Man kills five in condo complex

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian police identified the man who shot and killed five people and wounded another at a suburban Toronto condominium as a 73-year-old resident of the building and said three of the five people he killed were on the condo board.

During a news conference Monday, Chief James MacSween of the York Regional Police identified the suspect in Sunday night’s attack in Vaughan, Ontario, as Francesco Velli. He said Velli fatally shot three men and two women and wounded a 66-year-old woman, who is hospitalized.

“Three victims were members of the condominium board,” he said.

Police said officers were called to an active shooting at the building at around 7:20 p.m. Sunday, and that an officer fatally shot Velli inside the building, which is where Velli and the victims lived.

Veilli had a long-running dispute with the condo board and thought the building’s electrical room was making him sick, and that board members and the building’s developer were to blame, court documents show.

MacSween said police are still investigating the motive for the attack, which occurred at three separate units in the building.

Special Investigation Unit spokesperson Kristy Denette said police found the victims on different floors. She said Velli had a semiautomatic handgun and that investigators don’t believe he exchanged fire with the officer who killed him.

FBI: Teens targeted by online ‘sextortion’

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI sounded the alarm Monday about an explosive increase in teenage boys being targeted online and extorted for money after being tricked into sending sexually explicit pictures.

At least 3,000 children, mostly teenage boys, have been victims of the schemes that are connected to more than a dozen suicides this year, a scale that U.S. authorities have not seen before, Justice Department officials said. Many think they are chatting online with kids around their own age but are quickly manipulated into sending explicit pictures and then blackmailed for money with threats to release the images, the FBI said.

Most victims are between 14 and 17, but kids as young as 10 have been targeted.

The FBI said it was issuing the national public safety alert now since kids may be spending more time online as schools close for winter break.

Dutch PM apologizes for nation’s role in slave trade

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized Monday on behalf of his government for the Netherlands’ role in slavery and the slave trade, in a speech welcomed by activists as historic but lacking in concrete plans for repair and reparations.

“Today I apologize,” Rutte said in a 20-minute speech that was greeted with silence by an invited audience at the National Archive.

NEWS SERVICES