Imran Khan, former prime minister of Pakistan, has spoken in public for the first time since being shot while participating in a protest march in the eastern city of Wazirabad. Khan said that if the two gunmen he observed had “synchronized” their attack, he wouldn’t have survived. He was seated in a wheelchair in a Lahore hospital. Read: Imran Khan accuses Pak army of recreating 1971-like situation BBC News quotes the PTI chief as saying: “Because I fell, one of the shooters thought I had died, and left.” Khan was barred from running for public office by Pakistan’s election board last month in a case that the former all-star cricketer said was “politically motivated”. One of the men suspected of shooting him confessed on camera and told police that he “intended to murder him” because the former cricketer was “misleading” the public. Uncertainty surrounds the circumstances of the confession. Read More: Pakistan's ex-PM Imran Khan stable after shooting at anti-govt rally

An attacker opened fire into a crowded bar in central Tel Aviv on Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding several others before fleeing into a dense residential area, Israeli officials said. Police said there were “indications" it was a politically motivated attack — the fourth deadly assault in Israel in less than three weeks at a time of heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions. The militant Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip praised the attack but did not claim responsibility. Hours after the shooting, the suspected gunman remained at large. Hundreds of Israeli police officers, canine units, and army special forces were conducting a massive manhunt in central Tel Aviv, searching building by building through densely populated residential neighborhoods. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with top security officials and ordered reinforcements into the city. “Wherever the terrorist is — we'll get to him. And everyone who helped him indirectly or directly — will pay a price,” he said in a statement. Also read: Israel raids West Bank, 2 Palestinians killed in gun battle Amichai Eshed, the Tel Aviv police commander, said the shooter opened fire at a packed bar at around 9 p.m. and then fled the scene. “Our working assumption is that he is still in the vicinity," he told reporters. “As of right now, there are indications pointing to this being a terrorist attack, but I have to be very delicate about this, and say that we are also checking other leads.” Israel's Magen David Adom emergency service said two men around 30 years old were killed. Another seven people were wounded, three of them seriously, it said. The shooting took place on Dizengoff Street, a central thoroughfare that has seen other attacks over the years. In the most recent, an Arab citizen of Israel shot and killed two Israelis and wounded several others on the street in January 2016. Thursday's attack took place at the start of the Israeli weekend in the popular nightlife area. Medics described scenes of panic, with dozens of people fleeing after the shots rang out. Tensions have been high after a series of attacks by Palestinian assailants killed 11 people just ahead of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, which began nearly a week ago. Last year, protests and clashes in Jerusalem during Ramadan ignited an 11-day Gaza war. Also read: Palestinian PM calls on int'l community to stop Israeli attacks against Palestinians Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian leaders have held a flurry of meetings in recent weeks, and Israel has taken a number of steps aimed at calming tensions, including issuing thousands of additional work permits for Palestinians from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Prior to the attack, Israel had said it would allow women, children and men over 40 from the occupied West Bank to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in east Jerusalem on Friday, the first weekly prayers of Ramadan. Tens of thousands were expected to attend. The mosque is the third holiest site in Islam and sits on a hilltop that is the most sacred site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. The holy site has long been a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence. Israel has worked to sideline the Palestinian issue in recent years, instead focusing on forging alliances with Arab states against Iran. But the century-old conflict remains as intractable as ever. Israel captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories to form their future state. The last substantive peace talks broke down more than a decade ago, and Bennett is opposed to Palestinian statehood. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally and considers the entire city to be its capital. It is building and expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which most of the international community considers illegal. It withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. But along with neighboring Egypt, it imposed a crippling blockade on the territory after the militant Hamas group seized power from rival Palestinian forces two years later. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since then. Hamas spokesman Abdelatif Al-Qanou said late Thursday that the "the heroic attack in the heart of the (Israeli) entity has struck the Zionist security system and proved our people’s ability to hurt the occupation.” On March 29, a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank shot and killed five people in the central town of Bnei Brak. Two days earlier, a shooting attack by two Islamic State group sympathizers in the central city of Hadera killed two police officers. The week before, an IS supporter killed four people in a car-ramming and stabbing attack in the southern city of Beersheba. The Hadera and Beersheba attacks were carried out by Palestinian citizens of Israel. The recent attacks appear to have been carried out by lone assailants, perhaps with the help of accomplices. No Palestinian militant group has claimed them, though Hamas has welcomed the attacks. Israel says the conflict stems from the Palestinians' refusal to accept its existence as a Jewish state and blames attacks in part on incitement on social media. Palestinians say such attacks are the inevitable result of a nearly 55-year military occupation that shows no sign of ending.

Police in southwest England said six people were killed, including the suspected shooter, in the city of Plymouth Thursday in a “serious firearms incident” that wasn’t terror-related. Devon and Cornwall Police said in a statement on Twitter that several other casualties were receiving treatment following the shooting. They declared a “critical incident” but did not provide details of what occurred in the Keyham district of the city. The area has been cordoned off. “Police have confirmed that six people have died in the shooting in #keyham in #plymouth. More people are being treated for their injuries in hospital. Just so unspeakably awful,” Plymouth Member of Parliament Luke Pollard tweeted. Also read: 1 Chicago officer killed, 1 wounded in traffic stop shooting Emergency services, including air ambulance and senior paramedics, responded to the incident at around 6:10 p.m. local time. Officers found two women and two men dead, police said. Another man, believed to be the offender, was also dead at the scene. All are believed to have died from gunshot wounds. Another woman was treated at the scene for gunshot wounds, but died later in a hospital. Johnny Mercer, one of Plymouth’s lawmakers, said in a tweet the incident is “not terror related, and neither is the suspect on the run in Plymouth.” Also read: Police: 3 dead, others hurt in Florida grad party shooting Devon and Cornwall Police also said it was not terrorism related.

The former employee who shot and killed eight people at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis was interviewed by FBI agents last year, after his mother called police to say that her son might commit “suicide by cop,” the bureau said Friday. Coroners released the names of the victims late Friday, a little less than 24 hours after the latest mass shooting to rock the U.S. Four of them were members of Indianapolis’ Sikh community. The attack was another blow to the Asian American community a month after six people of Asian descent were killed in a mass shooting in the Atlanta area and amid ongoing attacks against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. The Marion County Coroner’s office identified the dead as Matthew R. Alexander, 32; Samaria Blackwell, 19; Amarjeet Johal, 66; Jaswinder Kaur, 64; Jaswinder Singh, 68; Amarjit Sekhon, 48; Karli Smith, 19; and John Weisert, 74. The shooter was identified as Brandon Scott Hole, 19, of Indianapolis, Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt told a news conference. Investigators searched a home in Indianapolis associated with Hole and seized evidence, including desktop computers and other electronic media, McCartt said. Hole began firing randomly at people in the parking lot of the FedEx facility late Thursday, killing four, before entering the building, fatally shooting four more people and then turning the gun on himself, McCartt said. He said he did not know if Hole owned the gun legally.  “There was no confrontation with anyone that was there,” he said. “There was no disturbance, there was no argument. He just appeared to randomly start shooting.” McCartt said the slayings took place in a matter of minutes, and that there were at least 100 people in the facility at the time. Many were changing shifts or were on their dinner break, he said. Several people were wounded, including five who were taken to the hospital. Also read: Police ID gunman in FedEx shooting as young male in 20s “You deserved so much better than this,” a man who identified himself as the grandson of Johal tweeted Friday evening. Johal had planned to work a double shift Thursday so she could take Friday off, according to the grandson, who would not give his full name but identifies himself as “Komal” on his Twitter page. Johal later decided to grab her check and go home, and still had the check in her hand when police found her, Komal said. “(What) a harsh and cruel world we live in,” he added. Smith, the youngest of the victims, was last in contact with her family shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday, family members said in social media posts late Friday. Dominique Troutman, Smith’s sister, waited hours at the Holiday Inn for an update on her sister. “Words can’t even explain how I feel. ... I’m so hurt,” Troutman said in a Facebook post Friday night. Weisert had been working as a bag handler at FedEx for four years, his wife, Carol, told WISH-TV. The couple was married nearly 50 years. President Joe Biden said he had been briefed on the shooting and called gun violence “an epidemic” in the U.S. Also read: 8 dead in shooting at FedEx facility in Indianapolis “Too many Americans are dying every single day from gun violence. It stains our character and pierces the very soul of our nation,” he said in a statement. Later, he tweeted, “We can, and must, do more to reduce gun violence and save lives.” A FedEx employee said he was working inside the building Thursday night when he heard several gunshots in rapid succession. “I see a man come out with a rifle in his hand and he starts firing and he starts yelling stuff that I could not understand,” Levi Miller told WTHR-TV. “What I ended up doing was ducking down to make sure he did not see me because I thought he would see me and he would shoot me.” Paul Keenan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis field office, said Friday that agents questioned Hole last year after his mother called police to say that her son might commit “suicide by cop.” He said the FBI was called after items were found in Hole’s bedroom but he did not elaborate on what they were. He said agents found no evidence of a crime and that they did not identify Hole as espousing a racially motivated ideology. A police report obtained by The Associated Press shows that officers seized a pump-action shotgun from Hole’s home after responding to the mother’s call. Keenan said the gun was never returned. McCartt said Hole was a former employee of FedEx and last worked for the company in 2020. The deputy police chief said he did not know why Hole left the job or if he had ties to the workers in the facility. He said police have not yet uncovered a motive for the shooting. Police Chief Randal Taylor noted that a “significant” number of employees at the FedEx facility are members of the Sikh community, and the Sikh Coalition later issued a statement saying it was “sad to confirm” that at least four of those killed were community members. The coalition, which identifies itself as the largest Sikh civil rights organization in the U.S., said in the statement that it expected authorities to “conduct a full investigation — including the possibility of bias as a factor.” Varun Nikore, executive director of the AAPI Victory Alliance, a national advocacy group for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, said in a statement that the shootings marked “yet another senseless massacre that has become a daily occurrence in this country.” Nikore remarked that gun violence in the U.S. “is reflective of all of the spineless politicians who are beholden to the gun lobby.” FedEx Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Frederick Smith called the shooting a “senseless act of violence.” “This is a devastating day, and words are hard to describe the emotions we all feel,” he wrote in an email to employees. The killings marked the latest in a string of recent mass shootings across the country and the third mass shooting this year in Indianapolis. Five people, including a pregnant woman, were shot and killed in the city in January, and a man was accused of killing three adults and a child before abducting his daughter during at argument at a home in March. In other states last month, eight people were fatally shot at massage businesses in the Atlanta area, and 10 died in gunfire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said the community must guard against resignation and “the assumption that this is simply how it must be and we might as well get used to it.

A person entered a gun store and shooting range in a New Orleans suburb and fatally shot two people Saturday, prompting customers and staff to open fire on the shooter, a sheriff said. The shooter also died.