview with MSNBC when asked about the possibility of invoking the amendment.

ATLANTA (AP) — Police arrested a man accused of opening fire inside the waiting room of an Atlanta medical practice Wednesday, killing one woman and wounding four. Workers and others in a bustling commercial district took shelter for hours during the manhunt.

Authorities swarmed the city’s midtown neighborhood shortly after noon in search of the shooter. Police said in a statement that the suspect, whom they identified as 24-year-old Deion Patterson, was captured in Cobb County, just northwest of Atlanta.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday that authorities faced “extremely challenging” circumstances along the border with Mexico days before pandemic-related asylum restrictions end.

A surge of Venezuelan migrants through South Texas, particularly in and around Brownsville, has occurred over the last two weeks for reasons that Mayorkas said were unclear. On Thursday, 4,000 of about 6,000 migrants in Border Patrol custody in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley were Venezuelan.

NEW YORK (AP) — The jury hearing an advice columnist’s claims that she was raped by Donald Trump could begin deliberations as soon as Tuesday, and it will have wide latitude in deciding the truthfulness of the allegations against the former president.

The writer E. Jean Carroll, 79, testified that Trump raped her in 1996 inside a dressing room at the luxury Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan after they had a chance encounter and shopped together for lingerie.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — California’s reparations task force is set to wrap up its first-in-the-nation work Saturday, voting on recommendations for a formal apology for the state’s role in perpetuating a legacy of slavery and discrimination that has thwarted Black residents from living freely for decades.

The nine-member committee, which first convened nearly two years ago, is expected to give final approval at a meeting in Oakland to a hefty list of ambitious proposals that will then be in the hands of state lawmakers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Kentucky man with a long criminal record was sentenced Friday to a record-setting 14 years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the U.S. Capitol with his wife.

Peter Schwartz’s prison sentence is the longest so far among hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The judge who sentenced Schwartz also handed down the previous longest sentence — 10 years — to a retired New York Police Department officer who assaulted a police officer outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

ATLANTA (AP) — The prosecutor investigating possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election in Georgia has agreed to immunity deals with at least eight Republican fake electors who signed a certificate falsely stating that then-President Donald Trump had won the state.

Defense attorney Kimberly Debrow revealed the existence of the immunity deals in a court filing Friday, saying her eight clients had accepted the agreements last month. The filing does not identify the people who were offered immunity deals.

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations is short nearly $24 million needed to safely remove oil from an abandoned tanker off Yemen’s coast, officials said Thursday, urging donors to stump up the remaining funds.

A virtual donor conference on Thursday raised $5.6 million in new contributions towards the $129 million unprecedented rescue operation, in which the UN purchased its own supertanker to remove more than a million barrels of oil from the beleaguered FSO Safer in the Red Sea.

WASHINGTON/PARIS/DUBAI, May 5 (Reuters) - Even as the United States and its European allies grapple with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions with China, the smoldering crisis over Iran's nuclear program threatens to reignite.

In a sign of European concern, Britain, France and Germany have warned Iran they would trigger a return of U.N. sanctions against Tehran if it enriched uranium to the optimal level for a nuclear weapon, three European officials said.