ORLANDO, Fla. – The latest on the Florida nightclub shooting:
One of the survivors of the nightclub shooting says she went from having the time of her life with her friends to the worst night of her life in a matter of minutes.
Twenty-year-old Patience Carter talked about the night from Florida Hospital Orlando on Tuesday where she is recovering from a gunshot wound. Carter says she was with a group of friends at the Pulse nightclub when she heard the gunshots on early Sunday.
Carter says one of her friends was killed and another was also shot and has more severe injuries. She described hearing the gunman’s calls to 911 in which he said he was shooting because he wanted America to stop bombing his country. She says he spoke in Arabic and pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State.
The gunman was born in New York and his parents were born in Afghanistan.
She also described a person that she didn’t know shielding her from being hit as the hostage situation came to a close and the gunman was killed by police.
Before speaking, Carter read a poem that ended with the words: “The guilt of being alive is heavy.”
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1:30 p.m.
A survivor who hid in the handicapped stall as a gunman attacked a gay Florida nightclub says he had to drag himself out to safety and is just grateful to be alive.
From a bed Tuesday at the hospital that treated him, Angel Santiago Jr. described to reporters how he survived the massacre. He says he got to club Pulse in Orlando about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. About 2 a.m., as the last drinks were served, he and the two friends he was with heard gunshots.
They made their way to the bathroom and hid in the large stall. Santiago says about 15 people total were in there. He was shot in the left foot and right knee. The group tried to be quiet. He eventually dragged himself, unable to walk, out of the bathroom and toward police. He used his cellphone light to indicate his presence to officers, who soon grabbed him and got him outside.
He says he could see the bullet hole on one of his friends, who also is recovering. He says he never saw the shooter or heard him speak.
He says: “I don’t even know how I’m alive today.”
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1 p.m.
President Barack Obama says anti-Muslim rhetoric from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is “not the America we want.”
Obama is arguing that treating Muslim-Americans differently won’t make the U.S. safer. He says it will make the country less safe by fueling the notion among followers of the Islamic State group that the West hates Muslims.
Obama lashed out a day after presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump doubled down on his proposal to temporarily ban foreign Muslims from entering the U.S.
Obama says the U.S. was founded on freedom of religion and that there are no religious tests in America.
He says such talk makes Muslim-Americans feel like their government is betraying them.
Obama commented after meeting with his national security advisers on the threat posed by IS. He also was briefed on the investigation into the Orlando nightclub shooting.
A Tennessee lawmaker says his office has received threats for planning to give away the same type of semi-automatic rifle used by a gunman in the massacre of 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.
Republican state Rep. Andy Holt, a staunch gun rights supporter, had offered the AR-15 as a door prize at a fundraiser before the shootings took place. Following heavy criticism in the aftermath of the attacks, he said he would give away a second gun.
State Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini on Monday said that the winner of the raffle could be “the next mass shooter.”
Holt said his office was contacted repeatedly by an anonymous caller who said he was armed and threatened to pay the legislative office a visit on Tuesday.
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12:40 p.m.
A man who knew the Orlando nightclub shooter as a teenager says the student infuriated his peers by joking about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Robert Zirkle says he and Omar Marteen lived in Stuart, Florida, and rode the same bus, though they attended different schools.
Zirkle says he and his friends were generally on good terms with Mateen until 9/11. Zirkle says Mateen made airplane and explosion sounds and appeared to be joking about the attacks.
Zirkle says, “My group of friends told him it wasn’t a joke, and if he didn’t knock it off he was going to have problems.”
Zirkle is now 29 and lives in Johnson City, Tennessee. He says he would see Mateen when both teens worked at the mall but didn’t have much contact after those jobs.
Chick-fil-A employees in Orlando, Florida, were serving food this past Sunday after the massacre at a gay night club, even though the chain is normally closed on Sundays in a nod to the religious beliefs of its founder.
The Facebook page for a local Chick-fil-A says a few employees from at least one Orlando location made food for people waiting in line to donate blood after the massacre that left 49 dead and dozens more injured. Another location noted that it simply responded just like numerous other Orlando businesses and residents.
Chick-fil-A touched off protests by gay rights advocates in 2012 after its CEO Dan Cathy voiced support for “biblical families” and opposition to same-sex marriages. As it seeks to expand its national footprint, the company has tried to draw a distinction between its business and the beliefs of its ownership.
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12:25 p.m.
A law enforcement official says investigators who have spoken with the Orlando gunman’s wife are looking into whether the two of them were recently at or outside the nightclub he attacked.
The official is familiar with the investigation, but was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official says investigators had been told that Mateen and his wife had been at the Pulse nightclub on a prior occasion and were trying to confirm the accuracy of that statement.
The official says the FBI has Mateen’s phone and will try to use data from it to see if he had visited the club before.
The official says investigators have not ruled out charging anyone who may have had advance knowledge of the attack.
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The father of the gunman who attacked a gay Orlando nightclub says his son was not gay.
A U.S. official briefed on the case said Tuesday that the FBI is investigating reports that Omar Mateen had been a regular at the nightclub and had used gay dating apps. Investigators are looking into possible motives for the attack and have said Mateen appears to be a “homegrown extremist” who touted support not just for the Islamic State, but other radical groups that are its enemies.
Mateen’s father, Seddique Mateen, said he never saw his son exhibit homophobic behavior except for one time in Miami when he saw two men kissing. The father answered questions from reporters on Tuesday at his home in Port Saint Lucie.
He added that his son’s second wife, Noor Zahi Salman, returned to their apartment late Monday because she “needed clothes to wear.” He said she is in shock, adding that she and his grandson are in Florida, but he didn’t say where.
Asked about reports that his son celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he said that there may have been an incident at school, but he didn’t want to discuss it in detail.
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11:40 a.m.
The owner of the Orlando nightclub where dozens of people were massacred says her club will be rebuilt as a tribute and will honor those who were killed, wounded or left grieving.
Barbara Poma told the Today show’s Matt Lauer that she “will not let hate win” in the aftermath of the shootings.
Poma said she named the club Pulse in honor of her brother, who died from AIDS in 1991. The name was a way of keeping his heartbeat alive. She wanted Pulse to be “a safe place” for the gay community.
She says the club will be rebuilt as a tribute to the people who lost their lives, as well as the survivors and their relatives.
She also says she can’t stop imagining the terror felt by those inside the nightclub amid the killing.
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11:40 a.m.
A city-owned cemetery is donating free plots to the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.
Don Price is the sexton at Greenwood Cemetery in Orlando. He said Tuesday that the city is donating space to any of the victims’ families. The cemetery was founded in 1880.
He says two families are already interested and have set up appointments to meet with the cemetery Tuesday.
Price says the county’s medical examiner started releasing the first of the bodies Monday night.
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11:35 a.m.
A doctor at the hospital treating nightclub shooting victims says that of the six patients who remain in the intensive care unit, one or two are still “profoundly ill.”
Dr. Michael Cheatham of Orlando Regional Medical Center says many of those patients are recovering from the mass shooting early Sunday.
But he adds: “The big question is what their long-term outcome will be.”
He says he suspects they may survive but will likely have lasting impacts on their health and functionality.
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11:25 a.m.
A survivor of the Florida nightclub massacre is giving an emotional thank-you to staff at the hospital that treated him and other victims, and he says the gunman had to be “heartless” and “ruthless.”
Angel Colon spoke alongside doctors Tuesday at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Nurse Megan Noblet told Colon that she think he was her second patient of the night as the flood of victims arrived. She described him as brave, and Colon told her and the other staff gathered, “I love you guys.”
Asked his thoughts on the shooter, Colon said, “This person had to be heartless. … This person is just enjoying doing this.”
Colon made remarks in both English and Spanish at the news conference. The tragedy hit the city’s gay and Hispanic communities especially hard. Sunday was Latino Night at the Pulse nightclub.
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11:20 a.m.
A doctor who has been treating the wounded from the Orlando nightclub shooting says he would be surprised if the death toll doesn’t rise.
Dr. Michael Cheatham said at a news conference Tuesday that six people are still critically ill at the hospital. He says they are doing everything they can for them and he asked people to pray for them.
Forty-nine people were killed when a gunman attacked a gay nightclub on early Sunday. More than 50 people were wounded in the attack. The gunman died in a shootout with police.
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10:10 a.m.
Family photos, drawings, blackboard messages, a Quran and books on Islam decorate the apartment where the shooter in the Orlando gay nightclub massacre lived with his wife.
Univision News reported the details and says it visited the home in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Monday when it was unoccupied. Univision reports that it was the morning after the FBI swept the apartment for evidence, and says the home was unlocked and not yet sealed off by crime-scene tape.
The report describes a blackboard message in the kitchen about an appointment at their 3-year-old son’s school and a note with an Arabic phrase praising God.
Univision says that on the living room table was a document listing items investigators removed: 9 mm cartridges, an iPad mini, a Samsung phone, a Dell computer, a CD labeled with Mateen’s name.
Mateen lived there with his second wife, Noor Salman.
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9:30 a.m.
The ex-wife of the shooter at a gay Florida nightclub says the man enjoyed nightlife, but she’s not sure if he had any homosexual tendencies.
Sitora Yusufiy spoke to CNN on Tuesday from Denver.
She says: “When we had gotten married, he confessed to me about his past … that he very much enjoyed going to clubs and the nightlife, and there was a lot of pictures of him. … I feel like it’s a side of him or a part of him that he lived, but probably didn’t want everybody to know about.”
The comments follow reports from customers at the gay nightclub that shooter Omar Mateen was seen there regularly. One told The Associated Press that Mateen tried to pick up men there.
Asked whether she thinks her ex-husband was gay, Yusufiy said: “I don’t know. He never personally or physically made any indications while we were together of that. But he did feel very strongly about homosexuality.”
She says it’s possible he hid feelings about being gay.
The couple were married in 2009 and divorced two years later. She has said he was abusive.
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9:30 a.m.
Three Democrats in Congress say it was “unacceptable” that gay and bisexual men weren’t able to donate blood after the shooting at a gay Orlando nightclub.
As hundreds rushed to blood banks after the shooting, rumors spread that no one would be turned away. However, the FDA bars blood donations from men who have had sex with a man in the previous year.
Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley’s office issued a statement calling for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to “lift this prejudicial ban.” Quigley is the vice-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus. California Rep. Barbara Lee and Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin also signed the statement.
They say the Orlando shooting shows “how crucial it is for FDA to develop better blood donor policies that are based on science and on individual risk factors.”
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7:40 a.m.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says Republican Donald Trump’s proposal for a ban on immigration from countries with terrorist histories is impractical.
While declining to name Trump, Johnson condemned “overly simplistic suggestions” for dealing with the violence.
Appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Johnson defended President Barack Obama against Trump’s charge that Obama has been too passive on the issue.
Johnson said that “I know from working with him for seven years that the president’s No. 1 priority is the protection of Americans.”
He added that authorities throughout the government continually reassess whether their strategy to combat this violence needs to be changed.
Johnson told ABC that protecting U.S. from attack is increasingly complicated in an era of “self-radicalization.” He said “there’s no indication” the Orlando attack was “terrorist-directed.”
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7:10 a.m.
As they got back to work after the Sunday nightclub massacre, TV’s late-night hosts faced the challenge of how to acknowledge it.
As in past tragedies, the jokesters shifted gears. Several opened their shows with apologies for departing from their customary monologues, instead voicing shock and sorrow.
“The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah pointed out that President Barack Obama has hosted 12 state dinners but 16 mass-shooting addresses. Noah raised the possibility that, without reasonable gun control, Obama should begin preparing Speech No. 17.
“The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert bemoaned “a national script” that seems to guide a nonproductive response to shootings. He declared that love could help Americans change that script.
Conan O’Brien, while noting that he had made a career-long policy of keeping political opinions to himself, expressed bewilderment that anyone is allowed to buy a semi-automatic assault rifle. He said, “These are weapons of war and they have no place in civilian life.”
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6:50 a.m.
The office of the U.N. human rights chief is decrying “insufficient gun control” in the United States and urging its leaders “to live up to its obligations to protect its citizens.”
In the wake of a gunman’s deadly attack on a Florida nightclub, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein criticized “irresponsible pro-gun propaganda” in the U.S. claiming that firearms make society safer, “when all evidence points to the contrary.” He questioned the ease with which people in the U.S. can obtain firearms and assault weapons like one used in Sunday’s attack.
Citing a U.N. report on firearms in April, Zeid pointed to examples of how control of firearms in many countries led to a “dramatic reduction in violent crime.”
Office spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters Tuesday in Geneva: “The problem is the guns.”
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