(CNN) — An off-duty U.S. Capitol Police officer was wounded during a shootout in Maryland Thursday night — the second shooting involving Capitol police officers in as many days.

The off-duty Capitol officer was shot after he happened upon an altercation between two men in the parking lot of an apartment building in Prince Georges County, Maryland, Prince Georges police spokesman Evan Baxter told CNN.

The altercation involved an off-duty military police officer and his roommate, Baxter said. The roommate managed to get the MP’s handgun and began firing it in a parking lot as the off-duty Capitol officer was driving into the area, Baxter said.

The Capitol officer and the man exchanged gunfire, wounding both and also wounding the off-duty military police officer, Baxter said. A stray bullet pierced the walls of a nearby apartment and grazed a 12-year-old girl, Baxter added. The girl was not seriously injured.

Police did not immediately release the names of those involved. Both the Capitol officer and the military police officer were in non-critical condition at a hospital Thursday night, Baxter said, and the third man was in serious condition.

On Wednesday, U.S. Capitol Police officers shot and killed an armed man near the Capitol grounds. Police said the man fled officers after a routine traffic stop. The man produced a handgun, and officers opened fire when the man refused to drop the weapon, police said.

Capitol police identified the man from the Wednesday incident as Kellen Anthony White, 27, of Brandywine, Maryland. Capitol police did not release any further information about White, saying only that the investigation into the incident was ongoing.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) — Explosions tore through two luxury hotels Friday morning in south Jakarta, Indonesia, killing at least six people, state-run media reported.

“Tens of others were injured, but the number of the victims might change as identification process is still going on,” said Senior Commissioner Chysnanda, a spokesman for the Jakarta police, according to state-run Antara News agency.

A witness counted four foreigners among the wounded, Antara said.

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel was to have accommodated soccer players from Britain’s Manchester United, who are expected to arrive in Jakarta on Saturday.

The victims were taken to nearby hospitals, the agency reported.

Police sealed off the area around both blasts, one of which occurred in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the other at the J.W. Marriott Hotel, about 50 meters away, about 7:50 a.m. (8:50 p.m. Thursday ET).

“There was a boom and the building shook, and then subsequently two more,” said hotel guest Don Hammer, who was leaving his room in the Marriott when the blast occurred.

“The shocking part was entering the lobby, where the glass at the front of the hotel was all blown out and blood was spattered across the floor, but most people were leaving calmly.”

Witnesses said they saw at least three people being carried away on stretchers.

Greg Woolstencrost had just walked past the hotels and had gone to his nearby apartment when he heard an explosion.

“I looked out my window and I saw a huge cloud of brownish smoke go up,” he told CNN in a telephone interview. “I grabbed my iPhone to go downstairs … and then the second bomb went off at the Ritz-Carlton, so I then ran around to the Ritz-Carlton and I was able to find that there had been a massive bomb that went off in this … restaurant area and the explosion had blown out both sides of the hotel.

“I found inside the body of what appears to be a suicide bomber, it looked like someone who had been a suicide bomber or someone who had been very, very close to the explosion.

“I also noticed that there were a number of injured people being taken off to hospital, but I only noticed one dead person at this point and time, that’s all I saw. There has been extensive damage to both buildings, and at this point and time of course all the authorities are blocking up all the area and starting an investigation.”

He added, “It’s obviously targeted establishments where there are Westerners and expats … I can only assume it’s something to try and send a message.”

At the Ritz, windows were blown out on the second floor, as though the blast occurred from inside a hotel restaurant that would have been crowded with breakfast eaters at the time, Woolstencrost told CNN.

The television executive said he had lived for a year at the Ritz before moving to his nearby apartment and had been impressed by the facility’s security.

“I just don’t know how someone could get in there with a bomb, given the level of security and screening that people have to go through,” he said, citing armed guards at checkpoints and thorough searches of people, bags and vehicles.

The Marriott was the site of a terrorist attack in August 2003 that killed 12 people.

Friday’s attack “was not nearly as bad,” said John Aglionby, a reporter for the Financial Times who was at the site of both blasts.

– CNN’s Andy Saputra in Jakarta and Miranda Leitsinger in Hong Kong contributed to this story.

From John Couwels
CNN

PENSACOLA, Florida (CNN) — Throngs of people paying their respects to a Florida couple slain during what police said was a home invasion robbery flocked to a church Thursday for a visitation.

The bodies of Byrd and Melanie Billings arrived at Liberty Church in separate hearses for the service, the first of two planned for the couple. The funeral will be held Friday.

Those attending looked at pictures of the family on posters and video monitors in the church lobby during the somber gathering. A constant stream of cars arrived and departed during the three-hour service. The Billingses’ caskets were closed.

Eight people have been arrested in connection with the Billingses’ deaths at their large home outside Pensacola, Florida, last week. Police have said the invasion was carefully choreographed, but they believe the primary motive was robbery. A safe taken from the home was recovered, authorities said Thursday. The Billingses were shot to death.

The couple was known for adopting special-needs children. They had 13 at one time, along with two biological children each for Byrd and Melanie Billings, but three of the adopted children died.

Nine of the children were at home at the time of the home invasion, and authorities believe three children encountered the intruders. One managed to flee the home and seek help at a neighbor’s house.

The Billingses’ dog groomer, who declined to give her name, said as she left the church the couple was “the sweetest people you would want to meet in your life.”

“We just went to pay our condolences,” said Jerry Revais, whose daughters were friends of the Billings children.

Several people mentioned the community had been touched by the slayings.

“I think it’s the toughest thing that has happened to this community,” said Pensacola Commissioner Wilson Robinson.

The Billingses’ funeral is set for noon Friday at Liberty Church. Burial is set to follow at the Pensacola Memorial Gardens.

By Jesse Solomon
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) — Amid ominous economic forecasts and repeated bleak reports about America’s financial future, messages of hope can be hard to come by.

That’s why one advertising campaign, dubbed “Recession 101,” has hit the nation’s roadsides with an array of slogans aimed at getting people to think optimistically during the recession.

The economic “lessons,” which include such catchphrases such as “self worth beats net worth,” and “stop obsessing about the economy, you’re scaring the children,” started going up in May and now number around 2,000 postings across the country, according to Jeff Golimowski of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

Members of the OAAA donated printing, materials and billboard space, while a private anonymous donor paid for the campaign’s design, Golimowski said.

Recession 101 currently exists in more than 30 states, among them Michigan and Rhode Island, which have been hit particularly hard by the current economic downtown.

The clever expressions, presented on backdrops meant to look like lined notepad paper, can be found on digital billboards, traditional billboards, and posters.

“This will end long before those who started it are paroled,” one billboard says.

Most of the mottos do not take a cynical view, though.

“Recession 101 isn’t selling anything other than the American spirit”, the campaign’s Web site reads.

By Chris Welch
CNN

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) — Documents unsealed this week by a federal court provide new details into the mysterious disappearance of young Somali-American men from their homes in Minnesota.

According to a document filed by his attorney, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse was “recruited” to take part in terrorist activities, and the recruitment occurred “at a house of worship.”

Relatives of some of the missing men have pointed fingers at the Abubakar As-Saddique mosque in Minneapolis, but mosque leaders have repeatedly denied any connection. Its imam, Sheikh Abdirahman Sheikh Omar Ahmed, told CNN Thursday that they were “baseless accusations” and that the mosque is a place of worship that played no part in recruitment efforts.

Isse and Salah Osman Ahmed have been indicted in connection with the alleged recruitment of Somali immigrants to fight with Islamic insurgents in their home country between September 2007 and December 2008. The two are charged with one count each of providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure people overseas, the indictment states.

In a motion to amend conditions of detention, filed June 17 and unsealed this week, Isse’s attorney, Paul Engh, made an argument against continued imprisonment by the government on the grounds that Isse has no criminal record, that he has almost completed his bachelor’s degree in economics, and that he has family in the area. Engh wrote in the motion that Isse attended a training camp run by the al Qaeda-linked Somali insurgent group Al-Shabaab, but he added that his presence there was before Al-Shabaab was officially designated a terrorist organization by the State Department.

Although Engh wrote that Isse was recruited “at a house of worship,” he did not identify the location.

According to prosecution documents filed in the case and also unsealed this week, Isse left Minneapolis in December 2007 en route to Somalia, where he was issued a used AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition but never fired it while in Somalia. The document also alleges that he and co-conspirators lived in Al-Shabaab houses and that Isse helped construct an Al-Shabaab training camp.

Attorneys with the prosecution also wrote that Isse traveled to Somalia “as part of an agreement with several other individuals from the Minneapolis area to travel to Somalia and fight against Ethiopian soldiers whom they believed to be occupying the country.”

The prosecution document said one of the Minneapolis men who stayed with Isse in Al-Shabaab houses and who traveled with him to the training camp was Shirwa Ahmed. On October 29, 2008, Ahmed participated in a suicide bombing, killing himself and 29 others, which was the first suicide bombing by a naturalized U.S. citizen. It raised red flags throughout the U.S. intelligence community and sparked an investigation by the FBI.

Prosecutors wrote that after returning to the United States, Isse kept in touch with “other individuals who had knowledge of the ongoing conspiracy to recruit Al-Shabaab members” from the Somali population in Minneapolis.

The FBI has been investigating what appears to be a massive recruiting effort by Al-Shabaab in immigrant communities in the United States. More than a dozen young men of Somali descent have disappeared from the Minneapolis area in recent months, and at least three have been killed in Somalia, community leaders have said.

The latest, Jamal Bana, was confirmed dead over the weekend, his family said Sunday. The same day, Somalia’s president — a former member of the Islamist movement himself — issued a plea to Somali-Americans not to join the fight in his country.

“I am saying to those young men from abroad: ‘Your families fled your home to America because of insecurity. You should not return here to foment violence against your people,’ ” President Sheik Sharif Ahmed said.

Al-Shabaab has ties to al Qaeda and has recruited foreign fighters to join its battle to overthrow the Somali government, U.S. officials said. It remains entrenched in the northeast and sections south of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, after fighting that has uprooted more than 200,000 people since early May, according to the United Nations.

FBI Special Agent E.K. Wilson said the number of missing men believed to be in Somalia is “in the 10s,” but their recruitment is “a significant concern, and one that we’re giving our highest priority.” Wilson also said the indictments against Isse and Ahmed are “by no means the end of this case.”

“The investigation is ongoing,” he added.

Defense attorney Engh seemed to echo that in his court document, writing that his client Isse “will not be the last defendant indicted.”

Burhan Hassan, a 17-year-old Somali-American high school student in Minneapolis, went missing eight months ago around the same time as Bana. Last month, his family learned that he was killed in Somalia.

Neither family has any idea why the young males left the United States — where they came as young boys — and Bana’s family believes he was being held against his will, said Omar Jamal, the head of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis.

“Only one time he placed a phone call (in mid-November), he didn’t say much,” Jamal said. “He spoke as if he was being held hostage. He couldn’t be speak freely. They asked him to cut the conversation short.”

Many of the missing Somali-Americans are believed to have left for Somalia when Ethiopian forces were still on the ground. Ethiopia invaded Somalia to push the Islamists out of Mogadishu in December 2006, but their presence in the country was an outrage to most Somalis and became a rallying cry for Al-Shabaab.

Ethiopian troops left Somalia earlier this year, leaving Ahmed’s weak transitional government to battle the insurgents.

CNN’s Brian Todd, Dugald McConnell, David McKenzie and Tricia Escobedo contributed to this report.

By Amanda O’Donnell
CNN

(CNN) — Up to 60,000 people are expected to turn out this weekend as Seattle, Washington, launches its first light-rail transit system, officials said.

“As a region, we’ve been talking about this since 1968,” said Bruce Gray, spokesman for Sound Transit, which has built and will operate the systems. “To finally get it off the ground is a huge weight off everyone’s shoulders.”

The nearly 14-mile line, which took five-and-a-half years and $2.4 billion to construct, is complete. On Saturday, service will begin between downtown Seattle south to the suburb of Tukwila. Free rides will be offered all weekend before regular paid service begins on Monday, according to the Sound Transit Web site.

“Provisions are in place to manage a significant turnout,” the site says. Between 40,000 and 60,000 riders are expected, according to Sound Transit.

Passengers will pay for the distance traveled, with ticket prices starting at $1.75 and 5 cents for each additional mile, up to a $2.50 limit for adult passengers.

Trains carrying up to 200 passengers will run 20 hours a day, seven days a week, about every 10 minutes. The trip from Seattle to Tukwila will take about 30 minutes. By the end of the year, the link will go directly to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport — a move expected to drastically increase ridership.

In November 2008, Seattle residents approved a 36-mile expansion of the light rail, which will add service in the city’s north and east regions. Construction on that expansion will be completed in 2023.

By Jill Dougherty
CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Behind the scenes they’re tearing out their hair.

Nominees for top positions in the Obama administration say they are put on seemingly endless hold for months during the “vetting” process, forced to provide minute details of their financial, personal and professional lives going back years. Many have to hire lawyers and accountants — paid with their own money — to compile the information. Some nominees have simply given up in frustration.

Now, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says it’s affecting U.S. diplomatic relations. “It’s hard to explain in my position to our foreign counterparts that we don’t have positions filled that would be the natural interlocutors or their counterparts in other countries.”

It’s the third time this week the secretary has lambasted the process.

Monday, she called it “frustrating beyond words,” telling staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development — which still doesn’t have a new administrator — the process is a “nightmare.”

Wednesday, in a major foreign policy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton was at it again: “I mean, we are trying to get our political leaders in place to work with our very dedicated Foreign Service and Civil Service employees, but we’re still not there yet.”

Thursday, at a press availability, the secretary told CNN, “Most (foreign) governments, after they are elected, are up and going in a relatively short period of time. We are now six months into our new administration and it’s not only here but across the government where they don’t have critical positions filled. I think it’s pretty obvious that the process has gotten much more complicated, cumbersome and lengthy and that is something that I hear from everyone. And it is a matter that we’re going to have to address.”

Clinton added that it’s not just the Obama administration and it’s not happening just at the State Department or USAID. The situation has been getting worse with every administration. But some political observers say President Barack Obama’s new ethics rules make it even more challenging to get through the process.

In spite of the frustration, at the USAID town hall Clinton managed to find some ironic humor in the predicament. “… Here’s one of the questions you get asked: first of all, you have to remember everywhere you’ve lived since you were 18. And, beyond a certain age you can’t even remember when you were 18!”

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) — NASA is not “overly concerned” about three small dings left on the side of space shuttle Endeavour after foam debris fell from the shuttle’s fuel tank following liftoff, a shuttle manager said Thursday.

The foam, on the external fuel tank, fell off in about half-inch thick strips, said Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon. Although foam loss of that size is unusual, Shannon said, he did not think that it would cause much damage because the loss occurred late into liftoff.

NASA video shows the foam tumbling into space after the shuttle had already left the Earth’s atmosphere.

Officials have yet to complete their external inspection of the shuttle, Shannon said. They are using video of the launch to examine the incident.

Endeavour streaked the skies over Cape Canaveral on Wednesday evening as it lifted off for the international space station after four days of weather delays.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. Capitol police on Thursday identified a man shot and killed by officers a day earlier.

Authorities said the armed man was shot by police near the Capitol grounds when he fled a routine traffic stop Wednesday. He was identified as Kellen Anthony White, 27, of Brandywine, Maryland.

Capitol police did not release any further information about White, saying only that the investigation into the incident was continuing.

Following the incident on Wednesday, police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said the man had fled in his Mercedes-Benz after Capitol police stopped him. As he fled, the man struck an officer, who was on foot and sustained minor injuries. The man then drove the wrong way down a one-way street and injured another Capitol Police officer who was on a motorcycle, she said. The second officer’s injuries were also minor.

The suspect crashed into the side of a police cruiser on another street, Schneider said. The suspect stopped on that street, Schneider said, where he produced a handgun and ignored police commands to drop it. Police then shot the suspect, killing him, she said.

The shooting, which occurred shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, drew emergency vehicles to the area around the Capitol building and caused police to temporarily seal some entrances to the complex.

(CNN) — A Los Angeles-area man was in police custody Thursday in connection with the killing of his wife while on a cruise along the Mexican coast, FBI spokesman Darrell Foxworth told CNN.

Shirley McGill, 55, was found dead in her cabin on the Carnival Elation on Tuesday as the ship, after a five-day cruise to Cabo San Lucas, was heading back to its origination point of San Diego, California, authorities said.

Robert McGill, who is in his mid-50s, is facing a charge of murder on the high seas, FBI Special Agent in Charge Keith Slotter told CNN sister network HLN. The McGills were from Winnetka, a suburb of Los Angeles, authorities said.

The FBI and the Carnival cruise line said that a domestic dispute Tuesday night resulted in the woman’s death, but did not elaborate on how she was killed. The FBI said the cause of death would be determined through autopsy.