Briefly

UNITED STATES

Student, teacher killed in shooting

A teenage student opened fire Monday at a school in the northern US state of Wisconsin, killing two and wounding several others before being found dead, officials said. Shon Barnes, police chief in the state capital Madison, told a news conference that a teacher and a teenage student died at the Abundant Life Christian School. Police identified the shooter as Natalie Rupnow, a 15-year-old female student. She was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound when officers arrived and died en route to a hospital. The motive for the shooting was not immediately known.

RUSSIA

Blast kills nuclear defense forces head

An explosive device planted close to a residential apartment block in Moscow killed the head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces, Igor Kirillov, early on Tuesday, Russia's Investigative Committee said. Kirillov's assistant also died in the blast, triggered by the device which was placed in a scooter, officials said. Russian investigators have opened a case into the two deaths, according to the committee's spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko. Ukraine claimed responsibility for the killing later on Tuesday.

Agencies - Xinhua