small plane crashed into a commercial building in Suffolk County, the state of New York, USA

New York A small plane crashed into a commercial building in Suffolk County, the state of New York, USA, Saturday, injuring two people and thus make the whole building was on fire, police said as quoted by Xinhua news agency. The Cessna, with two chairs, knocking over Varsity Plumbing Supplies companies on Saturday afternoon just outside Long Island MacArthur Airport, according to a local television station WABC, which quoted some official sources.

The accident happened just after 15:00 local time, Saturday. According to initial information from the police radio, airplane and building is on fire, and two people suffered serious injuries. According to the most recent information, the fire had been extinguished, and one victim was taken to hospital by air and another brought by ambulance. Media reports, quoting a U.S. statement Federal Aviation Administration, said the pilot was practicing landing at Long Island MacArthur Airport when the plane went down, about 800 meters from the runway.

Wan Yanhai flees to US after harassment

BEIJING  Wan Yanhai is used to harassment by authorities, but the unwanted attention got steadily worse this year for the founder of a prominent Chinese AIDS advocacy group. Authorities ordered the group’s anniversary celebration canceled, sent commercial regulators and tax inspectors to visit its offices, and had police interrupt his talk at a university.Finally, after dozens of intimidating phone calls from police in a single day, Wan fled to America via Hong Kong last Thursday with his wife and child.

His departure illustrates the toll that relentless official harassment takes on activists in China, even those working on issues such as AIDS that are recognized by the government as legitimate concerns.”The attacks from the government had become very serious for my organization and for me personally,” Wan said Monday by phone from Philadelphia, where he and his family are staying with a friend. “I had concerns about my personal safety and was under a lot of stress.”

“When I am in China, the authorities look at me like I am a bird in a cage. They say, ‘If you don’t listen to me, then I will eat you,'” Wan said. “But after I leave the country, they will see me in a new light because I am no longer in their cage.”

In recent months, Beijing has been tightening its control over the operations of independent groups and activists that are seen by the Communist leadership as threats to the government’s authority. A renowned women’s rights organization was shuttered last month, while over the weekend, two lawyers who represented a member of an outlawed spiritual movement were banned from practicing law for life.

In March, the government decided to regulate overseas donations to aid groups, a move that has squeezed the funding of organizations like Wan’s Beijing-based Aizhixing Institute, which offers legal advice to people with HIV and campaigns against discrimination.

The rule says groups such as Aizhixing must show proof that overseas nonprofit donor groups are registered in their home countries and strictly follow detailed agreements with foreign donors on how donated funds are spent.”Funding became a major problem for us after that,” Wan said.He said police interrupted a March talk he was due to give to the Southern China Science and Industry University on sexual orientation and mental health. He said he later heard that a notice had been sent to universities nationwide telling them not to invite him to speak.Finally, on April 23, he received dozens of phone calls from police about an event to train lawyers on how to use new social media, Wan said.

Two days after the phone calls, he and his wife left Beijing for Guangzhou in the south.”To be honest, I was becoming very worried. I felt like if we had acted slower, it would not have been good,” he said. The family decided to leave during a business trip to neighboring Hong Kong.

“Before we left, we didn’t tell a lot of people,” he said. “We waited until Thursday evening after we got to Hong Kong, bought the flight tickets and passed through the security checks at the airport before we called a few friends.”At Aizhixing’s office in Beijing on Monday, a staffer who handles media inquiries said employees only learned about Wan’s departure from media reports.”I’m a little bit surprised and also a bit nervous,” said the woman, who refused to give her name due to the sensitivity of the issue. “We’re still working on several projects here and we haven’t got time to discuss it.”

In recent years, China’s government has made huge strides in openly addressing the spread of HIV, but it is deeply suspicious of independent activists, and Wan has one of the highest profiles among those working on AIDS in China.Wan, a former Health Ministry official, founded the Aizhixing Institute in 1994 to raise awareness and fight discrimination. Among its most significant and politically sensitive work was the publicizing of the spread of AIDS in the 1990s among villagers in central China’s Henan province, where people who sold blood were re-injected with pooled blood after buyers had removed important components.

Wan has been detained for up to weeks at a time by authorities, but never formally convicted under China’s loosely defined sedition laws.Aizhixing’s advocacy alone was enough to make authorities view Wan with suspicion, said Kin-man Chan, director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Chan said Wan had given a talk at the research center last Wednesday about the challenges non-governmental organizations faced in China, but had not mentioned plans to leave the country.”I feel very sad that people like Wan Yanhai have to leave. I feel very, very disappointed,” Chan said.”If you don’t allow these NGOs to represent those disadvantaged groups and voice out their grievances, then people might at the end of the day take some isolated, more radical actions to express their disappointment,” Chan said.

Wan said he and his wife have yearlong business visas for the U.S. and have no long-term plan yet. In the coming days, he hopes to meet with international organizations to discuss ways to cooperate on projects and for funding.

Wan’s move was met with support by Chinese activists, many of whom posted messages on Twitter, although some also expressed regret at his departure and worries about the future of his organization.”I empathize with Wan’s feelings. Although I feel a little regret toward his decision, still, I fully understand and wish them a happy life,” said Zeng Jingyan, whose husband Hu Jia is serving a 3 1/2-year jail term for sedition.(AP)

Dozens of Palestinian stone-throwers clashed with Israeli police in East Jerusalem on Tuesday on a "day of rage" Hamas Islamists declared in protest at Israel's consecration of an ancient synagogue in the city

Dozens of Palestinian stone-throwers clashed with Israeli police in East Jerusalem on Tuesday on a “day of rage” Hamas Islamists declared in protest at Israel’s consecration of an ancient synagogue in the city.The violence presented another challenge to U.S. efforts to revive Middle East peace talks after Israel angered Palestinians and touched off a dispute with Washington by announcing plans last week to build 1,600 homes for Jews near East Jerusalem.Palestinians hurled stones at police and burned tires and trash bins in several areas of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank in a 1967 war.

Police responded with tear gas and fired rubber bullets, witnesses said. Some 40 Palestinians were treated at East Jerusalem hospitals for minor injuries, medical officials said.A police spokesman said some 3,000 officers were put on high alert after Hamas, an Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip and wields influence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, called for anti-Israeli protests.”We call on the Palestinian people to regard Tuesday as a day of rage against the occupation’s (Israel’s) procedures in Jerusalem against al-Aqsa mosque,” Hamas said in a statement.

Hamas and Palestinian officials affiliated with its rival Fatah movement have said the restoration work at the ancient Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s walled Old City endangered al-Aqsa, situated some 400 meters (yards) away.Israel has denied the allegation.An inauguration ceremony was held Monday at the synagogue, which was blown up by Jordanian forces when they overran the Jewish Quarter in the 1948 Middle East war. Israel captured the area 19 years later.

Sporadic violence has erupted in recent weeks in Jerusalem after Israel decided to include West Bank religious sites in a Jewish national heritage plan stoked Palestinian anger.Citing biblical and historical links, Israel sees all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In Washington Monday, a State Department spokesman voiced concern about the tensions over the rededication of the synagogue and appealed for calm.”We’re deeply disturbed by statements made by several Palestinian officials mischaracterizing the event in question, which can only serve to heighten the tensions that we see,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

A crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations over the settlement housing project, opposed by Washington, deepened Monday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s said he would not curb construction of homes for Jews in and around Jerusalem.After Netanyahu’s defiant comments, U.S. officials said U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who had planned to leave Washington Monday for discussions with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on getting indirect negotiations under way, had put off his departure.Announcement of the housing plan during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden embarrassed the White House and Palestinians, who had just agreed to begin indirect talks with Israel, demanded the project be scrapped first.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in unusually blunt remarks, called Israel’s actions an insult.Clinton telephoned Netanyahu Friday to convey unspecified demands about the housing project as well as about demonstrating commitment to the U.S.-mediated peace talks, the State Department said, without elaborating.U.S. officials said they were still waiting for Israel’s formal response. Israeli media reports said Clinton had asked for the settlement plan to be scrapped and for Israel to agree to discuss core statehood issues with the Palestinians.(Reuters)

30 protesters have trapped themselves inside the mosque.Police say there are no injuries

Israeli police say they raided a courtyard near the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem Sunday to stop stone-throwing Palestinian protesters.  Local media reports say about 30 protesters have trapped themselves inside the mosque.Police say there are no injuries, and one arrest has been made.Palestinians have staged violent protests since Israel announced this past week that it has added the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem to its heritage restoration plan.The plan to renovate the holy sites has angered Palestinians, who claim the West Bank as part of a future state and reject any Israeli presence there. The al-Aqsa mosque compound is the third holiest place in Islam, and is claimed by both Arabs and Jews.  Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, borders the mosque compound.(VOA)

The suspect in the fatal shooting of four police officers

Seattle, Washington The suspect in the fatal shooting of four police officers kept authorities at bay early Monday seven hours after a massive manhunt tracked him to a house in an east Seattle neighborhood.Authorities had been looking for Maurice Clemmons in connection with an “ambush” Sunday morning at a coffee shop near Tacoma in Pierce County. Four officers  three males, one female died in the attack.Authorities identified the victims as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; Officer Ronald Owens, 37; Officer Tina Griswold, 40; and Officer Greg Richards, 42. All four had been with the department since its inception, and all of them were parents.

Witnesses told police they had seen Clemmons struck in the leg by a bullet while he struggled with an officer during the attack.Early Monday, authorities started identifying Clemmons as a suspect, rather than as someone wanted for questioning.Police were not looking for anyone else, but had arrested several people who had “helped” Clemmons, said Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer.The night before the shootings, Clemmons had threatened to kill police officers, but witnesses did not report those threats till after the slayings, Troyer told “Good Morning America.”

About 8 p.m. Sunday, police received word that Clemmons had holed up in a home in the Leschi neighborhood.Police blocked off streets and asked residents to stay inside with their doors locked.Not knowing the extent of Clemmons’ wounds, paramedics stood by to assess his condition once the standoff ended.At 4:30 a.m., police were preparing to send a robot door-to-door in the cluster of residences that make up the property where Clemmons is believed to be hiding, said Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel.

Repeated attempts to make contact with Clemmons were unsuccessful, he said.Clemmons is a convicted criminal with a long rap sheet who had a 95-year prison sentence commuted in 2000 by then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, said Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer.Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate in 2008, is considering a run for president in 2012.”Should [Clemmons] be found responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state,” Huckabee’s office said in a statement Sunday night.

Clemmons, 37, of Pierce County has an “extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas, including aggravated robbery and theft,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.He also was recently charged in Pierce County in the assault of a police officer and rape of a child, according to the statement.Troyer said Arkansan law enforcement officials had indicated that they were willing to forgo Clemmons’ warrants in that state to avoid extraditing him if needed.Clemmons was sentenced to 95 years in prison in 1989 for a host of charges, including robberies, burglaries, thefts and bringing a gun to school.During a pretrial hearing, he hid a piece of metal in his sock, media reports at the time said. Before the start of another hearing, he grabbed a padlock off his holding cell and threw it at a court bailiff. He missed, and the lock hit his mother, who had come to bring him clothes.

Huckabee cited Clemmons’ young age — 17 at the time of his sentencing — when he announced his decision to commute the sentence, according to newspaper articles.Clemmons was paroled in August 2000, after serving 11 years of his sentence.”It was not something I was pleased with at the time,” said Larry Jegley, who prosecuted Clemmons for aggravated robbery and other charges in Pulaski County, Arkansas. “I would be most distressed if this is the same guy.”Huckabee’s office said Clemmons’ commutation was based on the recommendation of the parole board that determined that he met the conditions for early release.”He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him,” the statement said.CNN could not immediately confirm the account. But the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper reported that a year after his release, Clemmons was arrested for aggravated robbery and theft.

He was taken back to prison for parole violation. But, said the paper, he was not served with the arrest warrants for the robbery and theft charges until he left prison three years later, in 2004.His attorney argued the charges should be dismissed because too much time had passed by then. Prosecutors dropped the charges.Clemmons is thought to have moved to Washington that year, and for a while ran a pressure-washing and landscaping business. The license for the business expired last month, according to the secretary of state’s office, with which businesses have to register.In recent months, Clemmons has displayed increasingly erratic behavior, the Seattle Times reported. In May, he punched a sheriff’s deputy in the face, the paper said.In another incident, he had relatives undress, telling them families need to be “naked for at least five minutes on Sunday,” the newspaper said, citing a sheriff’s department incident report.

Clemmons also believed he was Jesus and could fly, a deputy wrote, based on conversations with family members.After serving several months in jail on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child, Clemmons was released on bond six days ago, according to the Seattle Times.Sunday’s shooting was the first for the Lakewood police department, which was created five years ago for the town of nearly 60,000. Until then, the Pierce County sheriff’s office provided law enforcement services there.The four officers were awaiting the start of their shift at a coffee shop in Parkland, a unincorporated community just south of Lakewood and about 10 miles from Tacoma.

The officers were in uniform and had marked patrol cars parked outside.The shop on Steele Street is a popular hangout for law enforcement officers and is one of 22 Forza Coffee Co. locations in Washington.”As a retired police officer, this senseless shooting hits extremely close to home to me,” Brad Carpenter, chief executive officer of Forza, said in a statement on the company’s Web site.The attack occurred without warning.”There’s not going to be a big motive other than he was upset about being incarcerated and was going to go gunning after cops in general,” Troyer told reporters.

The shooter walked past the officers to the counter as if to order coffee before he pulled the gun out of his coat and opened fire at 8:15 a.m., the sheriff’s office said.

Two of the officers were “executed” as they sat at a table, said Troyer, the sheriff’s spokesman.Another was shot when he stood up and the fourth was shot after struggling with the gunman all the way out the door, Troyer said.Two baristas and other customers inside the shop were unharmed. “Just the law enforcement officers were targeted,” Troyer said, calling the shooting an ambush.

“What happened in there wasn’t just a shooting,” he told reporters. “After, we believe, some of the officers were shot, one of them managed to fight his way with the suspect — fight his way, wrestle, fight all the way out the the doorway until he was shot and died of a gunshot wound.Witnesses told police they had seen the suspect hit by a gunshot. Investigators checked area hospitals to determine whether the gunman sought medical treatment. A $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest.