Midday Roundup: Pastor's brother under arrest in Sunday morning shooting

Church tragedy. Police have arrested the brother of an Ohio pastor gunned down in his office Sunday morning as services were winding down. The Rev. William B. Schooler, 70, had returned to his office around 12:30 p.m. as the choir sang. “We heard pow, pow,” church member Beulah Booker-Robertson said, recounting the shooting to the Dayton Daily News. “The usher at the door said ‘everybody get down, everybody get out.’” Police do not know what led to the killing, but relatives said the suspect, Daniel Schooler, 68, had a history of mental illness. His brother was the only target of the shooting, police said. William Schooler was a past interim president of the Dayton school board and current president of the local Baptist ministers union.

Sunni storm. At least 73 people died and more than 100 were injured in a suicide bomb attack at a busy market in Baghdad on Sunday. Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the twin bombings in the Shiite district of Sadr City. The second blast went off after a crowd gathered to help victims of the first explosion. ISIS, which comprises militant Sunnis, has stepped up its attacks on Shiites around Baghdad in recent days. This morning, the terror group attacked a funeral outside Baghdad, killing the local leader of a Shiite militia and at least 13 others with another suicide bomb.

Stolen souvenir? North Korea paraded a detained American student before the media in Pyongyang on Monday, where he tearfully confessed to a bizarre crime. Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia student, said he attempted to steal a political banner at the behest of a member of a church back home, who offered to give him a car if he brought the banner home. The member allegedly also promised to give Warmbier’s mother $200,000 if he was detained and didn’t return home. North Korea is known for coercing confessions from foreign detainees who recant the statements after their release. Warmbier was visiting the country in January with Young Pioneer Tours, an agency specializing in travel to North Korea, which is strongly discouraged by the U.S. State Department.

Moderate victory. Iranian reformists and relative moderates who support last year’s nuclear deal won the most seats in parliament in last week’s election, official results showed today. The two centrist parties together now hold a majority in Parliament—good news for President Hassan Rouhani, who wants to relax restrictions on freedom of expression in Iran and improve ties with the West. Moderates also won a 59 percent majority in the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body that would choose the successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei if he died. Khamenei is 76 years old and underwent prostate surgery in 2014, leading to speculation about his health.

Deadly jobs. Thirty-six people died in a coal mining accident in Russia’s far north, officials said Sunday. The dead included five rescue workers and a mine worker killed early Sunday when a third explosion rocked the Severnaya mine in Vorkuta, a town north of the Arctic Circle in the Komi region, emergency services said. The first two explosions struck late Thursday, killing four miners and trapping 26 others. The company that operates the mine called the methane gas explosion a geological event that had natural causes. Russia’s industrial safety watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, also said the accident was a natural disaster. A federal investigative committee is still looking into the incident and has yet to rule on its cause.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.