They did not release their identities.Police identified the gunman as Eugene Molter, 68, who had lived on the 15th floor of the apartment complex for six years.Police did not immediately reveal details of how the gunman died. One officer suffered minor injuries.Tactical units, aided by police helicopters, had searched the building and surrounding area for the gunman. Police sealed off a huge swath of the city, nine miles south of San Diego.The San Diego area has had a succession of shootings in recent months. Two schools east of the city were scenes of shootings in which students were injured or killed Two teenagers were charged in those incidents.. The USS Greeneville has returned to sea for the first time since its fatal collision with a Japanese fishing vessel on February 9. The USS Greeneville has returned to sea for the first time since its fatal collision with a Japanese fishing vessel on February 9.The submarine left Pearl Harbour yesterday for sea trials that are expected to take a day or two, Pacific Fleet spokesman Jon Yoshishige said.The sub was scheduled to deploy in June for six months to the Western Pacific, but the decision is under review, Yoshishige said.The Greeneville was in dry dock at Pearl Harbour until earlier this month to undergo US$2 million in repairs to its rubber exterior.Nine people onboard the Ehime Maru died when the Greeneville rammed the high school fisheries training vessel during a rapid–surfacing drill demonstration for a group of civilians.A three–admiral panel investigating the collision is expected to issue its findings and recommendations to Adm Thomas Fargo, commander of the Pacific Fleet, as early as this weekend. Fargo has 30 days to review the report and decide whether to accept or reject the recommendations, or make his own findings..

A state Senate panel has endorsed a plan to let voters decide whether to halt executions for two years in Texas, the nation’s most active death penalty state. A state Senate panel has endorsed a plan to let voters decide whether to halt executions for two years in Texas, the nation’s most active death penalty state.The Senate Criminal Justice Committee approved the proposal by a 4–3 vote. If approved by a two–thirds majority of both the Senate and House, the resolution would put the issue before voters in November as a proposed amendment to the state constitution.If the plan is approved, Texas’ death row would sit idle while the state studies how it administers the death penalty.The vote was split along party lines, with the panel’s four Democrats backing the resolution and its three Republicans opposing it. To gain approval in the full Senate, the proposal would need several votes from Republicans, who hold a 16–15 majority.Republican Sen Todd Staples voted against the resolution, “keeping in mind the rights of the victims and the victims’ families who have suffered through the heinous acts,” said spokesman Jerry Johnson.”Texans ought to have a chance to vote on their death penalty system,” said Sen Eliot Shapleigh, the Democrat who proposed the resolution.Texas executed a record 40 inmates in 2000. Six have been put to death this year.Texas’ death penalty system came under intense national scrutiny during the 2000 presidential campaign of then–Gov George W Bush. Bush maintained that no innocent person had been executed in Texas, a belief shared by his successor, Republican Gov Rick Perry.”The governor has said he does not believe a moratorium is necessary,” Perry spokesman Gene Acuna said.Many leaders of victims’ rights groups share Perry’s opposition to the resolution.”It just delays justice,” said Dianne Clements of the Houston–based group Justice for All.

“The moratorium movement is nothing more than an attempt to eliminate the death penalty.”Anti–death penalty groups, meanwhile, see the move as a welcome start to examining the system.”There are plenty of problems with Texas, having horrible representation for indigent clients, and a majority of a system is geared toward executing poor people,” said Lance Lindsey, executive director of Death Penalty Focus, a San Francisco–based anti–execution group.. US–hosted cease–fire talks between Israelis and Palestinians have ended without result, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned he would send troops into Palestinian areas again if attacks on Israelis persist. US–hosted cease–fire talks between Israelis and Palestinians ended without result today, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned he would send troops into Palestinian areas again if attacks on Israelis persist.In new violence, a Palestinian farmer was killed and three Israeli soldiers wounded in shootings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.The meeting between Israeli and Palestinian security officials came a day after Israeli tanks and bulldozers razed a neighbourhood in the Palestinian refugee camp of Khan Yunis in a Palestinian–controlled area of the Gaza Strip.Two Palestinians were killed, two dozen wounded and hundreds left homeless in the assault which Israel says came in response to persistent Palestinian mortar attacks on Jewish settlements.In an interview with the Maariv daily published today, Sharon said there were no plans to reoccupy areas from which Israeli troops withdrew several years ago, as part of interim peace deals. However, he said would again order troops into Palestinian–controlled territory, also known as Area A, if attacks on Israelis persist.”All those who carry out terror attacks, those who act as accomplices and those who support them need to know they will not be able to live in peace, even if they live in Area A,” Sharon said.The prime minister said Israeli troops operate in Palestinian areas almost daily, but did not specify whether he was referring to undercover raids. Wednesday’s assault on the Khan Yunis camp marked the first major ground assault on Palestinian territory since fighting broke out in the fall.At the security talks, held at the home of the US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, both sides made a series of demands, without reaching agreement on any of them. Another round of talks was set for Monday.The Palestinians asked that Israel lift its sweeping travel restrictions and withdraw tanks and troops to positions they held before the outbreak of fighting.Israel, in turn, said that Palestinian must stop their attacks before an easing of restrictions can be considered. “There were no conclusions,” the Israeli Cabinet secretary, Gideon Saar, said of the meeting which began late yesterday and lasted until early today.Just hours after the meeting ended, new fighting erupted.In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian farmer, 35–year–old Hafez Subah, was shot and killed by Israeli troops while walking near the Gush Katif block of Jewish settlements, Palestinian police said A second man was injured at the site.

Police said the shooting was unprovoked and that there were no clashes at the time.In all, 468 people have been killed since late September, including 385 Palestinians, 64 Israeli Jews and 19 others.Near the Gaza Strip town of Rafah, two soldiers were wounded in a firefight with Palestinians, the army said. In the West Bank, an Israeli soldier was wounded when a Palestinian sniper fired at an army position guarding an access road to Jerusalem, the army said. The road was briefly closed to rush hour traffic.This week’s escalation was condemned by the United States and the United Nations.In Washington, US State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said the US opposes incursions into, or fire from, Palestinian territories. “Obviously, mortar attacks from one side and bulldozing of Palestinian homes by the other undermine the conduct of serious, successful discussions,” he said.UN Secretary–General Kofi Annan called on both sides to abide by a cease–fire deal brokered by former US President Bill Clinton in October. Annan urged Israel to end its blockade of Palestinian areas and to release all tax revenues which it has withheld from the Palestinian Authority.”They need to do something dramatic to stop .. the spiraling violence,” said UN spokesman Fred Eckhard.. Sudanese authorities have detained a prominent journalist as he tried to attend a news conference by church leaders following the cancellation by police of an Easter ceremony.