SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — A school employee shot and killed three people Wednesday in a town in northwestern Bosnia, police said. The shooter was severely injured after trying to kill himself.
The shooting took place around 10 a.m. local time at a secondary school in Sanski Most, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, said regional police spokesman Adnan Beganovic.
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SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — A school employee shot and killed three people Wednesday in a town in northwestern Bosnia, police said. The shooter was severely injured after trying to kill himself.
A police officer stands in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
A police officer stands in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
Police officers stand in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
Police officers stand in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
Beganovic told The Associated Press that the man used a “military weapon, an automatic rifle." He then attempted to kill himself and is in serious condition in a hospital in nearby Banja Luka.
The victims included the school principal, a secretary and a teacher, said Beganovic. Bosnian schools are closed for the summer holiday, but Beganovic said there were people in the school as repeat examinations were underway.
Regional N1 television reported that the man had a dispute with school management.
No other details were immediately available.
The Balkan region is awash with small arms and weapons since the 1990s wars, part of the breakup of Yugoslavia, particularly in Bosnia, a country of about 3.5 million people. According to a 2010 study by the United Nations Development Program, there were about 750,000 weapons in illegal possession in Bosnia.
Last month, a veteran entered a care home for older people in a quiet central town in Croatia and opened fire, killing six people and wounding six others.
Last May a teenager in Serbia opened fire at a school with his father's guns, killing nine children and a school guard. A day later a 20-year-old shooter killed nine people and wounded 12 in a rampage outside Belgrade, the capital.
A police officer stands in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
A police officer stands in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
A police officer stands in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
Police officers stand in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
Police officers stand in front of a secondary school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP Photo/Edvin Zulic)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A tech billionaire performed the first private spacewalk hundreds of miles above Earth on Thursday, a high-risk endeavor reserved for professional astronauts — until now.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman teamed up with SpaceX to test the company’s brand new spacesuits on his chartered flight. The daring feat also saw SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis going out once Isaacman was safely back inside.
This spacewalk was simple and quick — less than two hours — compared with the drawn-out affairs conducted by NASA. Astronauts at the International Space Station often need to move across the sprawling complex for repairs, always traveling in pairs and lugging gear. Station spacewalks can last seven to eight hours.
Isaacman emerged first from the hatch, joining a small elite group of spacewalkers who until now had included only professional astronauts from a dozen countries.
“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world," Isaacman said as the capsule soared above the South Pacific. Cameras on board caught his silhouette, waist high at the hatch, with the blue Earth beneath.
The commercial spacewalk was the main focus of the five-day flight financed by Isaacman and Elon Musk’s company, and the culmination of years of development geared toward settling Mars and other planets.
All four on board donned the new spacewalking suits to protect themselves from the harsh vacuum. They launched on Tuesday from Florida, rocketing farther from Earth than anyone since NASA’s moonwalkers. The orbit was reduced by half — to 460 miles (740 kilometers) — for the spacewalk.
This first spacewalking test involved more stretching than walking. Isaacman kept a hand or foot attached to it the whole time as he flexed his arms and legs to see how the spacesuit held up. The hatch sported a walker-like structure for extra support.
After roughly 10 minutes outside, Isaacman was replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to go through the same motions. Gillis bobbed up and down in weightlessness, no higher than her knees out of the capsule, as she twisted her arms and sent reports back to Mission Control.
Each had 12-foot (3.6-meter) tethers but did not unfurl them or dangle at the end unlike what happens at the space station, where astronauts routinely float out at a much lower orbit.
More and more wealthy passengers are plunking down huge sums for rides aboard private rockets to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Other have spent tens of millions to stay in space for days or even weeks. Space experts and risk analysts say it’s inevitable that some will seek the thrill of spacewalking, deemed one of the most dangerous parts of spaceflight after launch and reentry but also the most soul-stirring.
This operation was planned down to the minute with little room for error. Trying out new spacesuits from a spacecraft new to spacewalking added to the risk. So did the fact that the entire capsule was exposed to the vacuum of space.
There were a few glitches. Isaacman had to manually pull the hatch open instead of pushing a button on board. Before heading out, Gillis reported seeing bulges in the hatch seal.
Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon stayed strapped to their seats to monitor from inside. All four underwent intensive training before the trip.
It went by “in the blink of an eye,” said SpaceX commentator Kate Tice.
Congratulations streamed in after the spacewalk concluded at one hour and 46 minutes — or a full swing and then some around Earth.
“Today’s success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said via X.
Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of the Shift4 credit card-processing company, has declined to disclose how much he invested in the flight. It was the first of three flights in a program he’s dubbed Polaris; this one was called Polaris Dawn. For SpaceX’s inaugural private flight in 2021, he took up contest winners and a cancer survivor.
Until Thursday, only 263 people had conducted a spacewalk, representing 12 countries. The Soviet Union’s Alexei Leonov kicked it off in 1965, followed a few months later by NASA’s Ed White.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
This image made from a SpaceX video shows SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis emerging from the capsule, Thursday Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
This image made from a SpaceX video shows SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis on her way out of the capsule, Thursday Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
This image made from a SpaceX video shows the start of the first private spacewalk led by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman Thursday Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
This image made from a SpaceX video shows the crew of the first private spacewalk led by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman inside the capsule, Thursday Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
This image provided by SpaceX on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, shows a view of Earth and the Dragon capsule's Skywalker spacewalk platform shortly after the Polaris Dawn crew launched into an orbit. (SpaceX via AP)