11 people wounded in mass stabbing attack at Oregon church
A violent rampage erupted Sunday evening at a homeless shelter in Salem, Oregon, leaving 11 people stabbed just across the street from the city's police headquarters, according to authorities.
The attack erupted around 7:15 p.m. at the Union Gospel Mission's recently opened Men's Mission, a 150-bed facility located directly across from the Salem Police Department.
Among the wounded is at least one staff member, police confirmed.
The suspect, who is now in custody, had stayed at the shelter the night before and was attempting to check in again when the violence broke out.
Officials said the man began fighting just as he was supposed to hand his belongings over.
'Something … set him off, and he evidently had a knife in his bag,' said Craig Smith, Executive Director of the Union Gospel Mission, in an interview with NBC News.
'The whole incident is on video,' he added, noting the footage has been turned over to investigators.
All 11 victims were taken to a local hospital with what police described as 'varying types of injuries.'
Their current conditions have not been disclosed.
The shelter, which opened in 2021 to replace the organization's aging 1960s-era facility, was designed to serve the city's growing homeless population.
Footage shared on social media appears to show the suspect lying on the pavement as officers take him into custody.
'This is a very fresh incident, and detectives are gathering the facts,' said Angela Hedrick, a spokesperson for the Salem Police Department.
Authorities have not yet released the suspect's identity or specified what charges he may face.
Founded in 1952 by a group of local Christian businessmen, Union Gospel Mission was established to serve the city's homeless population.
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The Sun
13 minutes ago
- The Sun
Police officer, 36, killed after colleague ‘accidentally shot her in back during chase' as tributes paid to ‘tough' cop
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Daily Mail
18 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Inside story of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein's friendship after Elon Musk suggested the President appeared in FBI files. So what's the truth about claims of topless girls?
Like two fractious little boys trading playground insults they know are escalating out of control, the pair had been sparring all day – until one of them finally blurted out the slur he knew might end their friendship for ever. 'Time to drop the really big bomb,' wrote Elon Musk on his social media platform X on Thursday afternoon. ' Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' Musk didn't offer any clarifying evidence but soon added: 'Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.' The extraordinary implosion of the friendship and alliance between the world's richest man and the world's most powerful man has proved mesmerising. But with this thin-skinned pair of blowhards there was always a sense that their friendship could end in recrimination sooner or later. And any possibility of a truce, Washington and Silicon Valley insiders predicted yesterday, has disappeared after Musk effectively pressed the nuclear button. Although he didn't precisely spell out the accusation, Musk was clearly implying that the US government was concealing the truth about Trump's dealings with the notorious late financier and paedophile. It is no secret that Trump associated with Epstein, even if he has been reluctant to admit it. They moved in the same moneyed social circles in Palm Beach, Florida, from the late 1980s until 2004, when they fell out spectacularly over a property deal. Along with the likes of Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton, Trump is one among many powerful people known to have associated with Epstein and who have been mentioned in court documents related to the financier's decades of sexual abuse. Before he was re-elected President last November, Trump said he would have 'no problem' releasing the so-called Epstein Files, the remaining documents from the major FBI investigation into the multi-millionaire, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 ahead of his trial on sex-trafficking charges. While critics have challenged Trump's initial insistence that he barely knew Epstein – pointing out that they were most certainly friends (a fact Trump has since acknowledged) – there has been no evidence that the future President was complicit in Epstein's crimes. However, that hasn't prevented Trump's name being mentioned in some of the conspiracy theories swirling for months over why the US government has still not released the files. Predictably, within hours of Musk dropping his 'really big bomb', some of his 220 million followers on X were dutifully stirring the pot by circulating old evidence of the pre-scandal Trump-Epstein friendship. Musk retweeted several examples, adding a raised-eyebrow emoji. They included a 1992 TV news report on a party at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Palm Beach resort and home, in which Epstein and the future President can be seen talking animatedly with each other as they stand watching a crowd of dancing cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, two American football teams. They point to some of the women and Trump, gesturing to one, appears to say: 'Look at her back there, she's hot'. He then whispers in the financier's ear, leading Epstein to double over in laughter. Musk also retweeted a passage from a 2002 magazine article about Epstein in which Trump said: 'I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. 'It is even said he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.' Trump biographer Michael Wolff threw fresh fuel on the fire yesterday, when he claimed to have seen damning evidence from those years – evidence that Trump would never want made public. This supposedly included lewd images of Trump and the sex offender. 'I have seen these pictures. I know that these pictures exist and I can describe them,' Wolff told the Daily Beast. 'There are about a dozen of them. The one I specifically remember is the two of them with topless girls... sitting on Trump's lap. And then Trump standing there with a stain on the front of his pants [trousers] and three or four girls kind of bent over in laughter – they're topless, too – pointing at Trump's pants.' Wolff believes the alleged incriminating photos could have been in Epstein's safe when the FBI raided his New York home after his arrest in 2019. The Trump campaign dismissed Wolff's claims about the photos when he first made them last November just before the presidential election, saying: 'Michael Wolff is a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics.' But according to Wolff, Trump and Epstein 'shared girlfriends, they shared airplanes, they shared business strategy, they shared tax advice… they were inseparable'. The well-connected writer added, the lives of the two men intersected 'in a very meaningful and profound way… these guys kind of made each other'. Trump bought the Mar-a-Lago mansion and estate for a bargain $10 million in 1985 – and then Epstein purchased his own Palm Beach mansion two miles away five years later. Although Epstein never became a member of Mar-a-Lago, which includes a private members' club, he would visit for parties. The two men also dined together at Epstein's Manhattan mansion and travelled together between New York and Palm Beach, the most famous of Florida's billionaires' playgrounds. Trump and Epstein were photographed together repeatedly at Mar-a-Lago during the 1990s and early 2000s – Trump always wearing a tie, Epstein never wearing one. They were pictured with model Ingrid Seynhaeve at a 1997 Victoria's Secret party in New York. And they were photographed partying with Prince Andrew and enjoying a 'double date' at a celebrity tennis tournament with their respective girlfriends, Melania Knauss and Ghislaine Maxwell. In fact, Epstein boasted to friends that he had introduced Melania – now First Lady – to the future president. (Neither of the Trumps has corroborated this). Trump was between marriages at the time and enjoying his image as a playboy billionaire. His parties in New York and Florida were packed with models, cheerleaders and beauty-pageant contestants thanks to his business links. He owned a modelling agency and an American football team, and ran the Miss Universe pageant. The Mar-a-Lago parties, said eye witnesses, were memorable for the fact that women far outnumbered men, often by ten to one. Trump admitted as much in a 2015 interview, saying he'd been single at the time and adding: 'The point was to have fun. It was wild.' In 1992, Trump arranged for a 'calendar girl' competition for VIP guests at Mar-a-Lago. The 28 attractive contestants found they were competing in front of just two men – Trump and Epstein. The organiser of this vulgar contest, George Houraney, told the New York Times in 2019 that he tried unsuccessfully to raise his concerns about Epstein's involvement. 'I said, "Look, Donald, I know Jeff really well, I can't have him going after younger girls",' Houraney recalled. '[Trump] said, "Look I'm putting my name on this. I wouldn't put my name on it and have a scandal."' Mr Houraney claimed he 'pretty much had to ban Jeff from my events', but that Trump didn't seem to care. A former Trump adviser Roger Stone claimed in 2016 that Trump 'turned down many invitations to Epstein's hedonistic private island and his Palm Beach home', but insisted that he did visit the latter at least once and saw a bevy of underage girls there. 'The swimming pool was filled with beautiful young girls,' Trump later told a Mar-a-Lago member, according to Stone. '"How nice," I thought, "he let the neighbourhood kids use his pool".' Epstein would bring Maxwell to Trump events, too. Often referred to as Epstein's 'madam', the former socialite is now behind bars in the US following her 2022 sex-trafficking conviction. Steven Hoffenberg, a former Epstein business partner who was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme, said Trump 'liked' Epstein but he was 'crazy about Maxwell, a very charming lady'. A court filing would later reveal how Epstein's famous little black book of phone numbers contained 14 numbers for Trump, Melania and key Trump insiders. 'They were good friends,' Epstein's brother Mark told the Washington Post of Trump and Epstein in 2019. 'I know [Trump] is trying to distance himself, but they were.' Mark said Trump even used to give Epstein's mother and aunt free perks at one of his casino hotels in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Another insider who knew Trump and Epstein back then told the New York Post: 'They were tight. They were each other's wingmen.' Alan Dershowitz, a US lawyer who represented Epstein, recalled: 'In those days, if you didn't know Trump and you didn't know Epstein, you were a nobody.' Eventually, they fell out in 2004 when they both tried to snap up the same Palm Beach property, a mansion called Maison de l'Amitie (ironically, the House of Friendship) which was being sold cheap in a bankruptcy sale. Both of them attempted to lobby the trustee handling the sale before the auction. 'It was something like, Donald saying, "You don't want to do a deal with him, he doesn't have the money," while Epstein was saying: "Donald is all talk. He doesn't have the money",' recalled the trustee, Joseph Luzinski. The break-up was well-timed for Trump, as just a few months later, Palm Beach police started investigating claims that Epstein was sexually abusing local schoolgirls. In 2008, Epstein served 13 months behind bars in Florida after admitting 'solicitation of a minor for prostitution', so by the time Trump was running for president in 2016, he would have been keen to downplay this connection. In 2016, his lawyer insisted Trump had 'no relationship' with Epstein, adding: 'They were not friends and they did not socialise together.' A day after Epstein was arrested in New York three years later, Trump – by now President – announced that he hadn't spoken to him for 15 years and that: 'I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.' Trump staff stressed that he had once kicked Epstein out of his Palm Beach golf club. But others countered that, at one time, he most certainly had been a fan. Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign aide, claimed his boss 'would hang out with Epstein because he was rich'. He said he warned Trump about his Epstein links before his first White House run against Hillary Clinton. However, the aide alleged, Trump was confident that thanks to a close friend who owned the tabloid National Enquirer and who claimed to have compromising pictures of Bill Clinton on Epstein's Caribbean island, Epstein would cause more problems for the Clintons than he would for him. Trump has insisted he never visited Epstein's so-called 'orgy island' – the alleged location of some of his worst offences – in the US Virgin Islands, saying: 'I was never on Epstein's Plane, or at his 'stupid' island.' However, in February this year, US attorney general, Pam Bondi, released Epstein's flight logs which showed the president's name appearing seven times. The first flight on the financier's private jet was in October 1993 and on at least two journeys, Trump was joined not only by Epstein but by his then-wife Marla Maples, along with their daughter Tiffany and a nanny. Epstein owned several planes and it's possible Trump was specifically denying flying on the one dubbed the 'Lolita Express' for the sordid sex that reportedly occurred on board. When Musk notoriously called a British expat cave diver a 'paedo guy' after they clashed online over the 2018 cave rescue in Thailand, he ended up having to defend himself in a US libel trial (which he eventually won). Time will tell how Trump will take revenge on his former 'First Buddy' and his 'big bomb' claim that the President of the United States of America has something unsettling to hide over Jeffrey Epstein.
Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Couple locked in bitter feud with builder neighbour claim they have spent over £200k fixing home renovation gone wrong
It was supposed to be a simple extension that would turn a small 1930s bungalow into one couple's dream home. But for Samantha Wright, 46, and her partner Craig Smith, 54, their routine build turned into a toxic two-year-long nightmare that has left them facing a £200,000 bill due to the alleged fault of their own neighbour. The couple from Grimsby, Lincolnshire, say contractor Cristian Wooller, who has strongly denied the allegations, abandoned the job before it was finished. They claim not only was their house left as a building site, they have had to tear up the work that was done and start again. Therefore despite saying they paid their nextdoor neighboor £90,000 for the work, they have had to fork out another £140,000 to have it all redone brick by brick. Mr Wooller has disputed Samantha and Craig's version of events, saying the fee was not paid in full and he was pushed off the job. He also says all the work he did was cleared by building inspectors. Now, nearly two years after they started the work, the couple are yet to move into their new home and are filled with trepidation for when they do as the builder they blame for their problems is still living next door. Samantha, who has called for greater regulation of the building industry, said: 'The mental impact of it has been absolutely terrible. 'I struggle to concentrate and have a lack of trust. There's been times when I have been at the property and I've been properly shaking. 'I've said to my work colleague that you need to come with me just to collect post from the property.' Samantha explained that the issues began when they bought an old bungalow in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, after saving up for five years. They planned to put in a first-floor extension and transform the property into their 'dream home' in September 2023. Samantha said they also wanted to increase the ground-floor footprint by around five metres and update the roof. The 46-year-old told MailOnline: 'We spoke to a number of local builders, they gave us rough ideas of the price. 'Our actual neighbour was also a builder and we had been friends with him for nearly two years. 'He told us about what he'd done in the past. He initially said that he wasn't prepared to take on just doing an extension for somebody. Then he changed his mind.' However, Samantha said the problems with Mr Wooller first arose when it came to agreeing the price of the extension. 'It was supposed to be £85,000. Then the cost went from £85,000 to £89,000,' she said. 'Then there were issues found with the building allegedly and the cost went to £106,000. Then he tried to put it up to over £130,000. 'We had saved money and he knew that because he had lived next to us for a couple of years. 'We said look, we can't afford to keep this bill to keep increasing. We've agreed £106,000 in writing. That's that. 'Then the job went back on track but within two weeks it was the same situation - where he tried to increase the price again. 'This time it worked out to be something like £148,000. We said, no, this is what happened. You agreed £106,000.' It was at this point Samantha claimed their nextdoor neighbour walked away from the job, although he disputes this, leaving them in 'absolute shock'. She said: 'We'd spent £90,000 of the money that we'd saved up. We only had a bit left to try to finish the property. 'We then went down the route of trying to find new builders and had meetings with building control. 'In the end, the issues with the property were so bad it had to be taken down a bit at a time and then rebuilt. 'It was just so unsafe. Everything was wrong with it. 'The insulation was put in wrong so the house didn't have a roof, windows or doors, but did have rising damp already.' She added: 'Because he'd been our neighbour stupidly, we thought, you know, he's not going to do a bad job. He lives literally next door to us. 'Then things started to go wrong, and we double checked everything. 'He comes from the Leeds area and had been taken to court by another person I got in touch with. 'They won their case and then he bankrupted himself and was banned from being a company director. 'But that doesn't stop you from being a sole trader. 'There isn't any regulation in place. There's nothing that stops this guy from being a builder in this country at all. 'The government needs to do something. I used to be a bank manager years ago. If I had complaints against me I would be struck off. 'My sister works for a care home, and if she got complaints against her, she would be struck off.' Samantha said that she did consider taking the builder to court but there was no guarantee they would get their money back even if they did win. 'In the meantime, he actually tried to take me to court. After we only paid the £90,000 we took legal advice on whether we should pay the rest,' she explained. 'The advice was absolutely not, so we didn't pay it. 'He then tried to take me personally to small claims court on the grounds that we hadn't done that. 'So that cost me in excess of £5,000 to defend the claim.' Speaking about why she and Craig still want to move back into the bungalow, Samantha said: 'A question that gets asked a lot is surely you wouldn't want to move back in next to him. 'Me and my partner will always say, but we haven't done anything wrong. 'It's our dream house so that is the stance we are taking.' Mr Wooller has strongly denied all the allegations against him. He told MailOnline: 'The amount paid to us was £53,000 for labour and materials over the period we worked on the house. 'As requested, Sam was provided a full breakdown of everything and she was extremely involved throughout the 12 week period. 'This was a no-profit "mates rates" job, as her neighbours and friends, all materials were paid at cost and receipts forwarded to Sam so we all knew the costings. 'Problems arose as it became clear her original house was in an almost derelict state and this caused a lot of extra work, hence the original estimate given at the start changed by approximately £30,000. 'Ultimately they said they had run out of funds. 'Sam then became very difficult to communicate with and then threw us off the job. In front of witnesses she said if ever we went back on her property she would have us "done for trespassing". 'This had all come out of the blue and I did not even have my tools. The building then stood untouched for a year. 'Because of its unfinished state and the fact they declined advice to strengthen foundations and a harsh winter, with seven storms and gale force winds, the house it seems took some damage. 'I must also express that every stage of the build while we were on it was passed by the Building Inspectors. 'It's very hard to finish a job when you've been thrown off, threatened with trespass, not paid and ,ignored when you try to communicate and offer a way out which I did multiple times to no avail. 'Sam knows she is welcome to put any questions she has to us directly but she refuses to communicate. 'We did start proceedings through the small claims court for the final invoice including expenses such as machine hire totalling nearly £4,000 however due to costs we found it too emotionally draining and ineffective financially. 'The system seems unfair to builders who have been badly treated by customers. Our solicitor received a list of points they were claiming were wrong, and I answered every single one. 'These are still available for her should she wish to have them. We gave up on going to court and a drop hands offer was sent however yet again there was no response from Sam or her solicitor.'
