The Nashville shooting, Donald Trump's indictment, Gwyneth Paltrow's ski accident lawsuit, and more top news from the week

A western Pennsylvania man found dead in a home filled with poisonous snakes last week had been bitten, but that’s not what killed him, according to police.

Aliquippa police told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that the 23-year-old man, whose identity has not been released, had bite marks on his wrist but they were from “an old snake bite” unrelated to his death.

Police said the Beaver County coroner could release the man’s cause of death in two or three weeks, as toxicology results are also pending. The Trib reported that the man was found in a bathroom on Tuesday.

The Beaver County Times reported that the people in the home had recently moved to the area to sell reptiles.

A 3-year-old girl was found in a highchair near poisonous snakes, The Times reported, which prompted a visit from Beaver County Child and Family Services. Police told the Trib that no violations were found.

Aliquippa code enforcement officer Jim Bologna told the Trib that about 60 venomous snakes, including a cobra and two black mambas, were among over 200 snakes held in latched cages. The poisonous snakes were taken to a local exotic pet store by the Beaver County Humane Society.

Besides the snakes, there was also a poisonous lizard and a dwarf caiman crocodile, the outlets reported. Venomous snakes are prohibited in Aliquippa and Bologna told the Trib that the owners could face fines up to $1,000 for each snake.

The Times reported that the residents are allowed to remain in the home with the non-poisonous snakes and lizards.

The most dangerous snakes in the world

Sea snakes

West African carpet viper

Egyptian cobras

Monocellate cobras

Puff adders

Mambas

Russell's vipers

Krait

Malayan pit vipers

Papuan taipans

Brown snakes

Lancehead vipers

Rattlesnakes

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The person who killed three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville legally bought seven firearms in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before the attack, police said Tuesday.

The violence Monday at The Covenant School is the latest school shooting to roil the nation. Three 9-year-old students were killed, as well as the head of the grade school, a custodian and a substitute teacher.

The suspect, Audrey Hale, 28, was a former student at the school. Police said the shooter did not target specific victims.

Authorities said Hale was not on their radar before the attack. Police say Hale was under a doctor's care for an undisclosed emotional disorder.

Police have released videos of the shooting, including edited surveillance footage that shows the shooter's car driving up to the school, glass doors being shot out and the shooter ducking through one of them.

Additional video, from Officer Rex Engelbert's bodycam, shows a woman greeting police outside as they arrive at The Covenant School on Monday. “The kids are all locked down, but we have two kids that we don't know where they are,” she tells police.

“OK, yes, ma'am,” Engelbert replies.

The woman then directs officers to Fellowship Hall and says people inside had just heard gunshots. “Upstairs are a bunch of kids,” she says.

Three officers, including Engelbert, search rooms one by one, holding rifles. “Metro Police,” officers yell.

“Let's go, let's go,” one officer yells.

As alarms are heard going off in the school, one officer says, “It sounds like it's upstairs.”

Officers climb stairs to the second floor and enter a lobby area. “Move in,” an officer yells. Then a barrage of gunfire is heard.

“Get your hands away from the gun," an officer yells twice. Then the shooter is shown motionless on the floor.

Police earlier said Hale had drawn a detailed map of the school, including potential entry points, and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre, authorities said.

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A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, his lawyers said Thursday, producing the first criminal case against a former U.S. president and a jolt to Trump’s bid to retake the White House.

Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly attacked the investigation, called the indictment “political persecution” and predicted it would damage Democrats in 2024.

The indictment is an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings. It is likely to galvanize critics who say Trump lied and cheated his way to the top and embolden supporters who feel the Republican is being unfairly targeted by a Democratic prosecutor.

In a statement, his lawyers, Susan Necheles and Joseph Tacopina, said: “He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”

The district attorney's investigation centered on money paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, whom he feared would go public with claims that they had extramarital sexual encounters with him.

Trump was expected to surrender to authorities next week, though the details were still being worked out, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss a matter that remained under seal.

In bringing the charges, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is embracing an unusual case that had been investigated by two previous sets of prosecutors, both of which declined to take the politically explosive step of seeking Trump’s indictment.

In the weeks leading up to the indictment, Trump railed about the investigation on social media and urged supporters to protest on his behalf, prompting tighter security around the Manhattan criminal courthouse.

Trump faces other potential legal perils as he seeks to reassert control of the Republican Party and stave off a slew of one-time allies who are seeking or are likely to oppose him for the presidential nomination.

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Photos: Demonstrations as potential Trump indictment looms

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Gwyneth Paltrow won her court battle over a 2016 ski collision at a posh Utah ski resort after a jury decided Thursday that the movie star wasn’t at fault for the crash.

A jury dismissed the complaint of a retired optometrist who sued Paltrow over injuries he sustained when the two crashed on a beginner run at Deer Valley ski resort, siding with Paltrow after eight days of live-streamed courtroom testimony that made the case a pop culture fixation.

Paltrow, an actor who in recent years has refashioned herself into a celebrity wellness entrepreneur, Paltrow looked to her attorneys with a pursed lips smile when the judge read the eight-member jury’s verdict in the Park City courtroom. She sat intently through two weeks of testimony in what became the biggest celebrity court case since actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard faced off last year.

The dismissal concludes two weeks of courtroom proceedings that hinged largely on reputation rather than the monetary damages at stake in the case. Paltrow’s attorneys described the complaint against her as “utter B.S.” and painted the Goop founder-CEO as uniquely vulnerable to unfair, frivolous lawsuits due to her celebrity.

Paltrow took the witness stand during the trial to insist the collision wasn’t her fault, and to describe how she was stunned when she felt “a body pressing against me and a very strange grunting noise.”

Throughout the trial, the word “uphill” became synonymous with “guilty,” as attorneys focused on a largely unknown skiing code of conduct that stipulates that the skier who is downhill or ahead on the slope has the right of way.

Worldwide audiences followed the celebrity trial as if it were episodic television. Viewers scrutinized both Paltrow and Sanderson’s motives while attorneys directed questions to witnesses that often had less to do with the collision and more to do with their client’s reputations.

The trial took place in Park City, a resort town known for hosting the annual Sundance Film Festival, where early in her career Paltrow would appear for the premieres of her movies including 1998’s “Sliding Doors,” at a time when she was known primarily as an actor, not a lifestyle influencer. Paltrow is also known for her roles in “Shakespeare in Love” and the “Iron Man” movies.

The jury’s decision marks a painful court defeat for Terry Sanderson, the man who sued Paltrow for more than $300,000 over injuries he sustained when they crashed on a beginner run. Both parties blamed the other for the collision. Sanderson, 76, broke four ribs and sustained a concussion after the two tumbled down the slope, with Paltrow landing on top of him.

He filed an amended complaint after an earlier $3.1 million lawsuit was dismissed. Paltrow in response countersued for $1 and attorney fees, a symbolic action that mirrors Taylor Swift’s response to a radio host’s defamation lawsuit. Swift was awarded $1 in 2017.

Paltrow’s defense team tried to paint Sanderson as an angry, aging and unsympathetic man who had over the years become “obsessed” with his lawsuit against Paltrow. They argued that Paltrow wasn’t at fault in the crash and also said, regardless of blame, that Sanderson was overstating the extent of his injuries.

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Photos: Scenes from Gwyneth Paltrow's ski collision trial

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The suspect in a Nashville school shooting on Monday had drawn a detailed map of the school, including potential entry points, and conducted surveillance before killing three students and three adults in the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.

The suspect, who was killed by police, is believed to be a former student at The Covenant School in Nashville, where the shooting took place.

The shooter was armed with two “assault-style” weapons — a rifle and a pistol — as well as a handgun, authorities said. At least two of them were believed to have been obtained legally in the Nashville area.

The victims were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all 9 years old, and adults Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61.

The website of The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001, lists a Katherine Koonce as the head of the school. Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the school since July 2016.

Police gave unclear information on the gender of the shooter. For hours, police identified the shooter as a 28-year-old woman and eventually identified the person as Audrey Hale. Then at a late afternoon press conference, the police chief said that Hale was transgender. After the news conference, police spokesperson Don Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale currently identified.

The attack at The Covenant School — which has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members — comes as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year; a first grader who shot his teacher in Virginia; and a shooting last week in Denver that wounded two administrators.

“I was literally moved to tears to see this and the kids as they were being ushered out of the building,” Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Monday during one of several news conferences.

Drake did not give a specific motive when asked by reporters but gave chilling examples of the shooter's prior planning for the targeted attack.

“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident," he said. "We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”

The Covenant School was founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church. The affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville, where the Covenant School is located, is home to the famed Bluebird Café – a beloved spot for musicians and song writers.

President Joe Biden, speaking at an unrelated event at the White House on Monday, called the shooting a “family’s worst nightmare” and implored Congress again to pass a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons.

“It’s ripping at the soul of this nation, ripping at the very soul of this nation,” Biden said.

Before Monday’s violence in Nashville, there had been seven mass killings at K-12 schools since 2006 in which four or more people were killed within a 24-hour period, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. In all of them, the shooters were males.

The database does not include school shootings in which fewer than four people were killed, which have become far more common in recent years. Just last week alone, for example, school shootings happened in Denver and the Dallas-area within two days of each other.

Monday's tragedy unfolded over roughly 14 minutes. Police received the initial call about an active shooter at 10:13 a.m.

Officers began clearing the first story of the school when they heard gunshots coming from the second level, Aaron said during a news briefing.

Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response, fatally shooting the suspect at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said. One officer had a hand wound from cut glass.

Aaron said there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.

Other students walked to safety Monday, holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars, to a nearby church to be reunited with their parents.

Rachel Dibble, who was at the church as families found their children, described the scene as everyone being in “complete shock.”

“People were involuntarily trembling,” said Dibble, whose children attend a different private school in Nashville. “The children … started their morning in their cute little uniforms, they probably had some Froot Loops and now their whole lives changed today.”

Dr. Shamendar Talwar, a social psychologist from the United Kingdom who is working on an unrelated mental health project in Nashville, raced to the church as soon as he heard news of the shooting to offer help. He said he was one of several chaplains, psychologists, life coaches and clergy inside supporting the families.

“All you can show is that the human spirit that basically that we are all here together … and hold their hand more than anything else,” he said.

Jozen Reodica heard the police sirens and fire trucks blaring from outside her office building nearby. As her building was placed under lockdown, she took out her phone and recorded the chaos.

“I thought I would just see this on TV,” she said. “And right now, it’s real.”

From her office nearby, Kelly Stooksberry could see parents rushing to park their cars on the side of the road before sprinting to locate their children. She saw one woman fall to her knees and grab her chest.

“It was gut-wrenching,” she said.

Nashville has seen its share of mass violence in recent years, including a Christmas Day 2020 attack where a recreational vehicle was intentionally detonated in the heart of Music City’s historic downtown, killing the bomber, injuring three others and forcing more than 60 businesses to close.

Tennessee state senators met for about 12 minutes on Monday after agreeing to delay taking up any bills due to the shooting. The session started off with an emotional prayer from the guest pastor.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I wrote down a prayer today and I quickly realized that I cannot," said Pastor Russell Hall, with his voice trembling. "I stand before you today heartbroken.”

A look at some of America's deadliest school shootings

Intro

Until the massacre at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999, the number of dead in U.S. school shootings tended to be in the single digits. Since then, the number of shootings that included schools and killed 10 or more people has mounted. The most recent two were both in Texas. In May 2022, an 18-year-old attacker killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. In May 2018, a 17-year-old killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School near Houston. Most of the victims were students.

Columbine High School, April 1999

Red Lake High School, March 2005

Virginia Tech, April 2007

Sandy Hook Elementary School, December 2012

Umpqua Community College, October 2015

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, February 2018

Santa Fe High School, May 2018

Robb Elementary School, May 2022

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — Nine people were killed in a crash involving two Army Black Hawk medical evacuation helicopters conducting a nighttime training exercise in Kentucky, Army officials said Thursday.

Nondice Thurman, a spokesperson for Fort Campbell, said the deaths happened Wednesday night in southwestern Kentucky during a routine training mission.

A statement from Fort Campbell says the two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, part of the 101st Airborne Division, crashed around 10 p.m. Wednesday in Trigg County, Kentucky. The 101st Airborne confirmed the crash about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Fort Campbell. The crash is under investigation.

The helicopters crashed in a field near a residential area with no injuries on the ground, Brig. Gen. John Lubas, the 101st Airborne deputy commander, said. One helicopter had five people aboard and the other had four, Lubas said.

Speaking a news conference Thursday morning, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the state would do everything it can to support the families of those killed.

"We're going to do what we always do. We're going to wrap our arms around these families, and we're going to be there with them, not just for the days, but the weeks and the months and the years to come," Beshear said.

Lubas said it is unclear what caused the crash. He said a team of investigators from Fort Rucker in Alabama was headed to the crash site.

"This was a training progression, and specifically they were flying a multi-ship formation, two ships, under night vision goggles at night," Lubas said.

He said officials believe the accident occurred when "they were doing flying, not deliberate medical evacuation drills."

The helicopters have something similar to the black boxes on passenger planes, which records the performance of aircrafts in flight and are used by investigators to analyze crashes.

"We're hopeful that will provide quite a bit of information of what occurred," Lubas said.

The Black Hawk helicopter is a critical work horse for the U.S. Army, used in security, transport, medical evacuations, search and rescue and other missions. The helicopters are known to many people from the 2001 movie "Black Hawk Down," which is about a violent battle in Somalia eight years earlier.

Black Hawks were a frequent sight in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan during the wars conducting combat missions and are also used by the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. They were also often used to ferry visiting senior leaders to headquarters locations in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.

Fort Campbell is located near the Tennessee border, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Nashville, and the crash occurred in the Trigg County, Kentucky, community of Cadiz.

Nick Tomaszewski, who lives about a mile from where the crash occurred, said he saw two helicopters flying over his house moments before the crash.

"For whatever reason last night my wife and I were sitting there looking out on the back deck and I said 'Wow, those two helicopters look low and they look kind of close to one another tonight,'" he said.

The helicopters flew over and looped back around and moments later "we saw what looked like a firework went off in the sky."

"All of the lights in their helicopter went out. It was like they just poofed ... and then we saw a huge glow like a fireball," Tomaszewski said.

Flyovers for training exercises happen almost daily and the helicopters typically fly low but not so close together, he said.

"There were two back to back. We typically see one and then see another one a few minutes later, and we just saw two of them flying together last night," he said.

In the Kentucky House and in the Senate, members stood for a moment of silence Thursday morning in honor of the crash victims. Kentucky state Rep. Walker Thomas said the crash occurred about 15 to 20 minutes from his home.

"They're there to protect us," Thomas said. "And we're constantly seeing these helicopters flying over our communities."

Thomas spoke about how connected Fort Campbell soldiers and their families are to the communities near the Army post.

"The Fort Campbell soldiers that live in our communities, go to our churches ... they go to our schools, their kids do," he added. "And this really hurts."

Last month, two Tennessee National Guard pilots were killed when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed along an Alabama highway during a training exercise.

US Army history from the year you were born

Intro

1920: Amended National Defense Act is passed

1921: The Army intervenes at the Battle of Blair Mountain

1922: Col. Charles Young dies

1923: Harding orders troops home from Germany

1924: Philippines scouts rebel

1925: Black soldiers evaluated for wartime fitness

1926: Sgt. Stubby dies

1927: Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Red

1928: First US Army Day

1929: Escobar revolutionaries send stray bullets to US

1930: Douglas MacArthur is appointed Army chief of staff

1931: US Army wins International Military Team Trophy

1932: Calvary soldiers attack veterans

1933: US Army aids Civilian Conservation Corps

1934: Army takes over the mail

1935: Final flight of US Army Air Corps LTA operations

1936: M1 Garand becomes go-to Army rifle

1937: Army's Airship Program ends

1938: 15th Regiment returns home from China

1939 US Army (and its Calvary) ranks 39th in the world

1940: Selective Training and Service Act

1941: ‘It's only a maneuver’

1942: Dogs Defense group founded

1943: US Army Fights the Japanese in Alaska

1944: Operation Neptune

1945: Dachau (mostly) liberated

1946: The 'mutiny of American troops after WWII

1947: The World War II draft expires

1948: Truman desegregates the US Military

1949 Army withdraws from Korea

1950: Attack on Korea authorized

1951: China supports North Korea

1952: Armistice talks stall

1953: Korean War ends

1954: McCarthy hearings begin

1955: Operation Gyroscope

1956: M113 ships to Vietnam

1957: Operation Plumbbob

1958: Elvis Presley joins up

1959: First soldiers killed in Vietnam

1960: Laos is determined to be non-threatening

1961: Green Berets receive real green berets

1962: Army troops head to Florida airfields

1963: Operation Biglift

1964: South Vietnamese training begins

1965: China Beach

1966: Army forces in Vietnam number 200,000

1967: Operation Malheur I and II

1968: My Lai massacre

1969: The Battle of Hamburger Hill

1970: Koza riot in Okinawa, Japan

1971: Women recruitment is up

1972: Withdrawals begin from Vietnam

1973: Withdrawal from Vietnam concludes

1974: Tensions rise

1975: Mandatory defensive weapons training for women

1976: Operation Paul Bunyan

1977: Army admits to 27 germ warfare tests conducted on public property

1978: Jonestown Massacre

1979: Faulty pilot ejection controls found

1980: Bright Star military exercise commences

1981: US Army gets a new look

1982: New recruits, new (amended) requirements

1983: US Army invades Grenada

1984: Pedro Colondres-Rosa defrauds US Army

1985: El Salvador raid

1986: US troops arrive in Honduras

1987: US Army Airborne heads to Honduras

1988: US takes on Nicaraguan insurgents

1989: Operation Just Cause

1990: Gulf War starts

1991: Gulf ground war begins

1992: US troops offer humanitarian aid in Somalia

1993: Battle of Mogadishu

1994: Operation Uphold Democracy

1995: Peace treaty ends Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict

1996: All-Black Korean War unit has honor restored

1997: 7 Black WWII soldiers get Medal of Honor

1998: Bosnia mission zaps US Army strength

1999: Yugoslavians hold U.S. soldiers captive

2000: 49th Armored Division deploys

2001: 9/11

2002: Army uses video games for recruitment, training

2003: US Army invades Baghdad amidst looters

2004: Second Battle of Fallujah

2005: Iraqi election

2006: President Bush visits Afghanistan

2007: Troops need more sleep

2008: Felons join up

2009: Army major kills 13 in Fort Hood

2010: Army sent to Haiti for relief effort

2011: US troops leave Iraq

2012: Military gets trimmed

2013: Women join the front lines

2014: Army hairstyles get a closer look

2015: Army shrinks to pre-WWII levels

2016: Army reduced further

2017: Immigrant recruits can't serve

2018: US Army has stations throughout Africa

2019: First woman poised to lead US Army Infantry division

2020: COVID-19 upends the military

2021: Extended-range guided rocket successfully traverses 80 km

Jennifer Aniston says "Friends" has become foe to a younger generation's sensibilities.

Aniston has been playing comedic roles since she stepped into Rachel Greene's shoes on the 1994 mega-hit "Friends." She quickly became a superstar, and in the decades since has been serving up the laughs in movies like the 2004 romantic comedy "Along Came Polly" and the 2013 romp "We're the Millers," in which she slayed as a stripper moonlighting as a soccer mom.

Aniston, ahead of the release of her latest Netflix movie, "Murder Mystery 2," spoke with AFP (via Yahoo News) about the evolution of comedy.

"Now it's a little tricky because you have to be very careful, which makes it really hard for comedians, because the beauty of comedy is that we make fun of ourselves, make fun of life," Aniston said. "[In the past] you could joke about a bigot and have a laugh — that was hysterical. And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were. And now we're not allowed to do that."

"There's a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of 'Friends' and find them offensive," Aniston added. "There were things that were never intentional and others … well, we should have thought it through — but I don't think there was a sensitivity like there is now."

"Friends" has been catching flack for years about its lack of diversity and the offensive nature of some of its jokes.

A once-obese Monica Geller (played by Courteney Cox) is the butt of body-shaming jokes throughout the series, and her brother Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) faces a barrage of homophobic punchlines because his ex-wife left him for a woman. Bustle published a list of offensive "Friends" jokes in 2018; Cosmopolitan published a list of "shocking" jokes in 2017 that "Friends" couldn't "get away with today."

Series creator Marta Kauffman told the BBC in 2022 that she now regrets the representation of the character played by Kathleen Turner.

"We kept referring to her as Chandler's father, even though Chandler's father was trans," she said. "Pronouns were not yet something that I understood. So we didn't refer to that character as she. That was a mistake."

Kauffman also addressed the show's lack of diversity.

"I've learned a lot in the last 20 years," Kauffman told the L.A. Times' Greg Braxton in 2022. "Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy. It's painful looking at yourself in the mirror. I'm embarrassed that I didn't know better 25 years ago.

"It was after what happened to George Floyd that I began to wrestle with my having bought into systemic racism in ways I was never aware of. That was really the moment that I began to examine the ways I had participated. I knew then I needed to course-correct."

Kauffman pledged $4 million to the Boston area's Brandeis University to establish the Marta F. Kauffman '78 Professorship in African and African American Studies, which supports "a distinguished scholar with a concentration in the study of the peoples and cultures of Africa and the African diaspora."

Lisa Kudrow, who played ditzy masseuse and coffee-shop singer Phoebe Buffay, also retrospectively weighed in on the series in 2020, commenting on how different the show would be if it were made today.

"Oh, it'd be completely different," Kudrow said. "It would not be an all-white cast ... I'm not sure what else, but, to me, it should be looked at as a time capsule, not for what they did wrong," she said. "Also, this show thought it was very progressive. There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together? We had surrogacy too. It was, at the time, progressive."

Especially in the United States, where everyone is "far too divided," we can't "take ourselves too seriously," Aniston told AFP.

"Everybody needs funny!" she added. "The world needs humor!"

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WYNNE, Ark. (AP) — Storms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 18 people in small towns and big cities across the South and Midwest, tearing a path through the Arkansas capital, collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois, and leaving people throughout the region bewildered Saturday by the damage.

Confirmed or suspected tornadoes in at least seven states destroyed homes and businesses, splintered trees, and lay waste to neighborhoods across a swath of the country home to some 85 million people. The dead included seven in Tennessee's McNairy County, four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, and three in Sullivan, Indiana.

Other deaths were reported in Alabama, Illinois and Mississippi, along with one near Little Rock, where the mayor said more than 2,000 buildings were in a tornado's path.

Stunned residents of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Memphis, Tennessee, woke Saturday to find the high school's roof shredded and its windows blown out. Huge trees lay on the ground, their stumps reduced to nubs. Broken walls, windows and roofs pocked homes and businesses.

Debris and memories of regular life lay scattered inside the damaged shells of homes and strewn on lawns: clothing, insulation, roofing paper, toys, splintered furniture, a pickup truck with its windows shattered.

“I’m sad that my town has been hit so hard,” said Heidi Jenkins, a salon owner. “Our school is gone, my church is gone. I’m sad for all the people who lost their homes.”

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