At least three people were killed after a gunman opened fire Thursday at a manufacturing facility in the US state of Maryland, according to the Washington County Sheriff's Office.

Deputies responded to the shooting at Columbia Machine Inc. in the town of Smithsburg at approximately 2.30 p.m. Eastern Time (1830GMT), said the office in a statement.

"Units immediately responded and located 4 victims, 3 of which were deceased at the scene and one who was critically injured," it said.

It said the suspect fled the scene prior to law enforcement's arrival.

"The description (of the suspect) was quickly released to additional responding units and the suspect’s vehicle was encountered by Maryland State Police in the area of Maplesville Road and Mount Aetna Road, (and) gunshots were exchanged between the suspect and the trooper. Both were injured and transported for medical treatment," the statement added.

The shooting came in the wake of a series of mass shootings that have shocked and angered Americans and the country’s leadership./aa

With 10 days to go before Colombia’s runoff election, the two presidential campaigns are bringing out their big guns. 

The most recent polls show a tie between the populist anti-establishment candidate Rodolfo Hernandez and left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro after one of the most polarized campaigns the country has seen in decades.

A series of videos were leaked Thursday in which Petro’s campaign advisers are shown discussing strategies to attack and discredit his political rivals. Petro's coalition has sought to compare the situation to the 1970s Watergate scandal in the US, saying it has been the victim of a spy case.

In statements made from Miami, Hernandez referred to the controversial videos, saying that Petro and his campaign team are a "criminal gang” and claiming that he fears for his life because his opponent´s coalition "has no limits and is willing to do anything to reach power."

“I have already received with concern (the news) that they are trying to kill me, and they are not killing me with guns, they are killing me with a knife,” he said.

Hernandez attended media interviews and a meeting with Colombian business leaders in Miami, where he said he will cancel public campaign events until June 19 because he is certain that “his life is in danger.” He also said he does not know when he will be returning to the country.​​​​​​​

In the first electoral round, Petro garnered 40% of the vote against 28% for Hernandez.

The independent candidate Hernandez intends to capture a majority of votes from the candidates who lost in the first round. His electoral promises include ending corruption, providing drug addicts with free narcotics and fully implementing the 2016 peace deal with FARC guerrillas.

Petro, a 62-year-old former guerrilla member, has said he wants to tackle inequality, hunger and poverty./aa

Liverpool's Egyptian star Mohamed Salah won the 2022 Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) Player of the Year award Thursday. 

"Mo Salah takes home PFA Player of the Year Award," the PFA said on its website, adding he has won the award for the second time in his career.

A Liverpool regular since 2017, Salah previously won the 2018 PFA Player of the Year award.

His club Liverpool also paid tribute to the 29-year-old for this honor.

"The PFA Player of the Year…Congratulations, Mo Salah," the Reds said on Twitter.

"It’s a great honour to win a trophy, individual or collective, and this one is big, so very happy and very proud of that. This one is a really good one to win, especially because it’s voted by players. It shows you that you’ve worked really hard and you get what you worked for," Salah said.

Salah scored 23 goals and made 14 assists in 35 English Premier League appearances in the 2021-22 season, in which Liverpool finished second.

Manchester City were crowned the 2022 champions after they bagged 93 points in 38 matches. Their nearest opponents, Liverpool, had 92.

Meanwhile, Manchester City's English midfielder Phil Foden, 22, won a second consecutive PFA Young Player Of The Year award.

Foden, who previously clinched the award in 2021, scored nine goals in 28 Premier League matches to help Man City win the 2022 league title.

In addition, the PFA Premier League Team of the Year was also revealed as Salah has been included in the best starting 11.

- PFA Premier League Team of Year

Goalkeeper: Alisson Becker (Liverpool)

Defenders: Joao Cancelo (Manchester City), Antonio Rudiger (Chelsea), Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool)

Midfielders: Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva (Manchester City), Thiago Alcantara (Liverpool)

Forwards: Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane (Liverpool), Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)/a

The US space agency NASA said Thursday it will set up a team to study unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).

The new independent team will start early in the fall to examine events that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena.

"The study will focus on identifying available data, how best to collect future data, and how NASA can use that data to move the scientific understanding of UAPs forward," the agency said in a statement.

It said unidentified phenomena in the atmosphere are of interest for national security and air safety.

"NASA believes that the tools of scientific discovery are powerful and apply here also," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters in Washington.

"We have access to a broad range of observations of Earth from space – and that is the lifeblood of scientific inquiry. We have the tools and team who can help us improve our understanding of the unknown. That’s the very definition of what science is. That’s what we do," he added.

The agency said there is no evidence UAPs are extra-terrestrial in origin.

The study team will be led by astrophysicist David Spergel, who is president of the Simons Foundation in New York City and previously chair of the astrophysics department at Princeton University./aa

After the European Central Bank's decision on interest rate hikes for July and September, Governor Christine Lagarde said: "We anticipate that a gradual but sustained path of further increases in interest rates will be appropriate."

The bank's interest rate decisions will depend on incoming data, especially inflation figures, she said.

Telling how the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war affects the eurozone economy and causes uncertainty, she stressed: "But the conditions are in place for the economy to continue to grow and to recover further over the medium term."

She underlined that the bank will work to bring inflation back down to its target of 2%, adding that high inflation is a major challenge for all the countries.

"On the basis of our updated assessment, we decided to take further steps in normalizing our monetary policy," she added.

The bank will continue to take flexibility as an element of monetary policy "whenever threats to monetary policy transmission jeopardize the attainment of price stability,” she highlighted./agencies

The European Union has allocated another €205 million ($220 million) in humanitarian assistance for Ukraine “in light of the soaring humanitarian needs,” it announced on Thursday.

The new addition brings the bloc’s total humanitarian aid contribution to over €700 million in response to Russia's war on Ukraine.

“In this moment of crisis, our duty is to stand by the most vulnerable,” said EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic. “With this funding our humanitarian partners are providing food, water, healthcare, shelter, protection and cash assistance.”

Lenarcic, who visited the Ukrainian city of Irpin to meet humanitarian organizations and high level government officials to help coordinate EU's response on the ground, said he was "deeply shocked about the atrocities committed here."

"Civilians and civilian infrastructure must not be a target, never, nowhere. Again, I most strongly condemn the deliberate attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure," he tweeted.

The 27 member states, as well as Türkiye, Norway and North Macedonia, have carried out the "largest ever mobilization" of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to enable aid into Ukraine, the statement said.

In addition to the financial humanitarian aid, they provided more than 38,000 tons of aid, such as first aid kits, food, protective clothing, fire trucks, mobile hospitals, and energy supplies for a total value of €373 million.

Over 14 million people had to flee their homes in Ukraine since the beginning of the war in February, of which almost 7 million people have crossed the border to neighboring countries.

According to the UN, up to 15.7 million people require humanitarian assistance in the country.

Tons of Ukrainian and Russian grains and oilseeds remain shut in due to the military conflict, causing global shortages and price hikes. Russia, which is accused of using food as a weapon, says Western sanctions are to blame for the food shortages.​​​​​​​/agencies

Near northern Syria, a region where YPG/PKK terror group has large areas of control and oppresses local populations, this week the group kidnapped two brothers, ages 9 and 10, to join its armed ranks.

Ibrahim, just 9 years old, Muhammed Sevki Yusuf, 10, – both born in Afrin, northern Syria – were kidnapped last Sunday by YPG/PKK terrorists in the city center of Aleppo, some 42 kilometers (26 miles) away, local sources said.

The terror group usually takes the children it kidnapped or detained to terror camps for armed training. The use of children as armed combatants is expressly forbidden under international humanitarian law and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court.

YPG/PKK terrorists also do not allow forcibly recruited children to contact their families.

‘Abductions of children under age 10 by terrorist YPG/PKK on the rise’

Abdulaziz Temmo, the head of Syria’s Independent Kurdish Association, told Anadolu Agency that the abduction of children under age 10 by YPG/PKK terrorists has risen over the last six months.

By kidnapping them, the terror group aims to tear the children away from their schools, families, and social life, he said.

“These children are taken to Mount Qandil (northern Iraq). Since their ties with their families were severed at an early age, their new family became the terror group. Cases of 10-year-olds being kidnapped started to increase. We have always condemned this,” said Temmo.

Qandil is the base of PKK terror group, while the YPG/PKK is the group’s Syrian branch.

While recognizing the PKK as a terror group, some Western countries have refused to recognize its link to the YPG/PKK, but its child recruits being taken from northern Syria to the PKK base in northern Iraq is yet another piece of evidence that the two terror groups are in fact the same.

This February, YPG/PKK terrorists kidnapped four children, age 14-16, from the Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) region, Syria, an area the terror group occupies.

This March, a 14-year-old was kidnapped by YPG/PKK terrorists, and two girls, ages 16 and 17, were kidnapped by the terror group from Aleppo, adjacent to northern Syria.

The terror group also kidnapped four children from Aleppo in April, according to local sources.

YPG/PKK terror group keeps recruiting, using children in Syria

Since 2016, Türkiye has launched several military operations across its border to free northern Syria from YPG/PKK terror group's domination, secure the border region, and make the area safe for locals.

After suffering heavy losses from these Turkish counter-terrorist operations, including similar ones into northern Iraq, YPG/PKK terror group is forcing minors to serve in combat zones, in flagrant violation of both the laws of war and human rights agreements.

The terror group declared mobilization in response to Turkish counter-terrorist cross-border operations, and it uses its proxies in Syria to recruit children.

The terror group's practice of abducting children and pushing them into combat zones is nothing new, as seen in the US State Department’s 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report.

According to the report, YPG/PKK terror group forcibly recruited girls as young as 12 from refugee camps located in northwestern Syria.

Moreover, a January 2020 UN human rights office (OHCHR) report said its findings suggest YPG/PKK is using children as fighters in Syria.

In July 2019, Virginia Gamba, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, signed an action plan with the SDF – the label YPG/PKK terror group uses in Syria – to end and prevent the recruitment and use of minors under 18, but the terror group has violated the plan.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the US, and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the PKK's Syrian offshoot./aa