World in Brief

Police: Michigan shootings suspect commits suicide

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - A gunman opened fire in two Michigan homes Thursday, killing his daughter, ex-girlfriend and five other people before leading police on a high-speed chase and taking hostages inside a stranger's home.

The five-hour standoff ended when he killed himself as authorities were telling him how to surrender.

The hostages were released unharmed, and 34-year-old Rodrick Shonte Dantzler died at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, police said.

The manhunt for Dantzler began earlier in the day after four people were found dead in one Grand Rapids home and three were discovered in another across town. Two of the dead were children.

"It makes no sense to try to rationalize it, what the motives were," Police Chief Kevin Belk said. "You just cannot come up with a logical reason why someone takes seven peoples' lives."

Following the discovery of the bodies, Dantzler led officers on a high-speed chase, crashed his car and took hostages he did not know inside a random home, police said. Dozens of officers with guns drawn cordoned off a neighborhood near a small lake in the northern part of the city and shut down nearby Interstate 96.

During the standoff, Dantzler fired sporadically at officers and inside the house. He vacillated between threatening to shoot the hostages and pleading with police to take him out, even asking negotiators whether there were snipers outside the home and where he should stand, Belk said.

But he changed course after several hours and asked how he could surrender. Belk said officers were talking with him on the phone about how to turn himself in when they heard the gunshot.

Murdoch kills tainted tabloid News of the World amid scandal

LONDON - The Murdoch media empire unexpectedly jettisoned the News of the World Thursday after a public backlash over the illegal guerrilla tactics it used to expose the rich, the famous and the royal and remain Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper.

The abrupt decision stunned the paper's staff of 200, shocked the world's most competitive news town and ignited speculation that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. plans to rebrand the tabloid under a new name in a bid to prevent a phone-hacking scandal from wrecking its bid for a far more lucrative television deal.

Mushrooming allegations of immoral and criminal behavior at the paper - including bribing police officers for information, hacking into the voice mail of murdered schoolgirls' families and targeting the phones of the relatives of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and the victims of the London transit attacks - cast a dark cloud over News Corp.'s multibillion-dollar plan to take full ownership of British Sky Broadcasting, an operation far more valuable than all of Murdoch's British newspapers.

Faced with growing public outrage, political condemnation and fleeing advertisers, Murdoch stopped the presses on the 168-year-old newspaper, whose lurid scoops have ranged from Sarah Ferguson's claims she could provide access to ex-husband Prince Andrew to motor racing chief Max Mosley's penchant for sadomasochism.

Casey Anthony sentenced mostly to time served

ORLANDO, Fla. - Casey Anthony looked like she was ready for freedom. For the first time since her trial began in late May, she let her hair down, and she smiled and occasionally played with it in the courtroom.

But she'll have to spend six more days in jail, and she turned stone-faced as the judge pronounced her sentence for lying to investigators about the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. Thursday's sentencing means Anthony will go free only slightly more than a week after she was acquitted in the slaying.

House rejects effort to block funds for Libya mission

WASHINGTON - The House voted Thursday to bar military aid to Libyan rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi but stopped short of prohibiting funds for U.S. involvement in a NATO-led mission now in its fourth month.

Sending a muddled message in the constitutional challenge to President Barack Obama, House Republicans and Democrats signaled their frustration with American participation in a stalemated civil war but also showed their unwillingness to end the operation.

The congressional unrest stems in large part from Obama's decision not to seek congressional consent for a third war in addition to years-long conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

EPA, Exxon Mobil to test air in homes near Montana spill

BILLINGS, Mont. - The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will collect indoor air samples from homes downstream of a Yellowstone River oil spill after residents raised concerns about health risks from the tens of thousands of gallons of crude that poured into the watercourse.

About 150 people showed up at an EPA meeting Wednesday night with questions about health risks, the duration of the cleanup, and whether the oil will permanently damage their livestock or property.

George Nilson, 69, said the fumes from oil that washed through his neighbor's property had been overwhelming.

Health officials say symptoms residents have reported, such as nausea, dizziness and shortness of breath, are likely to ease as the chemicals in the oil evaporate or break down.

- The Associated Press