School shootings a new trauma for Turkey as nation mourns

Outside a morgue in south-eastern Turkey about a dozen men rushed to carry a coffin, but it was light - just the weight of a 10-year boy.

BBC People carry the coffin of a victim of a school shooting during the funeral prayers at a mosque in Kahramanmaras, Turkey

His father followed behind, propped up by relatives on both sides but weighed down by grief. "Oh, my martyred child," he wailed, "oh my darling."

His son was one of eight children shot dead on Wednesday in the city of Kahramanmaras by a fellow student,14, who also killed a teacher. This city, traditionally famous for its ice cream, now has a new and terrible distinction – it is the location of Turkey's first deadly mass school shooting.

Relatives, neighbours and emergency services gathered around as coffins emerged one by one each draped in the Turkish flag. There was an angry yell from one woman towards a line of waiting police. "Too late, too late," she chided. "You didn't save the children." Another woman shouted that the attacker should be hung in the main square, but he is already dead. He was killed at the scene.

Outside the main mosque, a mother wept, leaning forward to stroke the coffin of her daughter, Zeynep. From the family home, beside the Ayser Calik Secondary School, she heard the shots that killed her 10-year-old – shots that have reverberated around Turkey.

Relatives told us Zeynep was clever and respectful.

"She became an angel, and she flew away," said Mahmut, her uncle, his voice breaking. "My only wish is to have more security at the schools, so this does not happen again. This pain landed on us. I do not want it to fall on anyone else."

The attack came just one day after a former student roamed the corridors of another school in the same region, shooting at will. He wounded 16 but killed only himself.

"There have been two attacks, in a very short period, both in cities with lower incomes," says Prof Asli Carkoglu, an expert in teen psychology. "These things do have a way of spreading."

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She is worried the deadly shooting here could become "an example for young minds that are frustrated enough".

The attack was a tragedy but "not a surprise" to people like her who work with young adults and adolescents, she said.

"There have been stabbings, beatings and attempted suicides in the school system," she told the BBC. "The guns weren't there before, but the violence was."

A solemn-looking crowd gathers around a coffin, which has the Turkish flag draped over it, while three women wearing head coverings rest their heads on the coffin.

As the victims of the attack were being lowered into their graves, more details were emerging about the killer. The authorities here say he referred on social media to anAmerican gunman, Elliot Rodgers, who killed six students in California in 2014. They also say an entry on his computer, dated 11 April, indicated there would be a major attack "in the near future".

He did not have to go far to get weapons – just to the bedroom of his father, a former police officer who is himself now under arrest. He has made a statement to the authorities, according to reports in the local media, painting a picture of a bright but troubled teenager who spent a lot of time playing war games on his computer and was attending a psychologist.

While mass school shootings are a familiar horror for the US, this is a new trauma for Turkey. The authorities want to calm the public and control the narrative.

Around 150 people have been detained for social media posts about the killings, accused of spreading misinformation, or "glorifying crime and criminals". More than 1,000 social media accounts and Telegram groups have been blocked.

There is no evidence of any link between the two attacks this week. And police say "initial findings indicate" that the killer in Kahramanmaras acted alone and was not linked to any terrorist organisation.

At the school gates, now locked, and guarded by police, teachers laid flowers in memory of the children who were killed where they should have been safe.

School shootings a new trauma for Turkey as nation mourns

Outside a morgue in south-eastern Turkey about a dozen men rushed to carry a coffin, but it was light - just the weight of a 10-year bo...
Severe storm outbreak poised to clobber central US during relentless week of tornadoes, hail and floods

A new severestorm outbreakwith potential intense tornadoes is set to slam the central US Friday, hitting areas already battered by a multi-day onslaught of twisters, massive hail and historic flooding.

CNN

The threat comes after nearly four dozen tornado reports and over 350 reports of hail — some as large as softballs — from Texas to the Great Lakes since Monday.

More tornadoes are expected, some of which could beEF3 or stronger, with the greatest threat centered in western Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, eastern Iowa and northwest Illinois. The storms will also be capable of destructive winds and large hail from Oklahoma City to Green Bay, Wisconsin, Friday afternoon and evening.

Ingredients align for a severe storm outbreak

A fresh surge of jet stream energy arriving in the central US on Friday will tap into Gulf moisture, likely igniting a severe storm outbreak, meaning there will be numerous storms, stretching from northern Texas to northern Wisconsin.

There is a Level 3 of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms with tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds Friday for places such as Chicago; Madison, Wisconsin; Kansas City, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Wichita, Kansas.

A Level 2 of 5 risk of severe storms is in place for Milwaukee; Oklahoma City; St. Louis; Des Moines, Iowa; and Springfield, Missouri.

Storms will erupt as soon as early afternoon in the northern part of the threat zone, then expand southward. This first batch of storms is most likely to spin up intense tornadoes — possibly EF3 or stronger — and unleash more destructive hail, possibly up to near the size of softballs.

Widespread damaging wind gusts of 60 mph to 90 mph will be capable of uprooting trees and knocking out power when they become the main threat by late afternoon and evening as thunderstorms race east. Tornadoes could also still spin up along the leading edge of these storms.

The storms could also produce flash flooding, including in already-soaked Chicago and Milwaukee, where there have been dozens of water rescues in recent days.

This system could produce one final burst of severe storms with a threat of strong winds Saturday in the upper Ohio Valley. The storm-weary central US will finally get a breather starting Sunday as a welcome change in weather pattern ushers in cooler temperatures.

Great Lakes brace for more flooding

Friday’s storms arrive as parts of the Great Lakes deal with significant flooding after repeated rounds of rain this week. The region is coming off one of its wettest starts to spring on record, combined with snowmelt from a very active winter.

Rivers in Michigan and Wisconsin have already hit major or record flood levels in over 20 locations.

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The Wolf River in Wisconsin was nearly a foot above its record flood stage on Friday morning, the level at whichmany streets in the village of Shiocton are covered by up to a foot of water. Shiocton officials said the village was“dangerously under water”on Thursday evening after ordering evacuations on Wednesday, warning “if you do not leave, you may not be able to get out.”

In Michigan, officials are closely monitoring several dams under stress from high water.

A long stretch of the Muskegon River remained in major flood on Friday morning, with some locations nearing a crest while others were still rising. The flooding forced mandatory evacuations for “anyone remaining in the floodplain below Croton Dam” in Newaygo County, the county’s emergency services said. In Evart, Michigan, the river was nearing a crest on Friday morning after it forced rescues the day before when water began to impact homes, according tothe Evart Fire Department.

Residents near and north of the Cheboygan dam complex weretold to be ready to evacuateon Thursday morning as water levels continued to rise, reaching5.16 inches below the top of the damas of Friday morning. An evacuation order would be triggered if water reaches 1 inch below the top of the dam, a news release from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources states.

Crews have been working around the clock to protect the dam, deploying pumps and sandbags and making alterations to increase water flow.

Dams across Cheboygan County are “at capacity,” county Emergency Management Director Lt. Jeremy Runstrom told CNN on Wednesday.

This includes the Alverno Dam, whichofficials are also attempting to defend from the deluge. Its integrity is particularly significant because failure would send a torrent of water downstream to the Cheboygan complex, Michigan State Rep. Cam Cavitt told CNN.

“If that dam would go, it would take the Cheboygan dam with it,” he said Wednesday.

On Thursday afternoon, residents living along a roughly seven-mile stretch of river between the two dams wereadvised to prepare and pack for possible evacuation.

In Antrim County, Michigan,officials have also advisedresidents and businesses downstream of the Bellaire Dam to prepare for possible evacuation. Water levels were stable and trending downFriday morningafter rising to within 12 inches of the top of the dam Tuesday.

A flash flood watchis in effect for the potential failure of the Hesperia Dam in west-central Michigan. Water levels were trending down, theHesperia Area Fire Departmentsaid early Friday morning, but noted residents downstream should “remain alert and have an evacuation plan in place should conditions change.”

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Severe storm outbreak poised to clobber central US during relentless week of tornadoes, hail and floods

A new severestorm outbreakwith potential intense tornadoes is set to slam the central US Friday, hitting areas already battered by a mu...
Club boss rules pioneering female soccer coach out of a permanent job with men's team

The president of the German soccer club where apioneering female coachwill take charge of her first top-division men's game Saturday has ruled out giving her the job on a permanent basis. He says he's acting out of respect for women's soccer.

Associated Press Union Berlin's interim head coach Marie-Louise Eta attends a training session in Berlin, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (Matthias Koch/dpa via AP) New head coach of German Bundesliga soccer club 1. FC Union Berlin Marie-Louise Eta attends a press conference in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) Union Berlin's interim head coach Marie-Louise Eta, center, attends a training session in Berlin, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (Matthias Koch/dpa via AP)

Germany Soccer

Marie-Louise Eta is coaching Union Berlin against Wolfsburg on Saturday as she starts a five-game stint as the team's interim coach in theBundesligauntil the end of the season. That will make her thefirst female coachin any of Europe's five biggest national men's leagues.

However, Eta previously signed a contract to coach Union's women's team from next season and club president Dirk Zingler wants to stick to that plan. Viewing her interim role as a five-game audition for the men's job is a “disservice” to the women's game, Zingler said.

“If (Eta) is really good, then she stays with the men, and if she's not so good, she goes to the women, that's not a discussion I'm having at all,” Zingler told Sky Sport Germany late Thursday.

“It's always a specialist, fact-based decision about who coaches which team and if we associate her with this discussion, then we're doing a disservice to her and to women's soccer as a whole. Marie-Louise Eta will be responsible for five games here and then she will take over the women.”

Zingler seems to be overruling Horst Heldt, Union's director of men’s professional soccer, who had said he wouldn't rule Eta out as a candidate for the permanent men's team role.

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Eta herself has said she's focusing on the team's performance on the field and suggested she isn't looking beyond that.

“Next year in any case I’ll still be a coach,” she said Thursday.

Eta previously made history as the first female assistant coach in the men's Bundesliga and has been coaching the under-19 men's team at Union.

With five games to go, Union is 11th in the 18-team Bundesliga and not yet mathematically safe from the threat of relegation. Eta's predecessor Steffen Baumgart was fired last week with the team having won none of its last three games, and only two of the last 14.

The announcement of the 34-year-old Eta’s appointment prompted sexist and derogatory comments on social media, leadingUnion to push back.

AP soccer:https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Club boss rules pioneering female soccer coach out of a permanent job with men's team

The president of the German soccer club where apioneering female coachwill take charge of her first top-division men's game Saturda...
Starmer rejects calls to resign over Mandelson appointment as pressure builds

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday resisted demands he resign over revelations that hisscandal-tainted pickfor U.K. ambassador to Washington was appointed despite failing security checks.

Associated Press British Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks as Starmer hosts social media industry leaders to discuss child safety online Thursday, April 16, 2026, in London. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP) FILE - Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. ambassador to the United States, leaves his house in London, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File) FILE - This March 28, 2017, photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, File)

Britain Politics

Starmer says he was not informed that the Foreign Office had overruled the recommendation of security officials in early 2025 not to givePeter Mandelsonthe job. Many considered Mandelson a risky appointment because of his past friendship with convicted sex offenderJeffrey Epstein.

Starmer said he was “absolutely furious” that he had been kept in the dark, calling it staggering” and “unforgivable.” He said he would “set out all the relevant facts in true transparency” to Parliament on Monday.

The top Foreign Office civil servant, Olly Robbins, took the fall for the decision and resigned.

The PM's job is in peril

The prime minister's job has been endangered by his fateful decision to appoint Mandelson, a trade expert and elder statesman of the governing Labour Party, as envoy to the Trump administration. It was a calculated risk that backfired spectacularly, and could bring down the prime minister.

Opposition politicians expressed disbelief that Starmer could have been unaware Mandelson had failed security vetting. Starmer’s office said he only found out this week.

Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, said Friday that “the recommendation was to not appoint Peter Mandelson to the role,” and that the Foreign Office ignored it. He said that was “astonishing,” but within the rules.

He said no government minister had been told of the security assessment.

Jones said the checks, carried out by a department known as U.K. Security Vetting, “go through financial, personal, sexual, religious and other types of background information, and that is why it is kept extremely private on a portal that only a few people have access to.”

Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said claims the prime minister didn’t know were “completely preposterous.”

“This story does not stack up. The prime minister is taking us for fools,” she told the BBC. “All roads lead to a resignation.”

Ed Davey, the leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, said Starmer “must go” if he misled Parliament and lied to the British public. The Lib Dems asked the prime minister's ethics adviser to investigate whether Starmer broke the government code of conduct by misleading Parliament.

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Starmer has repeatedly insisted that “due process” was followed in the appointment, which was announced in December 2024. Mandelson took up the Washington post in February 2025, after undergoing security vetting.

Mandelson had known Epstein links

Mandelson’s expertise as a former European Union trade chief was considered a major asset in trying to persuade the Trump administration not to slap heavy tariffs on British goods, and seemed to pay off when the countries struck a trade deal in May 2025.

But documents released by the government in March, after being forced to by Parliament, showed Starmer ignored red flags raised by his staff about the appointment. He was warned that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein, whodied in prison in 2019, exposed the government to “reputational risk.”

Starmer firedMandelsonin September 2025 after evidence emerged that he had lied about the extent of his links to Epstein.

Therelease of millions of pages of Epstein-related documentsby the U.S. Department of Justice in January reveled more and showed Mandelson’s relationship with the financier continued even after Epstein’s conviction in 2008 for sexual offenses involving a minor.

Emails suggested Mandelson had passed on sensitive, and potentially market-moving, government information to Epstein in 2009 after the global financial crisis.

British police subsequently launched a criminal probe. Mandelson wasarrested on Feb. 23on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

He has been released without bail conditions as the police investigation continues. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing andhasn’t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.

King Charles III’s brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known asPrince Andrew, is also under police investigation over his friendship with Epstein. He, too, has been arrested but not charged.

Starmer's recent setbacks

The prime minister hasapologizedto the British public and to Epstein’s victims for believing what he has termed “Mandelson’s lies.”

The Mandelson revelations are among astring of setbacksStarmer has faced since he led the Labour Party to alandslide election victoryin July 2024. He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repairtattered public servicesand ease the cost of living, and has been beset by missteps and U-turns.

The prime ministerdefused a potential crisisin February, when some Labour lawmakers called for him to resign over the Mandelson appointment. But he could face a leadership challenge after local and regional elections on May 7, in which Labour is expected to do badly.

Despite his struggles on the homefront, Starmer has been praised for his work on the world stage. He has played a key role in maintaining Europeansupport for Ukraine, and was in Paris on Friday to host a summit alongside French President Emmanuel Macron onreopening the Strait of Hormuz, the oil shipping route choked off by theU.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Starmer rejects calls to resign over Mandelson appointment as pressure builds

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday resisted demands he resign over revelations that hisscandal-tainted pickfor...
Kenley Jansen moves into third place on all-time MLB saves list

As he's done so many times before, Kenley Jansen preserved a one-run lead in the ninth Tuesday night to nail down a save.

USA TODAY Sports

With the potential tying run at second base, the Detroit Tigers closer induced an easy fly ball to center field to complete a 2-1 win over the Kansas City Royals on April 14 for save No. 479 of his career, moving him into third place on the all-time list.

Only Hall of Famers Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman have recorded more.

"It's awesome,"Jansen told reporters afterward. "It tells me that no matter the adversity you go through in life, in your baseball career, at some point, you think you're done, but you always have that fight in you. You just have to keep believing in yourself, even if you don't that day."

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More:LA Dodgers are MLB's melting pot, with complex history to show

<p style=Cleveland Guardians players warm up as the launch of NASA's Artemis II is shown on the center-field video board at Dodger Stadium on April 1, 2026.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> Miami Marlins shortstop Otto Lopez (6) and center fielder Jakob Marsee celebrate a victory against the Chicago White Sox at loanDepot Park on April 1, 2026. The Toronto Blue Jays' Kazuma Okamoto gets doused with ice water by teammates after a win over the Athletics at Rogers Centre on March 29, 2026. The Cincinnati Reds' Eugenio Suárez blows a bubble as he waits to bat against the Boston Red Sox at Great American Ball Park on March 28, 2026. The St. Louis Cardinals' JJ Wetherholt is doused with water by teammates after hitting a walk-off two-run single against the Tampa Bay Rays during the 10th inning at Busch Stadium on March 28, 2026. Two F-35C planes from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron NINE Detachment Edwards Air Force Base perform a flyover before the Opening Day game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on March 26, 2026.

Ballpark vibes and wild celebrations a during 2026 MLB season

Cleveland Guardians players warm up asthe launch of NASA's Artemis IIis shown on the center-field video board at Dodger Stadium on April 1, 2026.

The milestone was so important to Jansen that he addressed the team during its postgame celebration.

"The speech he gave to the team after, it was really cool to listen," said rookie shortstop Kevin McGonigle, who scored the go-ahead run in the eighth that gave Jansen the opportunity. "He talked about his career, and how it was a grind. It’s easy to quit, but never give up. Guys like that, you’ve got to listen, anytime they talk."

Tigers closer Kenley Jansen celebrates with catcher Dillon Dingler after recording save No. 479 of his career against the Kansas City Royals.

MLB all-time saves leaders

  1. Mariano Rivera 652

  2. Trevor Hoffman 601

  3. Kenley Jansen 479*

  4. Lee Smith 478

  5. Craig Kimbrel 440*

  6. Francisco Rodriguez 437

  7. John Franco 424

  8. Billy Wagner 422

  9. Dennis Eckersley 390

  10. Joe Nathan 377

This story was updated to change a video.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Kenley Jansen records 479th career save, now third on all-time list

Kenley Jansen moves into third place on all-time MLB saves list

As he's done so many times before, Kenley Jansen preserved a one-run lead in the ninth Tuesday night to nail down a save. With...

 

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