USA

DENVER, Dec 27 (Reuters) - A lone gunman shot four people to death and wounded three, including a police officer, on Monday in a Denver-area shooting spree that unfolded at several locations and ended with police killing the suspect, authorities said.

Investigators have yet to determine a motive for the rampage, which began around 5 p.m. when the gunman shot and killed two women and wounded a man near downtown Denver, Police Chief Paul Pazen said a news briefing.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota lawmakers met behind closed doors on Tuesday as they launched an impeachment investigation into the state attorney general for his conduct surrounding a fatal car crash last year.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Conservation experts in Virginia’s capital Tuesday pulled buttons, coins, documents and other artifacts from a time capsule found in the remnants of a pedestal that once held a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The lead conservator for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Kate Ridgway, said that the measurements and material, copper, match historical accounts, so they believe it’s the 1887 time capsule they’ve been looking for.

“It does appear that this is the box we expected,” she told reporters.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, authorizing $768.2 billion in military spending, including a 2.7% pay raise for service members, for 2022.

The NDAA authorizes a 5% increase in military spending, and is the product of intense negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over issues ranging from reforms of the military justice system to COVID-19 vaccine requirements for soldiers.

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — A man scheduled for sentencing Tuesday in the stabbing and shooting deaths of four people at a North Dakota property management firm is facing life in prison without parole.

A jury in August found Chad Isaak guilty in the grisly deaths of RJR Maintenance and Management co-owner Robert Fakler, 52; and employees Adam Fuehrer, 42; Bill Cobb, 50; and his wife, Lois Cobb, 45.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. home prices surged again in October as the housing market continues to boom in the wake of last year’s coronavirus recession.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, out Tuesday, climbed 18.4% in October from a year earlier. The gain marked a slight deceleration from a 19.1% year-over-year increase in September but was about in line with what economists had been expecting.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials on Monday cut isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who catch the coronavirus from 10 to five days, and similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said the guidance is in keeping with growing evidence that people with the coronavirus are most infectious in the two days before and three days after symptoms develop.

The decision also was driven by a recent surge in COVID-19 cases, propelled by the omicron variant.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol has agreed to defer its request for hundreds of pages of records from the Trump administration, bending to the wishes of the Biden White House.

The deferral is in response to concerns by the Biden White House that releasing all the Trump administration documents sought by the committee could compromise national security and executive privilege.

AP: The U.S. flu season has arrived on schedule after taking a year off, with flu hospitalizations rising and two child deaths reported.

Last year’s flu season was the lowest on record, likely because COVID-19 measures — school closures, distancing, masks and canceled travel — prevented the spread of influenza, or because the coronavirus somehow pushed aside other viruses.

“This is setting itself up to be more of a normal flu season,” said Lynnette Brammer, who tracks flu-like illnesses for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said Monday the nation should consider a vaccination mandate for domestic air travel, signaling a potential embrace of an idea the Biden administration has previously eschewed, as COVID-19 cases spike.

Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief science adviser on the pandemic response, said such a mandate might drive up the nation’s lagging vaccination rate as well as confer stronger protection on flights, for which federal regulations require all those age 2 and older to wear a mask.