Omaha gunman kills 8 at mall, then himself
OMAHA, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- An unhappy young man who shot and killed eight people at an Omaha mall left a suicide note predicting he would now be famous.
Five other people were wounded, two of them critically, in Wednesday's shooting spree at the Westroads Mall, CNN reported.
Police identified the shooter as Robert Hawkins, 19, of Bellevue, Neb., The New York Times reported.
Hawkins, dressed in camouflage and armed with a rifle, apparently went to the mall after losing a job at a fast-food restaurant earlier in the day and his girlfriend not long before, the newspaper said.
Debora Kovac, whose family had taken in Hawkins, told the Times he was estranged from his family.
"He was like a lost pound puppy," she said. "Nobody wanted him."
She said he called her less than an hour before the shooting and apologized for the trouble he had caused.
"We tried to get him to come to the house, but he said it was too late," Kovac told the Times.
She said he had left a suicide note in his room that concluded: "Now I'll be famous," CNN reported.
Petraeus: Iraq violence down 60 percent
BAGHDAD, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Violence in Iraq has dropped 60 percent in the past six months, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad told reporters Thursday.
Gen. David Petraeus attributed the improvement to increased cooperation with local militias, which in turn has led to progress battling al-Qaida and thwarting insurgent attacks, CNN reported.
He said the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops early this year had also contributed to the progress.
However, the general cautioned against reading too much into the estimate.
"There's nobody in uniform who's doing victory dances in the end zone," he said. "We see this as requiring a continued amount of tough work.
"When you've been doing this as long as some of us have, you just keep your head down and you keep moving."
Petraeus spoke during a visit by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who made similar estimates and said security, stability and democracy in Iraq are "within reach," the report said.
S. Korea chafing at nuclear wind-down
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is unhappy with the slow pace of North Korea's nuclear dismantlement, a spokesman said in Seoul Thursday.
At a scheduled news briefing, spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said Roh doesn't foresee the dismantlement of the Yongbyon facility being completed by the end of the year as mandated in an Oct. 3 agreement between North Korea and the South, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
"China is still discussing the schedule of the next session of the six-party talks with the relevant countries," Cheon said. "The (South Korean) government wishes the talks to held as soon as possible."
However, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who recently visited North Korea, said in Beijing Wednesday such a meeting before year's end was unlikely. The U.S. State Department confirmed the assessment in a statement from Washington, citing scheduling factors.
Communists protest Putin; Lugovy slams UK
MOSCOW, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Members of Russia's Communist party convened in central Moscow Thursday to demonstrate against the weekend state Duma elections.
"Putin stole the poll," protesters chanted in Lubyanka Square near the former headquarters of the KGB, EuroNews.net reported Thursday.
Putin's United Russia Party swept the parliamentary elections, winning 315 of the 450 Duma seats, leaving the Communist Party to finish far behind with 57 seats.
Andrei Lugovoy, who is wanted by officials in London for the death of intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, said his election to the Liberal Democrat Party was a "slap in the face" for England.
Diplomatic relations between Russia and England soured over the death of Litvinenko, sparking protests in front of the British Embassy in Moscow and before the Russian offices of the BBC.
Many major U.S. lottery prizes unclaimed
CHICAGO, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Some $570 million in various U.S. lottery prizes went unclaimed last year, USA Today reported Thursday.
Illinois Lottery spokesman Courtney Hill told the newspaper the state has one outstanding $11.7 million Lotto ticket sold July 28 at an gas station in Chicago, along with three $250,000 Mega Millions tickets approaching expiration.
"If a lottery prize hasn't been picked up in three months, it probably never will be," Hill said.
The majority of lottery tickets expire after either 90 days, 180 days or one year, depending on state rules.
Powerball and Mega Millions, the two multistate lottery games, return unclaimed prizes to the states proportionately, based on the number of tickets sold.
There are 42 states that operate lotteries, and the majority of them keep unclaimed prize money for education and other programs, the report said.
There is a $31 million unclaimed Mega Millions ticket sold this year in New York while the biggest-ever lost fortune was a $51.7 million Powerball ticket sold in Indiana in 2002.
