The protests were held as part of the event dubbed “National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality” which was organized by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.

In New York, the rally began at Union Square around 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday and marked the death of Eric Garner who was strangled to death by a New York Police Department officer.

Garner was accused of illegally selling cigarettes and died on July 17. His encounter with the police was also caught on tape.

New York protesters were carrying signs showing drawings of victims and branding the NYPD’s behavior unlawful.

Also, demonstrators staged a die-in in Oakland, California and called for reform and justice for those who were brutally killed by police.

“We have to deliver a message today: We refuse to live like this,” said Carl Dix, the co-founder of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.

In Atlanta, Georgia, demonstrators blocked rush hour traffic downtown where two intestates converge standing before idling cars and trucks.

A wave of high profile fatal police shootings has heated the debate on police brutality in the US. In Ferguson, Missouri, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot to death by Darren Wilson last month. He was shot at least six times, including twice in the head by the white officer.

US police shoot and kill an average of 1,000 people a year, one in every four of whom are unarmed, according to a report by the Police Policy Studies Council.

AT/GJH

(Press TV)

BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State militants used chlorine gas during fighting with security forces and Shiite militiamen last month north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said Friday.

The disclosure comes on the heels of similar reports from the Syrian border town of Kobani, indicating that the extremist group may have added low-grade chemical weapons to an arsenal that already includes heavy weapons and tanks looted from captured military bases.

Three Iraqi officials — a senior security official, a local official from the town of Duluiya and an official from the town of Balad — told The Associated Press that the Islamic State group used bombs with chlorine-filled cylinders during clashes in late September in the two towns.

The militants, who control large areas of Syria and Iraq, have failed to capture Duluiya or Balad, both of which are around 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the Iraqi capital.

In the attacks, about 40 troops and Shiite militiamen were slightly affected by the chlorine and showed symptoms consistent with chlorine poisoning, such as difficulty in breathing and coughing, the three officials said. The troops were treated in hospital and quickly recovered.

The senior security official said it was most likely that the Islamic State fighters obtained the chlorine from water purification plants in the areas they have overrun. Iraqi intelligence has indicated that the IS group has shells filled with chlorine that are ready to be used, the security official said.

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Militants hang the Islamic State flag at a fort on the Syrian-Iraqi border in June, 2014. Two men ha …

"The IS fighters seized some quantities of chlorine after seizing control of some water purification plants or sites where chlorine was kept," said the senior official, adding that the "IS group has some experts who were able to manufacture chlorine shells."

The three officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media, did not elaborate or provide more details. The use of chlorine by the IS group in Iraq in September was first reported by the Washington Post.

In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry said he could not confirm the Iraqi allegations but called them "extremely serious." He said chlorine can be considered a chemical weapon if it is mixed with other toxic agents.

"The use of any chemical weapon is an abhorrent act," Kerry told reporters at a State Department news conference with the South Korean foreign minister. "It's against international law. And these recent allegations underscore the importance of the work that we are currently engaged in."

He said the attacks, if true, "will not change our strategy" in Iraq.

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A Kurdish woman chants slogans as mourners carry the coffins with the bodies of Kurdish fighters Han …

Chlorine, an industrial chemical, was first introduced as a chemical weapon at Ypres in World War I with disastrous effects because gas masks were not widely available at the time.

In neighboring Syria, a joint U.N. fact-finding mission sent to investigate alleged chlorine attacks was ambushed and briefly detained by armed men earlier this year in rebel-held territory. The mission had said it was virtually certain chlorine had been used as a chemical weapon in the country's north.

And earlier this week Kurdish officials and doctors said they believed Islamic State militants had released some kind of toxic gas in the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border, where Kurdish forces have been fending off a massive monthlong offensive by the extremist group.

Aysa Abdullah, a senior Kurdish official based in the town, said the attack took place late Tuesday, and that a number of people suffered symptoms that included dizziness and watery eyes. She and other officials said doctors lacked the equipment to determine what kinds of chemicals were used.

The reports could not be independently confirmed. Kurdish officials have made similar allegations before.

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Security forces and civilians inspect the site of a double car bomb attack that hit a restaurant in …

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had agreed with the United States and Russia to dispose of his chemical weapons — an arsenal that Damascus had never previously formally acknowledged — after hundreds of people were killed in a sarin gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus in the summer of 2013. But because of its dual-use nature, chlorine was not listed as part of the Syrian arsenal.

Chlorine gas, when inhaled, swallowed or exposed to through skin, causes difficulty in breathing, coughing, and eye and skin irritation. It is not as toxic or effective at killing as sarin, a nerve agent, and experts say it is difficult to achieve high concentrations of chlorine by dropping it from the air.

Insurgents have used chlorine gas in Iraq before. In May 2007, suicide bombers driving chlorine tankers struck three cities in the western Anbar province, killing two policemen and forcing about 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops to seek treatment for gas exposure.

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Associated Press writer Lara Jakes in Washington contributed to this report.

Remains belong to missing Virginia student

Tribune
Remains Identified As Missing University of Virginia Student Hannah Graham

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Remains found nearly a week ago in a rural area of Virginia are those of a university student who disappeared last month, authorities said Friday, ending a search by thousands that took weeks and left the campus and community on edge.

University of Virginia sophomore Hannah Graham, 18, disappeared Sept. 13 after a night out with friends. The remains were found Oct. 18 about 12 miles from the Charlottesville campus, in a heavily wooded area of Albemarle County that is home to rolling hills and horse farms.

The state Medical Examiner's office confirmed that the remains were Graham's, the Albermarle County Police Department said in a statement.

The man Graham was last seen with, 32-year-old Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr., has been charged with abduction with intent to defile Graham. His attorney, Jim Camblos, said in a voicemail greeting that he is not answering questions about the case.

The remains were discovered roughly 6 miles from where the body of 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington was found after she vanished in 2009. Police have said forensic evidence connects Matthew to Harrington's killing, which in turn is linked by DNA to a 2005 sexual assault in northern Virginia. Matthew has been charged in the 2005 case.

"When we started this journey together we all hoped for a happier ending. Sadly that was not to be," Graham's parents, John and Sue Graham, said in a statement provided by the police department. "We are devastated by the loss of our beautiful daughter. ... Although we have lost our precious Hannah, the light she radiated can never be extinguished."

Graham's parents also thanked those involved with the investigation and search efforts — singling out Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo for his "tenacity and determination — as well as those who have sent messages of support. They said they don't intend to make further statements or comment on the ongoing criminal investigation.

Longo, who became the public face of the investigation through emotional pleas for the public's help finding Graham, did not immediately respond to a telephone call seeking comment.

Albemarle County Commonwealth's Attorney Denise Lunsford said in a statement that the focus of the investigation now is to determine "what charges will be brought and the appropriate time to make those charges."

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This undated photo provided by the Charlottesville, Va. police department shows missing University o …

Graham's disappearance prompted many University of Virginia students to begin walking in pairs or groups at night. Also, the university expanded a ride service for its students.

"For Hannah's young life to end so tragically, and for her destiny of promise to be left unfulfilled, is an affront to the sanctity of life and to the natural order of human events," university President Teresa A. Sullivan said in a statement Friday evening. "This is a sorrowful day in the life of the university, and our entire community is grieving with the Graham family."

Carli Sapir, a fourth-year environmental engineering student, lived only a half-block away from Hannah's residence at U.Va.

"This conclusion wasn't the conclusion we were hoping for," she said. "Of course we all had a hope that even after all this time that they would find her living. It's pretty devastating."

Sapir, from Long Valley, New Jersey, said her apartment is only a 30-second walk from Hannah's on 14th and 15th streets in Charlottesville.

"Even though I didn't know her personally, it's crazy that something so bad could happen to one of our fellow students," she said.

Graham met friends at a restaurant for dinner Sept. 12 before stopping by two off-campus parties. She left the second party alone and eventually texted a friend saying she was lost, authorities said.

In surveillance video, she can be seen walking unsteadily and even running at times, past a pub and a service station and then onto a seven-block strip of bars, restaurants and shops.

Matthew was an operating room technician at the university's hospital. He was also a former college football lineman and sometimes cab driver.

Friends have said they were shocked the "gentle giant" — he's 6-foot-2 and weighs 270 pounds — could be suspected of such violence.

Matthew was co-captain of his high school football team and enrolled in psychology at evangelist Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, where he played on the defensive line for the Flames.

His college career took a sharp wrong turn in his junior year, when a fellow student accused Matthew of raping her. Matthew withdrew from Liberty on Oct. 17, 2002 — hours after a reported sexual assault behind the university's sports arena. Prosecutors said the case was dropped when the woman declined to press charges.

Matthew returned to school in January 2003, enrolling at Christopher Newport University in southeast Virginia. He joined their football team that August, but on Sept. 7, 2003, a fellow student accused him of sexual assault on the Newport News campus. Five days after the attack, Matthew dropped off the team roster; a month later, he was gone.

University spokesman Bruce Bronstein said the matter was thoroughly investigated and the victim decided not to press charges.

The victim in the 2005 rape in the Washington, D.C., suburbs is cooperating with authorities, Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Morrogh has said. According to police, a 26-year-old woman was walking home from the grocery store about 10 p.m. on a Saturday night when she was grabbed from behind, dragged into a wooded area behind some townhomes, and sexually assaulted. The man fled the area when he was startled by a passerby.

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O'Dell reported from Richmond, Va. Associated Press Writer Michael Felberbaum in Richmond contributed to this report.