World/Nation Briefs

Pastor cancels Quran-burning, then reconsiders

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - An anti-Islamic preacher backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, angrily accusing a Muslim leader of lying to him Thursday with a promise to move an Islamic center and mosque away from New York's ground zero. The imam planning the center denied there was ever such a deal.

The Rev. Terry Jones generated an international firestorm with his plan to burn the Quran on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and he has been under intense pressure to give it up. President Barack Obama urged him to listen to "those better angels" and give up his "stunt," saying it would endanger U.S. troops and give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool. Defense Secretary Robert Gates took the extraordinary step of calling Jones personally.

Standing outside his 50-member Pentecostal church, the Dove Outreach Center, alongside Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, Jones said he relented when Musri assured him that the New York mosque will be moved.

Musri, however, said after the news conference that the agreement was only for him and Jones to travel to New York and meet Saturday with the imam overseeing plans to build a mosque near ground zero.

Hours later, Jones said Musri "clearly, clearly lied to us."

"Given what we are now hearing, we are forced to rethink our decision," Jones said. "So as of right now, we are not canceling the event, but we are suspending it."

Jones did not say whether the Quran burning could still be held Saturday, but he said he expected Musri to keep his word and expected "the imam in New York to back up one of his own men."

Police: 2 killed, 1 hurt in Kraft plant shooting

PHILADELPHIA - A female employee who had just been suspended from her job and escorted from a Kraft Foods Inc. facility returned with a handgun and opened fire Thursday, killing two people and critically injuring a third before being taken into custody about an hour later, police said.

The shooting happened in the city's northeast section shortly after 8:30 p.m. inside a plant of the nation's largest food manufacturer, whose products include Oreo cookies, Philadelphia cream cheese and Oscar Mayer bacon, Lt. Frank Vanore said.

The woman returned to the building in a car 10 minutes after being escorted out and drove through a security barrier before re-entering the building on foot, Vanore said.

As she walked inside, she fired a shot at an employee who had followed her in and had yelled, "Hide, she's got a gun," Vanore said. That shot missed.

The woman then shot the three victims, said police, who didn't immediately know the victims' identities or whether they had been targeted. Officers responded and isolated the shooter in a room, and she fired a shot at them but missed, Vanore said.

Officers freed seven people who were "in a bad position" near the woman and were hiding, Vanore said, but he wouldn't refer to them as hostages. The shooter eventually was apprehended around 9:30 p.m., he said.

- The Associated Press