AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

Teen shooter kills 4 at Oregon elementary school before being shot by a witness

A 16-year-old shot his way through locked doors to get into an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher. He was then shot by a person at the scene who followed him inside, authorities said.

The suspect was found dead inside the school minutes after the shooting was first reported, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said.

The three children killed were aged 5, 8 and 11. Another child, 7, and a teacher, 54, were injured and taken to the hospital in critical condition, he said.

The first 911 call came just before 1 p.m. from a person in a vehicle outside Silver Rail Elementary who reported being shot at by someone with a long gun, Krantz told reporters. Further 911 calls came from inside the school, and officers arrived on scene within minutes, police spokesperson Sheila Miller said.

The attacker, who police identified as a Bend resident, was shot and went down inside the school shortly after officers arrived, she said.

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Vatican games out possible Sunday prayer appearance as Pope Leo recovers from lung surgery

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV’s recovery from lung surgery has progressed so normally that the Vatican on Friday stopped providing morning updates confirming he had woken up and had breakfast, even as questions continued about what his cancer means for the future of his young pontificate.

In the near term, Vatican officials were gaming out possible scenarios for Leo to recite the traditional Sunday noontime Angelus prayer. Vatican media personnel were seen at the Gemelli hospital laying cables for a possible live broadcast, as past popes have done when hospitalized.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said a recitation of the noontime prayer on Sunday from the hospital was a possibility, but would depend on how Leo’s post-operative recovery progresses. Such appearances have often served as a welcome confirmation of a hospitalized pope’s well-being for the 1.4-billion strong Catholic faithful and others.

Parolin said he remained concerned about the pope, but indicated that was also a function of his surprise at learning that Leo needed surgery.

“We can’t make any type of predictions,” Parolin said Thursday on the sidelines of a diplomatic event, according to the LaPresse and ANSA news agencies. “The question now is when he will return, under what circumstances he will return, and what the doctors say. And based on all these factors, the pope will then adjust his pontificate, if it needs to be adjusted,” he was quoted as saying.

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Trump wants the midterms to be all about himself. Judging by the ads, Democrats are happy to oblige

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump says he wants voters to pretend that he’s on the ballot in this year’s midterm elections.

His rivals are doing their best to help his case.

Democratic candidates and their allies have spent more than $163 million since Sept. 1 on television advertising that mentions the president, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from AdImpact, which charts media spending.

That includes airing ads that reference Trump on broadcast, cable and streaming nearly 180,000 times, the data shows. Republicans, meanwhile, have run ads that talk about the president just 16,000 times, at an estimated cost of $11 million, over the same period.

It’s a noticeable silence about the party’s dominant yet unpopular leader.

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Trump will rally Georgia Republicans despite party divisions in battleground state

ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump’s midterm campaign blitz arrives in Georgia on Friday for a rally with top Republican candidates in a state that has long been the epicenter of the president’s false claims about election fraud.

In Dalton, the population center of conservative northwest Georgia, Trump will appear with Senate candidate Mike Collins and gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson as part of the White House effort to boost Republican enthusiasm in an election that could reshape the final years of Trump’s second presidency.

“President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle.

Yet unlike some of Trump’s recent trips to solidly Republican states — Alabama, Montana, Tennessee — Georgia is a critical battleground. That means Jackson, a billionaire businessman, and Collins, a two-term congressman, need more than Trump stalwarts to defeat their respective Democratic opponents, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Sen. Jon Ossoff.

“I’m surprised Georgia Republicans want the president here,” Ossoff said. “The president coming to town reminds Georgians that Donald Trump and Mike Collins” have pushed policies that have “driven the cost of groceries, fuel and healthcare to their all-time highs.”

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Italy’s air traffic cut 50% after network problems as delays spread nationwide

ROME (AP) — Italy cut in half the number of aircraft that could be handled in its airspace Friday after overnight problems hit the data transmission network supporting air traffic control services nationwide, air navigation company ENAV said. It ruled out a cyberattack.

ENAV said it was using alternative data transmission systems to allow as many departures as possible Friday morning, including intercontinental flights, while operating at 50% of overall air traffic capacity.

The company said contingency systems had allowed air traffic to operate normally until 6 a.m. But as traffic increased and the problems persisted, it introduced measures to regulate flight flows and reduce the number of aircraft that could be handled in Italian airspace.

The disruption caused delays at airports across the country, including Rome’s Fiumicino airport and airports serving Milan and Bergamo.

ENAV said technicians had traced the anomalies to the data transmission network and were deploying all available resources to restore full operations and minimize disruption.

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Pakistan orders school inspections as relatives say they warned of risks before deadly collapse

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani authorities ordered inspections of all private schools in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after a school roof collapsed and killed 34 children and a teacher, as some victims’ relatives said the structure previously was reported to be weak.

The provincial government announced an investigation into the cause of Thursday’s collapse at Al-Khair school as victims’ families demanded justice. At least one family member said he had warned the school owner about leaks.

Police on Thursday arrested the school’s owner, Mohammad Khan. Peshawar Police Chief Saeed Ahmed said the building was structurally weak and Khan told officers that recent rains had weakened one of the roofs.

Authorities have locked the school building, where investigators were expected to arrive later Friday as part of the probe. Men and children gathered in the narrow street outside, where Muhammad Murtaza, a young boy dressed in brown and wearing a white bandage around his head, stood near a closed gate.

Other children from the neighborhood gathered around him, asking how he had survived. Murtaza said he was lucky to have survived after the roof of his classroom collapsed. “I will no go back to this school, as this is not a good one,” he said.

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Policing of France’s school protests clouds Macron’s final months and sparks uproar

PARIS (AP) — On one side, legions of determined teenagers protesting for their future by blockading schools and taking part in marches that have sometimes spiraled into violence.

On the other, one of the largest internal security forces in Europe, deployed by the government of an unpopular and outgoing president.

The result, playing out almost daily outside high schools and on the streets of France, is a nationwide storm of unrest. The mayhem of recent weeks — with mass arrests and hundreds of injured — has sparked an uproar in a country steeped in a centuries-old culture of protest. Even some police have turned on the government’s handling of the demonstrations.

For President Emmanuel Macron, who leaves office in May, it’s hardly the dream ending to his decade in power. He has faced a succession of protest movements that sapped his popularity and fueled broad criticism of how his ministers use police against demonstrators.

With the high schoolers, the outcry has grown particularly loud. That’s partly because the vast majority of the 8,000 people arrested in recent weeks are under 18 and because police riot-control weapons are blamed for life-changing injuries suffered by some young teens.

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Drone strikes in the Black Sea raise fears of Russian escalation to test NATO’s response

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — A string of drone attacks on at least seven cargo vessels in the Black Sea this month, off the coasts of NATO members Romania and Bulgaria, has some members of the alliance wondering if Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking escalation to test their support for Ukraine in its war against Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

The attacks in the two countries’ exclusive economic zones threaten a global shipping route and have left two people dead, with at least 25 still missing. They also run the risk of drawing other countries directly into the war for Ukraine.

Throughout the war, Russia has repeatedly bombarded Ukraine’s Black Sea and Danube river ports, leaving Kyiv increasingly reliant on alternative routes to get its grain exports to markets in Africa and the Middle East. Russian drones have repeatedly violated Romanian airspace near some of Ukraine’s Danube ports.

In the latest incidents, fires broke out on two ships struck by drones Wednesday and Thursday, one in Romania’s territorial waters.

Romanian President Nicusor Dan said Thursday in Brussels that “two drones” had hit the vessels but did not say whose drones they were. “There will be a reaction from the Romanian state,” he warned.

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Israel’s Arab-led parties could decide the election if anyone would partner with them

BAQA AL-GHARBIYYE, Israel (AP) — Mansour Abbas has done nearly everything Israel asks of its Palestinian citizens.

The leader of a small Arab political party condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. He rarely speaks about the war in Gaza or Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, instead focusing on local issues like crime. He broke a taboo in 2021 by bringing an Arab party into an Israeli government, in which he served as a loyal partner. This time around, the second-ranked member of his party list is a mainstream Jewish candidate.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rivals have said they won’t form a coalition with his or any other Arab-led party after the Oct. 27 election – even if that means months of gridlock and another round of voting.

It’s a measure of where Israel’s long-marginalized Arab minority finds itself three years after the Oct. 7 attack. Their speech is heavily policed, their leaders have been branded as traitors, and at one point their parties were outlawed before a court lifted the ban. Yet in a tight race, Abbas and other Arab politicians are poised to play a potentially decisive role in choosing the next prime minister — a rare opportunity to wield their influence.

The stakes in the coming election are “existential,” said Yousef Jabareen, leader of the Joint List of Arab parties, which adopt a less conciliatory line than Abbas’ Islamist Ra’am party.

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Heat, scarce snow melting away Slovenia’s Alpine glaciers. One is still standing

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — Drop by drop, Slovenia is losing its ice.

Faced with rising temperatures and declining snow in winter, the Alpine nation has seen one of its two glaciers melt away, and the remaining one shrinking irreversibly.

Slovenians know that they are no exception to the global trend of warming that scientists say partly is the result of human-induced climate change.

A record hot and dry summer in Europe this year further aggravated the situation — the glacier on Mount Triglav, Slovenia’s highest peak, completely melted away by the end of the summer, while the remaining one is still holding on. It is called Skuta and is located in the Kamnik-Savinje Alps to the north.

Andrej Slak, a mountain guide, has been in the mountains for the past 35 years. The change, he said, has been especially noticeable over the past decade or so.